Accidental Astronomy
How Random Discoveries Shape the Science of Space
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Jun 11, 2024
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- $24.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
A "riveting real-life Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (The Telegraph) and "whirlwind tour of wondrous celestial phenomena" (The Idler) shows why so much of astronomy comes down to looking up and lucking out
If you learn about the scientific method, you learn that first we hypothesize about something we’ve experienced, and then we look for more of it. This works well enough—but what if you are interested in studying a heretofore unknown comet or supernova? That is the essential problem of the astronomer: the most important discoveries happen without notice!
Indeed, as Chris Lintott argues in Accidental Astronomy, luck defines astronomy. Lintott explores the ways in which happenstance shapes how we investigate the sky. To catch a glimpse of a comet, asteroid, or even a sign of alien life, we must be in the right place at the right time. And if we can’t be there, we must have a team of professionals and amateurs, across the globe, ready to spring into action at a moment’s—or a night’s—notice. For any astronomer, regardless of their experience or resources, the first step to discovery is the same: to stare at the sky and wait.
A celebration of astronomy, stargazing, and cosmic discovery, Accidental Astronomy offers an irresistible window into how luck defines our knowledge of the skies.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this stimulating study, Lintott (The Crowd and the Cosmos), an astrophysics professor at Oxford University, surveys occasions "when astronomers have stumbled on new truths about the cosmos, either through unexpected discoveries or by suddenly finding new ways to explore." For example, Lintott explains how in the 1960s two engineers attempting to build a massive antenna for terrestrial radio communication ended up detecting microwave radiation from the big bang, proving the event's immediate aftermath "left the Universe in a hot dense state." In the late 2010s, a Cardiff University researcher trying to show that Hawaii's James Clerk Maxwell Telescope could make observations at a certain frequency range unexpectedly found evidence of phosphine molecules (considered a signature of life) in Venus's atmosphere, suggesting that the planet may have at one time harbored living organisms. Abundant footnotes aim to amuse but end up distracting (one laments the "extortionate" data roaming fees that would result from bringing a cell phone to Jupiter). However, they don't detract from detailed case studies that depict the scientific process as detective work. For instance, Lintott describes how astronomers deduced the elongated shape and possible composition of the interstellar object ‘Oumuamua, whose passage through our solar system in 2017 took scientists by surprise, from data showing it varied in brightness and lacked a comet's tail. The result is an illuminating look at chance's role in science. Photos.