Space, Stars, and the Beginning of Time: What the Hubble Telescope Saw

Gr 5-8—Having played a leading role in helping us to shape our current understanding of the universe, the Hubble Space Telescope has far exceeded its original mission parameters and is currently running strictly on borrowed time. As a fitting memento, Scott offers an array of the instrument's breathtaking deep-space photos, paired with a description of the telescope's components, an account of space shuttle Atlantis's final scheduled repair/maintenance mission in mid-2009, and overviews of the history of astronomy, the Big Bang, black holes, dark matter and dark energy, stellar life cycles, and planetary formation. Though the author's fact-checking could have been better—Kepler correctly described planetary orbits as elliptical before, not after, Galileo published a claim that they were circular—her prose is, as always, clear, cogent, and imbued with a sense of wonder proper to the awesome scale and beauty of the phenomena she describes. Closing with a probably optimistic hope that the Hubble will continue to function for another decade and a reference to its most prominent successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2014, Scott's tribute will leave readers with both stars in their eyes and a real appreciation for one of the most significant technological wonders of the past century.—John Peters, formerly at New York Public Library