Who is the author of Welcome to the Universe?

The authors of Welcome to the Universe are Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss, and J. Richard Gott.

Science

Welcome to the Universe Book Summary - Welcome to the Universe Book explained in key points

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Welcome to the Universe summary

Name: Welcome to the Universe
Rating: 4.8 (421 reviews)
Author: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss & J. Richard Gott

Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss & J. Richard Gott

An Astrophysical Tour

4.8 (421 ratings)

37 mins

Brief summary

Welcome to the Universe by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss and J. Richard Gott is a comprehensive guide that takes readers through an immersive exploration of the universe; from planets, stars, galaxies to black holes and more.

Topics

Space Physics

Table of Contents

Welcome to the Universe
Summary of 10 key ideas

Audio & text in the Blinkist app

Key idea 1 of 10

What’s in it for me? A riveting, whirlwind tour through the universe.

The universe is 13.8 billion years old. Imagine this stretch of time as being equivalent to the length of a football field. On it, every step you take is equivalent to about 50 million years. Where do you think the entire span of human history fits in?

Right at the end . . . about the width of a single human hair.

We humans tend to feel like we’re important. In reality, we occupy a humble corner of an unassuming galaxy in a completely average stretch of space and time.

Lucky for you, this Blink takes you on a trip far beyond the rock we call home. As we fly through the astrophysical classic, Welcome to the Universe, written by preeminent astronomers Neil deGrass Tyson, Michael A. Strauss, and J. Richard Gott, we’ll be visiting stars, galaxies, black holes, and even do a bit of time traveling –⁠ so, if you’re ready, strap in, and get ready for lift-off!

In this Blink, you’ll learn

why Pluto isn’t a planet;
what lies at the center of every galaxy; and
how you can travel back in time to shake your own hand.

Getting situated.

Okay, first stop. Lower Earth orbit.

Before heading out any further, we need to get you situated with our starting point – Earth. Our little blue marble of life. For many of you, this will seem like your very first trip to space. But in reality, you’ve been rocketing through space all your lives. Because, realize it or not, we’re all living on a rock moving roughly 100,000 kilometers per hour through our solar system. And in that sense, Earth already is a kind of spaceship.

Now, looking at Earth from space, I’m going to ask that everyone tilt their heads just slightly to the right. That’s it. It’s only now that you’re actually looking at our planet head-on. This is because as Earth orbits the sun, it’s perpetually tilted at an angle of 23.5°. As we orbit the sun once a year, Earth keeps a constant tilt, maintaining the exact same orientation for the entire journey.

Alright, now look toward the edges of Earth. See that creeping shadow? Well as you might have guessed, that’s the night beginning for those parts of Earth. But, what you might not realize, unless you’re looking at Earth head-on, is that it’s always exactly 50 percent covered in sunlight and exactly 50 percent in darkness. Forget daylight saving time, long winters, summer solstices, that’s just where you happen to be located on this tilt. People in Antarctica can see daylight for 24 hours in December . . . but Earth as a whole? Without exception, it’s always 50/50.

And it’s this very tilt that dictates everything we know about the sky. From the stars we see, to the path of the sun. Many people believe that high noon means the sun is directly overhead. But, in fact, if you’re looking from the US, you’ll never, at no point of day or year, experience the sun directly over your head. It just doesn’t happen. Because in the US, you’re always witnessing the sun at an angle. This also means you’ll never see all the same star constellations that the Southern Hemisphere does, and vice versa.

So, if you can all untilt your necks . . . now we’re situated and looking straight ahead. It’s time to start our tour through space at our solar system’s crown jewel – the sun.

The sun.

There it is, the sun!

From Earth, it might appear as yellow, but in reality, it’s radiating roughly equal amounts of all the visible colors, which instead gives us white light, not yellow. But burning away somewhere around 6,000 degrees K – it’s quite a bit hotter than your normal white flame.

Our solar system.

The enriched gases that explode from a star after its life has ended can eventually form into balls of solid matter containing elements like oxygen, silicon, and iron. In other words: terrestrial planets. In our solar system, we have nine – shoot – I mean, eight planets . . . I’ll get to that miscount momentarily. But first, look outside your windows and you’ll find yourselves passing the first family of planets that our wonderful solar system has to offer.

Those would be Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. All of them are small and rocky objects that orbit the sun. They certainly have many differences, but they’re still closer to each other than they are to anything else in the solar system.

Light and distance.

