Universe

73 Pages·2018·2.12 MB·English

by  Giles Sparrow

Universe
Author: Giles Sparrow
Consultant: Jerry Stone
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Contents
Senior editor Carrie Love
Project art editor Lucy Sims
Project editor Ishani Nandi 4 Our place in space
Editor Anwesha Dutta
Assistant editor Shambhavi Thatte
US editor Allison Singer 6 The Big Bang
Art editors Kartik Gera, Shipra Jain
Managing editors Laura Gilbert, Alka Thakur Hazarika
Managing art editors Diane Peyton Jones, 8 Space objects
Romi Chakraborty
Jacket designer Suzena Sengupta
Jacket coordinator Francesca Young 10 Life of a star
DTP designers Rajesh Singh Adhikari, Pawan Kumar
Picture researcher Sakshi Saluja
CTS manager Balwant Singh 12 Star birth
Pre-producer Rob Dunn
Senior producer Isabell Schart
Creative director Helen Senior 14 Types of stars
Publishing director Sarah Larter
Educational consultant Jacqueline Harris
16 Multiple stars
DIGITAL OPERATIONS, DELHI
Editor Suruchi Bhatia
Production co-ordinator Manish Bhatt 18 Black holes
DK CREATIVE, DELHI
Assistant editor Prerna Grewal 20 Galaxies
Art editors Radhika Banerjee, Mohd Zishan
Managing editor Monica Saigal
Deputy managing art editor Ivy Sengupta 22 Milky Way
eISBN: 9781465483348
Digital edition published by
Dorling Kindersley Limited 24 The Sun
First American edition, 2018
Published in the United States by DK Publishing
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014 26 Solar System
Copyright © 2018 Dorling Kindersley Limited
DK, a Division of Penguin Random House LLC
All rights reserved.
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Published in Great Britain by Dorling Kindersley Limited
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For details, contact: DK Publishing Special
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A WORLD OF IDEAS:
SEE ALL THERE IS TO KNOW
www.dk.com
International Space Station (ISS)
Replica of Galileo's telescope
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28 Beyond Neptune 52 Exoplanets
30 Rocky planets 54 Is there life out there?
32 Gas giants 56 James Webb Telescope
34 Earth’s Moon 58 Universe facts and figures
36 Moons 60 Stargazing
38 Rocks in space 62 Careers in space
40 The view from Earth 64 Glossary
42 Constellations 66 Index
44 Astronomy 68 Acknowledgments
46 Meet the expert 69 Quiz
48 Space photos 70 Quiz answers
50 Exploring space
e th e planet Mars
M o o n rock Insid S
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Hockey Stick Galaxy
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Our place in space
Our universe is enormous—in fact it’s everything
there is. Long ago, people used to think that Earth
was the center of everything, but now we understand
that our planet is just one tiny speck in space.
THE SOLAR SYSTEM
Our solar system is
Where do we fit in?
mostly empty space.
The scale of the universe is Even our moon is 30
Earth diameters away.
so huge that we can’t really
OUR PLANET Earth is 93 million miles
imagine it all at once. The best
(150 million km) from
way of thinking about it is to The Earth is 7,918 the sun, but distant
see how things from our miles (12,742 km) comets can orbit up
everyday lives fit into it. across. It would to a light-year away.
take an average
person about 20
million steps to
CITIES
walk around
Medium-sized the equator.
cities are usually
about 6–12 miles
(10–20 km) across.
PEOPLE
It might take a
Most people few hours to cross
are between them by foot.
3–61⁄2 ft (1–2 m)
tall. Walking at
average speed,
we cover about
3 miles (5 km)
in an hour.
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THE MILKY WAY
Our home galaxy is
about 100,000 light-
years across and
contains between 100
and 400 billion stars.
Our solar system is
about 26,000 light-
years from the center.
THE LOCAL GALACTIC GROUP UNIVERSE
OF GALAXIES
The Milky Way is one of the bigger
members of a galaxy group roughly
The universe contains
10 million light-years across.
at least 200 billion
galaxies and stretches
across at least 156
billion light-years. We
What is Light-years can see objects up to 92
1 2 3 4 billion light-years away.
a light-year?
Astronomers measure huge
cosmic distances in terms of
light-years, the distance that light
(the fastest thing in the universe),
travels in one year. One light-year Alpha Centauri
The closest star
is about 5.9 trillion miles
system to Earth
or 9.5 trillion km.
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The universe is still expanding
from the Big Bang—in fact it’s
growing faster than ever.
4 5
KEY
»
1: Big Bang The universe
began with a huge explosion.
»
2: Growing bigger Space
grew quickly and was hot. It
then started to cool down,
and matter formed.
»
3: Making matter Tiny
particles called protons started
to form. These make up the
center of atoms, the building
blocks of everything.
»
4: Stars and galaxies The first
giant stars formed after about
200 million years. Their gravity
pulled in matter to form
growing galaxies.
»
5: The universe today
Heavier elements made by
earlier stars helped form planets
in today’s universe.
The Big Bang
The universe was born in an explosion called
the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago. The Big
Bang created all the matter in the universe.
Matter is the stuff that everything is made of. It
took a long time for that matter to clump together
into larger objects, such as planets, moons, and stars.
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Stars
Stars are huge balls of gas
that release heat and light.
They are often found in
pairs or clusters.
Space
objects
Planets
There are different types of
The Universe contains objects,
planet that orbit the stars;
rocky planets like the Earth, from asteroids, planets like Earth,
gas planets like Jupiter, and to stars, many far bigger than our
dwarf planets like Pluto. The
Sun, and enormous galaxies! Then
planet shown here is Venus.
there are the objects that humans
have sent into space, including
satellites and spacecraft.
Galaxies
Galaxies are the
largest objects in
the Universe. They
are made up of
many millions of
stars, along with
gas and dust.
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