Gaensler - Extreme cosmos: a guided tour of the fastest, brightest, hottest, heaviest, oldest, and most amazing aspects of our universe

BRYAN GAENSLER, PhD

A PERIGEE BOOK

A PERIGEE BOOK
Published by the Penguin Group
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Copyright 2011 by Bryan Gaensler
Text design by Tiffany Estreicher

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First American edition: July 2012
Originally published in Australia by University of New South Wales Press in 2011.

ISBN: 978-1-101-58701-0

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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ALWAYS LEARNING

PEARSON

To Fineas, for asking questions that I couldnt answer.

When I first came up with the idea that eventually became this book, I thought it would be an easy thing to write. Most of the ideas and stories were already in my head, and it was just going to be a case of putting them down on paper. But the reality was far more complicated: The answers usually turned out to be far less simple than I first thought, and sometimes I realized that I didnt really understand the topic at all. The final product ended up taking two years of solid effort, and was only made possible thanks to input from a wide range of people and sources.

First and foremost, I thank the worldwide community of astronomers, whose passion and enthusiasm for their field have led to all the discoveries described here. I also must acknowledge the incredible resource that is the NASA Astrophysics Data System. This spectacular database contains an index of virtually every scientific article ever published in astronomy, and proved to be invaluable in tracking down and verifying the many results and calculations that I needed. I further thank the many astronomers who generously provided me with additional data and information: Matthew Bailes, Tim Bedding, Chris Blake, Warren Brown, Iver Cairns, Paul Crowther, Glennys Farrar, Lilia Ferrario, Craig Heinke, David Helfand, Rob Hollow, Michael Ireland, Melanie Johnston-Hollitt, Geraint Lewis, Charley Lineweaver, Erik Mamajek, Don Melrose, Michael Scholz, Peter Tuthill, Gentaro Watanabe, Mike Wheatland, and Matias Zaldarriaga.

I am grateful to Phillipa McGuinness, Jane McCredie, and their team at NewSouth Publishing for their role in bringing this book to fruition, and for their patience with a manuscript that was a long time in the making. I offer special thanks to Stephen Pincock, who sought me out, planted in my head the idea of writing a book, worked with me to develop the concept of Extreme Cosmos, and provided careful and thoughtful feedback on every chapter. I also thank Chris Hales, who enthusiastically sourced and researched many of the details, and who also offered many thoughtful comments on the text.

Finally, I offer my deepest, most sincere thanks to the amazing Laura Beth Bugg who, as always, has been my muse and inspiration. She took on the role of single parent while I sank so much time into this book, encouraged me to keep going when I was ready to give up, and pored over every word I wrote. She helped me to make this a work I can be proud ofI could not have done this without her.

Bryan Gaensler

As a child, I loved reading about science. Descriptions of bizarre, long-extinct dinosaurs, explanations of the destructive power of volcanoes, and illustrations showing the different organs in the human body, I absorbed it all.

But astronomy held a special place for me, even then. Astronomy was different. Books about other parts of science told me all about how things worked, and listed all the things scientists had been able to figure out. It seemed that all the big questions had mostly been answered, and we now were merely sorting out the details. In contrast, books on astronomy seemed to focus not on what we knew, but on what we