First Light cover art

First Light

Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time, revised edition

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First Light

By: Emma Chapman
Narrated by: Emma Chapman
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About this listen

 Bloomsbury presents First Light written and read by Emma Chapman.

‘Illuminating and entertaining’
The Washington Post

Astronomers have successfully observed a great deal of the Universe’s history, from recording the afterglow of the Big Bang to visualising the shadow of a black hole. However when it comes to understanding how the Universe began and grew, we have literally been in the dark.

This book tells the story of the Cosmic Dawn – the time when the very first stars burst into life. These celestial giants were hundreds of times more massive than the Sun and a million times more luminous: lonely blue stars that lived fast and died young in enormous explosions, seeding the Universe with the elements that would eventually make up life itself.

First Light illuminates this previously unknown, billion-year timeline. Astrophysicist Emma Chapman tells how these stars formed, why they were so unusual and what they can teach us about the universe today. She also also gives a first-hand look at the immense telescopes that are taking us from the realm of theoretical physics towards the wonder of looking back in time using observational astronomy. This revised edition has been updated to contain the latest findings across astronomy, from radio interferometry to gravitational waves and contains a brand new chapter covering the triumphant discovery of the first galaxies by the James Webb Space Telescope.©2020 Emma Chapman (P)2020 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Astronomy Astronomy & Space Science Physics Science Solar System Interstellar Cosmology Black Hole Mathematics Emotionally Gripping
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This book is filled with the joy of discovery and exploration: it helped me remember why I went into technology.

Full of joy

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I really enjoyed this book, but there were problems with the audio, such as distortion on the recording and some errors such cut up/repeated segments in Ch 10

Great book, but with some production problems

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