As we start to head outside of our own solar system, you’ll notice that everywhere you turn the sky is full of bright, shining stars.

It’s very likely that you have quite a few misconceptions about them, though. For example, you’ve probably heard it repeated that the North Star –⁠ Polaris –⁠ is the brightest in the sky. That’s actually incorrect. In fact, Polaris isn’t even in the top ten . . . or 20 . . . or 30 brightest stars. It comes in at a lowly 45th place. The brightest is actually Sirius, otherwise known as the Dog Star.

Nebulas, galaxies, and dark matter.

As we begin to dart through the Milky Way galaxy, you’ll notice stars aren’t lone wolves. Instead, they form in clusters.

Some clusters contain just a few hundred stars. In that case, we call them open clusters. Others have hundreds of thousands of stars, in which case we call them globular clusters. In both cases, the stars in any given cluster share a birthday –⁠ they all formed from a gas cloud at the same time.

Black holes.

Objects so massive that not even light can escape them –⁠ these are what lie at the center of galaxies. We’re talking, of course, about black holes.

At the very center of every large galaxy with a significant bulge, there lies a supermassive black hole. That includes the Milky Way. But actually, in comparison, ours is kind of on the wimpy side. Our black hole has a mass of just 4 million suns, while others are worth several billion suns.

The shape of the universe.

If you recall, we dipped our toes into the topic of the big bang earlier on our tour. We briefly discussed the explosion of matter that resulted in the universe we know today –⁠ a universe that will die when all its energy has been used up.

The big bang model makes several predictions. As scientists, we compare those predictions with what we observe. The results we find show us how accurate the predictions are. And so far, the big bang model has passed every test we’ve thrown at it.

Time travel and wormholes.

Time travel as depicted in most science fiction has one major flaw. In order to return to the past via a time machine, according to Einstein, a time traveler must be able to exceed the speed of light. But we know that traveling faster than light is physically impossible.

However, nothing says you can’t take a shortcut to beat light to the finish line. There are two ways of doing that: going through a wormhole or around a cosmic string.

Life outside our solar system.

We’ve been exploring the universe for a while now. How’s everyone feeling?

By this point, you have a solid grasp of the physical material that makes up the universe, as well as some more theoretical concepts. But we’ve saved the best for last: the question of whether there is intelligent life in the universe aside from humanity.

Final Summary

The key message in this Blink is:

The universe is so much bigger, hotter, denser, and weirder than we typically realize. It can be easy to convince ourselves that Earth is somehow special, but in reality, we and our planet occupy a corner of space that’s not much different from any other. Stars, planets, galaxies, black holes, wormholes –⁠ these are just a few of the things that exist, or may exist, in the vast expanse of the universe. And as we grow along with our universe, we continue to discover new things about space, time, and our very existence every day.

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What is Welcome to the Universe about?

Welcome to the Universe (2016) is a mind-blowing and breathtaking introduction to astrophysics, based on the popular course the three authors cotaught at Princeton University. It takes everyone –⁠ even the nonscience-minded –⁠ on a trip through the known universe, stopping to examine stars, galaxies, black holes, and more, all while presenting fascinating theories regarding time travel, the big bang, and the prospect of life in other galaxies.

Welcome to the Universe Review

Welcome to the Universe (2016) takes readers on an exhilarating journey through the cosmos, offering an accessible and captivating exploration of astronomy and astrophysics. Here's why this book is worth reading:

It presents complex concepts in clear, straightforward language, making it easy for anyone to grasp the wonders of the universe.
The book offers a comprehensive overview of our current understanding of the cosmos, from the smallest particles to the largest scale of the universe.
Through engaging narratives and stunning visuals, it injects excitement into astronomy, ensuring that readers won't find a dull moment in this cosmic adventure.

Who should read Welcome to the Universe?

Star-gazers who want to explore the far reaches of the universe
Budding astrophysicists and astronomers
Anyone curious about space, physics, and time

About the Author

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist, director of the Hayden Planetarium, and host of the podcast StarTalk. He also hosted the popular PBS television show NOVA ScienceNow and received the US National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal in 2015 for his contributions to popular science.

Michael A. Strauss is a professor of astrophysics at Princeton University. He’s known for his expertise on star evolution, discoveries of distant quasars, and work in mapping galaxy distribution.

Richard Gott is a professor of astrophysics at Princeton University. He’s proposed several theories of time travel and made notable contributions to cosmology, general relativity, and Doomsday theory.

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