The Mysteries of the Universe

Will Gater

Angela Rizza & Daniel Long

DK, 2020

224pp., hbk., RRP $A39.99

9780241412473

With the intense interest in science fiction lately, both in literature and film. our young readers are probably more knowledgeable about the mysteries of the universe than any previous generation of a similar age.  Yet, for every answer they discover, there is always another question because there is so much more than meets the eye.  “Why is the sky blue?” is just the beginning…

In the past, civilisations created stories about that lay beyond that thin veil that is the Earth’s atmosphere to explain the changes that were observed, but in the 400 years since Galileo Galilei first used the telescope to systematically study the night sky more and more of its mysteries have been revealed and even explained.  And in this book newly independent readers can dip and delve to discover more about what interests them. From planets and asteroids to black holes and galaxies and beyond, there are explanations and illustrations of 100 different phenomena, both common like the changing shape of the moon and the not-so like the ancient snowman known as Arrokoth, a 2014 discovery by the Hubble Space Telescope. The narrative is targeted at those who want to know the basics so they have a solid platform on which to go further and the graphics are photographs and clear diagrams as true-to-real as possible.

 

So many of our students are fascinated by what is beyond our planet and imagine themselves as astronauts in the future, that this is a must-have in any school or family library so questions can be answered when they are asked.