Pillars of Creation, Richard Panek
Pillars of Creation, Richard Panek
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Pillars of Creation
How the James Webb Telescope Unlocked the Secrets of the Cosmos

Author: Richard Panek

Narrator: Ray Porter

Unabridged: 5 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/22/2024

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

The James Webb Space Telescope is transforming the universe right before our eyes—and here, for the first time, is the inside account of how the mission originated, how it performs its miracles of science, and what its revolutionary images are revealing.

Pillars of Creation tells the story of one of the greatest scientific achievements in the history of civilization, a $10 billion instrument with a staggeringly ambitious goal: unlocking the secrets of the cosmos. Award-winning science writer Richard Panek stands us shoulder to shoulder with senior scientists as they conceive the mission, meet decades-long challenges to bring it to fruition, and, now, use its unprecedented technology to yield new discoveries about the origins of our solar system, to search for life on planets around other suns, and to trace the growth of hundreds of billions of galaxies all the way back to the birth of the first stars. The Webb telescope has captured the world’s imagination, and Pillars of Creation shows how and why—including through sixteen pages of awe-inspiring, full-color photos.

At once a testament to human ingenuity and a celebration of mankind’s biggest leap yet into the cosmos, Panek’s eye-opening book reveals our universe as we’ve never seen it before—through the lens of the James Webb Space Telescope, a marvel that is itself a pillar of creation.

About Richard Panek

RICHARD PANEK, a Guggenheim Fellow in science writing, is the author of The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality, which won the American Institute of Physics communication award in 2012, and the co-author with Temple Grandin of The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum, a New York Times bestseller. He lives in New York City.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Haaris on November 21, 2024

If you, like me, have grown up reading books on physics, on cosmology and the Big Bang, you may have experienced, in more recent years, a sense of deja-vu. The new science books don't say anything new, they just rewrite the same old history of relativity vs quantum mechanics, some hand-waving about......more

Goodreads review by Heather on September 28, 2024

Did you know that even before Hubble launched, scientists were already planning the next generation’s space telescope? The James Webb Telescope has changed the game when it comes to viewing the universe around us. With its infrared capabilities, we’re able to see further than ever. When the JWST deep......more

Goodreads review by Josh on February 11, 2025

4-4.5/5. This book tells the history of JWST, from the environment in which it was first conceived, to the early results it obtained. The book stands out because of its compelling narrative that brings an emotional heart to a technical and scientific journey. I do feel it is too dismissive of the pr......more

Goodreads review by Kam Yung on March 17, 2025

A short but nice book on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), covering its history from conception to launch and commissioning, followed by chapters that look at how the JWST has changed the way we look at the solar system, the stars, the galaxies in the universe and how the universe began. Startin......more

Goodreads review by Jennifer on February 16, 2025

Forget Star Trek! That was child’s play. The James Webb telescope introduces us to a new frontier of intergalactic and interstellar activity. Its findings are mind blowing! Now to fully understand this book it would help to be a brainiac. Lots of uber scientific terms, such as spectroscopy, protostar......more