The New Biography of the Universe

May I introduce: the universe. Born 13.75 billion years ago. Constantly growing. Nearly empty. Electrically neutral. Poor in antimatter. Populated by 100 billion galaxies, including 130 sextillion stars with approximately just as many planets. 

Consisting of only 4 percent known forms of matter. The other 96 percent is made up of 23 percent dark matter and 73 percent dark energy. The home of black holes, giant stars, pulsars, quasars, galaxy clusters, and nebulas - and to many planets and their moons, as well as lifeforms such as humans.

 

Where did the universe come from? What were the conditions at its birth? What amazing processes have been taking place since then? When and how will it die? What science knows about these things has changed dramatically in recent years. Let yourself be taken away into a world that goes beyond everything imaginable – the universe in which you live.


With 31 images. Buyers of the Kindle version may also receive for free the PDF version with additional, fascinating images that can be read on a computer (see imprint of the Kindle eBook). 


Table of contents:


Chapter 1. Presenting the Universe


Chapter 2. The Time Before Time

A world made from strings

Loop over loop

Reborn from nothing

Nothing but theories?


Chapter 3. The Big Bang

The 0 hour

The laws of physics begin

The world – a soccer ball

The first particles

All of the forces are already there

The next round of extinction


Chapter 4. The Clear Universe

The first beacons

They die young

A fascinating death

Group dynamics

Fragile spirals

Planets from the waste


Chapter 5. The Life and Death of Stars

Too small: brown dwarfs

The Joe Six-Pack of the universe: red dwarfs

The Sun’s relatives: main-sequence stars

The future of the Sun: white dwarf

Extremely dense: neutron stars

The odd balls: quark stars

Where space and time are meaningless: black holes

Even stranger: exotic stars

How large can stars be? The hyper-giants


Chapter 6. The Planets

Our home: The Solar System

Life-giving: the Sun

The closest to the Sun: Mercury

The most like Earth: Venus

The blue planet: Earth

The red planet: Mars

An unfinished work: the Asteroid Belt

Holding everything together: Jupiter

The lord of the Rings: Saturn

The icy one: Uranus

Another blue planet: Neptune

Way out there: the Kuiper Belt

The garbage dump: the Oort Cloud

The extraterrestrials: exoplanets

The mavericks: planemos


Chapter 7. The End of the Universe

Death by freezing

Death by tearing apart

Death by being crunched

Death by annihilation

Death by disintegration

Death by solidification

One cross each!

The future biography of the universe

Imprint


About the author: Matthias Matting, born 1966, is a physicist and journalist. For his eBook "Travel to Fukushima" he received the first german eBook price. In 2011, he was the official bestselling author at Amazon Germany. He's working in the science & technology department of the german news magazine FOCUS. Since five years he authors the weekly gadget review video series "Mattings Warentest" at FOCUS.de.