The Extravagant Universe: Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Cosmos Princeton Publishing Company Oct 2002 isbn: 0691058628 $29.95 buy

Robert Kirshner, October 8

Tuesday, 8pm
Phillips Auditorium at the Harvard University Observatory
60 Garden Street, Cambridge
free and open to public

Kirshner (of the "The Extravagant Universe: Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Cosmos) who is one of the world's leading astronomers tells the story of unlocking an astonishing cosmic secret. Supernova expert Robert Kirshner brings readers inside a lively research team on the quest that led them to an extraordinary cosmological discovery: the expansion of the universe is accelerating under the influence of a dark energy that makes space itself expand. Measurements of light from exploding stars--some of them halfway across the universe--let these astronomers trace the history of cosmic expansion. The results have been amazing. Instead of a universe slowing down due to gravity as theory predicted, observations reveal a universe whose expansion is speeding up. This measurement of dark energy--a quality of space itself that causes cosmic acceleration--points to a gaping hole in our understanding of fundamental physics.