Second Edition
Origin and Evolution of the Universe
From Big Bang to ExoBiology
Second Edition
Origin and Evolution of the Universe
From Big Bang to ExoBiology
editors
Matthew A Malkan
University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Ben Zuckerman
University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Published by
World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224
USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSE
From Big Bang to ExoBiology
Second Edition
Copyright © 2020 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the publisher.
For photocopying of material in this volume, please pay a copying fee through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. In this case permission to photocopy is not required from the publisher.
ISBN 978-981-120-645-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-981-120-772-3 (paperback)
ISBN 978-981-120-646-7 (ebook for institutions)
ISBN 978-981-120-647-4 (ebook for individuals)
For any available supplementary material, please visit
https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/11447#t=suppl
Desk Editor: Rhaimie Wahap
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Printed in Singapore
Contents
Chapter 1The Origin of the Universe
Edward L. Wright
Chapter 2The Origin and Evolution of Galaxies
Alan Dressler
Chapter 3The Origin and Evolution of the Chemical Elements
Virginia Trimble
Chapter 4Stellar Explosions, Neutron Stars, and Black Holes
Alexei V. Filippenko
Chapter 5The Origin of Stars and Planets
Fred C. Adams
Chapter 6The Origin and Evolution of Life in the Universe
Christopher P. McKay
Preface
In March 1995, we had the privilege and pleasure of organizing a Symposium at UCLA on “The Origin and Evolution of the Universe”. It attracted overflow audiences from diverse elements of the Los Angeles community, including college students, faculty, researchers and members of the interested general public. The speakers then carefully prepared and extended their presentations for our 1996 publication of the First Edition of “The Origin and Evolution of the Universe”.
The subject of the original book is still as fresh and exciting as it ever has been. Now there are several compelling reasons we decided to produce a thoroughly revised second edition.
Discoveries and advances have unfolded at such a remarkable pace, exceeding even our most optimistic expectations. In 1996, supernovae had not yet been used to establish a cosmic distance scale accurate enough to determine that the Universal expansion is — surprisingly — accelerating. The remarkable detection of gravitational waves from merging black holes and neutron stars by LIGO was still decades in the future. And essentially no planets beyond our solar system were known to exist, and certainly none that were anything like our Earth. Today everything has changed.
In 1996, the authors of each chapter were already prominent researchers in their fields. Over the last two decades, their careers continued to advance and even accelerate. Today they are each an undisputed active leader in their area of scientific specialization. They are also in demand as skilled communicators of science to the wider public. They are thus ideal writers to convey the latest major developments in astronomy.
In addition, since 1996, the importance of these big themes of science to non-scientists has arguably grown even larger. Scientific research is now depending on public support for even larger amounts of funding than ever before. Many specific successful examples appear throughout the chapters in this book. Scientific results from the European Space Agency’s Planck and Newton/XMM satellites are described in Chapters 1 and 4. New exoplanet discoveries from NASA’s Kepler satellite are described in Chapter 6. And further scientific breakthroughs from the multi-national collaborations to build and operate the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as ALMA — a giant array of radio telesopes located in northern Chile — are described in Chapters 2 and