Beyond the Solar System: Exploring Galaxies, Black Holes, Alien Planets, and More; A History with 21 Activities
1926 Robert Goddard launches the first liq uid fueled rocket paving the way for space exploration 1927 Robert Atkinson and Fritz Houtermans determine that stars are fueled by nuclear fusion 1929 discovers that the universe is expand Edwin ing Hubble 1931 Georges Lemaitre suggests the uni verse began in a huge explosion the Big Bang 1932 Jansky discovers cosmic Karl radiowaves 1933 Fritz Zwicky discovers evidence of dark matter 1957 World's first satellite Sputnik 1 orbits Earth 1963 Maarten Schmidt discovers quasars 1965 Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson dis cover cosmic microwave background
from the Big Bang 1967 Jocelyn Bell discovers pulsars 1969 Donald Lynden Bell discovers that there are supermassive black holes in the center of every galaxy 1986 Mar and John Huchra discover the struc garet ture in the universe Geller 1990 Hubble Space Telescope launches 1991 Compton Gamma Ray Observatory launches 1995 Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz dis cover the first exoplanet 51 Pegasi B 1998 Teams of scientists determine that the universe's expansion is accelerating possibly due to dark energy 1999 Chandra X ray Observatory launches 2003 Spitzer Space Telescope launches 2009 Planet finding space telescope Kepler launches
Introduction How Do We Know About the Stars he next time you look up at the 3 000 or so stars visible in the night sky put yourself in the place of a prehistoric person Looking up at all those little lights in the darkness imagine what you think they are Tiny faraway campfires that never burn out Flying creatures carrying torches What does what you think about the stars say about you your beliefs how the world works and what controls
The Carina Nebula as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope NASA Today we know what stars are But the journey of human understanding of what's out in space where it all came from and how far from us it all is has taken many centuries Who made all these discover ies What were these discoverers like and why did they care so much What inventions new tools and technology helped them How did we learn what we know about the universe How are we finding out more today and what is still unknown These ques tions are what this book is
