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Books

Hunting Down the Universe by Michael Hawkins

Robert Taylor describes astronomer Michael Hawkins and his quest for dark matter.

Imaine you’re on board an aeroplane at night. You look down and see nothing, just darkness and occasional tiny points of light, some on their own, some in clusters. From this perspective, what could you work out about the sources of the light, the buildings, streets and cities? Now reverse the perspective and look up at the night sky. You see tiny points of light, some in clusters, etc. What can you assume about the sources of these lights? This is how Michael Hawkins describes the problem of being an observational astronomer.

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