Extragalactic Adventure Our Strange Universe

The extragalactic universe, the immense world of a billion galaxies lying beyond out own, is the subject of this book. Our Sun is but a tiny star among a hundred billion other in our Galaxy, the Milky Way, which appears as a luminous veil trailing across the clear night sky. Beyond the Milky Way we will soar into space amid galaxies, clusters of galaxies, radio galaxies and quasars of enormous energy, out to the cosmological horizon which arrests our flight like an intangible barrier. Why do galaxies seem to fly from us? Is space so strongly curved that by going straight ahead we come up behind ourselves? Did it all begin with an enormous explosion, the famous Big Bang, which decided our fate in the first quarter of an hour? These are the questions which this rigourous and enthusiastic scientist tries to answer with complete honesty and non-technical clarity.

Foreword; Preface; 1. Our galaxy and its hundred billion stars; 2. Galaxies, population of the Universe; 3. Radioastronomy, a deeper foray in space; 4. Spectra, valuable messengers; 5. The expansion of the Universe and the Big Bang; 6. Einstein's general relativity theory or gravitation by the curvature of space; 7. Curved spaces, surprising worlds; 8. Models of the Universe or possible scenarios; 9. Space-time, a meeting of where and when; 10. Cosmological horizons, limits of the Universe; 11. The past of the Universe, from the primeval soup to us; 12. The future of the Universe, what destiny awaits us?; 13. Anomalous spectral redshifts, new question marks; 14. Quasars, at the boundaries of space; 15. The space telescope, a new leap in knowledge; 16. Black holes and their fantastic properties; 17. Extraterrestrials; Epilogue.

The extragalactic universe, the immense world of a billion galaxies lying beyond out own, is the subject of this book. The questions which scientists constantly debate is the subject of this honest, enthusiastic and easy-to-use text.