There`s a whole universe out there... Imagine you had a spacecraft capable of travelling through interstellar space. You climb in, blast into orbit, fly out of the solar system & keep going. Where do you end up, & what do you see along the way? The answer is: mostly nothing. Space is astonishingly, mind-blowingly empty. As you travel through the void between galaxies your spaceship encounters nothing more exciting than the odd hydrogen molecule. But when it does come across something more exotic: wow! First & most obviously, stars & planets. Some are familiar from our own backyard: yellow suns, rocky planets like Mars, gas & ice giants like Jupiter & Neptune. But there are many more: giant stars, red & white dwarfs, super-earths & hot Jupiters. Elsewhere are swirling clouds of dust giving birth to stars, & infinitely dense regions of space-time called black holes. These clump together in the star clusters we call galaxies, & the clusters of galaxies we call... galaxy clusters. And that is just the start. As we travel further we encounter ever more weird, wonderful & dangerous entities: supernovas, supermassive black holes, quasars, pulsars, neutron stars, black dwarfs, quark stars, gamma ray bursts & cosmic strings. A Journey Through The Universe is a grand tour of the most amazing celestial objects & how they fit together to build the cosmos. As for the end of the journey
- nobody knows. But getting there will be fun. ABOUT THE SERIESNew Scientist Instant Expert books are definitive & accessible entry points to the most important subjects in science; subjects that challenge, attract debate, invite controversy & engage the most enquiring minds. Designed for curious readers who want to know how things work & why, the Instant Expert series explores the topics that really matter & their impact on individuals, society, & the planet, translating the scientific complexities around us into language that`s open to everyone, & putting new ideas & discoveries into perspective & context.