The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy - Library Edition
I was not sure how anthropomorphizing our home galaxy, the Milky Way, would work, but I think author Dr. Moiya McTier did a decent job with this in this intriguing science book!
The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy is first and foremost a popular science book, but that doesn’t mean that the author condescends to non-scientist readers who don’t have the astrophysics and folklore background that Dr. McTier does. Nor does the book dumb it down too much.
Readers can see that Dr. McTier is clearly having fun telling our home galaxy’s story in an engaging way.
One example of this is the fact that our galaxy finds it rude that human scientists succeeded in figuring out its true age, more or less!
Our Milky Way formed roughly thirteen billion years ago, and its past is turbulent, as its first stars light up from the vast compressed gas cloud and gradually acquire their own planets. (For comparison, scientists have estimated that the universe itself is around billion years old.)
However, humanity doesn’t enter the picture until much later in th
'The Milky Way' offers a light-hearted autobiography of our galaxy
Astronomers have written the Milky Way's story many times over; scientists have traced violent collisions in its past and future and peered into the supermassive black hole lurking at its heart.
But astrophysicist Moiya McTier tells the story of our galaxy in a whole new way in her delightful new book, "The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy" (Grand Central, ). (Read an excerpt from "The Milky Way.") McTier is also a folklorist, and it shows throughout the book, which zips through everything from the formation of the universe through the ways scientists think it might come to an end.
sat down with McTier to discuss her new book and the role of the Milky Way in human history and lives. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
(Read an excerpt from "The Milky Way" here.)
Related: Best space books for
: How did this book come about for you?
Moiya McTier: It kind of all just fell into place at the right moment. I was not trying to write a book, although I was always interested in writing something, though I think I thought I would write a fantasy book before I ever
Description
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Astrophysicist and folklorist Dr. Moiya McTier channels The Milky Way in this approachable and utterly fascinating autobiography of the titular galaxy, detailing what humans have discovered about everything from its formation to its eventual death, and what more there is to learn about this galaxy we call home. After a few billion years of bearing witness to life on Earth, of watching one hundred billion humans go about their day-to-day lives, of feeling unbelievably lonely, and of hearing its own story told by others, The Milky Way would like a chance to speak for itself. All one hundred billion stars and fifty undecillion tons of gas of it. It all began some thirteen billion years ago, when clouds of gas scattered through the universe&#;s primordial plasma just could not keep their metaphorical hands off each other. They succumbed to their gravitational attraction, and the galaxy we know as the Milky Way was born. Since then, the galaxy has watched as dark energy pushed away its first friends, as humans mythologized its name and purpose, and as galactic archaeologists have worked to determine its true age (rude). The Mil
The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy
In this approachable and fascinating biography of the galaxy, an astrophysicist and folklorist details everything humans have discovered—from the Milky Way's formation to its eventual death, and what else there is to learn about the universe we call home.
After a few billion years of bearing witness to life on Earth, of watching one hundred billion humans go about their day-to-day lives, of feeling unbelievably lonely, and of hearing its own story told by others, The Milky Way would like a chance to speak for itself. All one hundred billion stars and fifty undecillion tons of gas of it.
It all began some thirteen billion years ago, when clouds of gas scattered through the universe's primordial plasma just could not keep their metaphorical hands off each other. They succumbed to their gravitational attraction, and the galaxy we know as the Milky Way was born. Since then, the galaxy has watched as dark energy pushed away its first friends, as humans mythologized its name and purpose, and as galactic archaeologists have worked to determine its true age (rude). The Milky Way has absorbed supermassive (an actual technical ter
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