Islands in Infinity: Galaxies in 3-D - Hardcover

PROFESSOR DEREK WARD THOMPSON; SIR BRIAN MAY

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1838164561 ISBN 13: 9781838164560

Publisher: London Stereoscopic Company, 2025

Synopsis

Our small blue planet Earth receives its light and life from the Sun, the central furnace of our solar system. The Sun is a star, just one of a hundred billion stars in our home galaxy, the Milky Way. The Milky Way itself numbers among an estimated 200 billion galaxies, or “islands in infinity,” in the observable universe, stretching out in space, and back in time toward the Big Bang some 13.8 billion years ago. In this book, Professor Derek Ward-Thompson and Sir Brian May discuss the origins of the universe, describe how galaxies evolve and interact, and explore the wide range of galaxies we observe today, drawing on the latest scientific data. For the first time ever, here we can see galaxies as they really are, in glorious stereoscopic three-dimensional space, thanks to the groundbreaking 3-D images created by acclaimed astrophotographer J-P Metsävainio. An OWL stereo viewer designed by Brian May himself is included with the book to enable you enjoy these images in three dimensions.

About this title

About the Authors

Professor Derek Ward-Thompson MA (Oxon), PhD, FRAS, is Director of the Jeremiah Horrocks Institute of Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy, and former Head of Natural Sciences at the University of Lancashire. He has carried outresearch into galaxies and their constituents for over 40 years. Specifically, he has studied the space between the stars, known as the interstellar medium (ISM), within galaxies, and more recently has become part of the Event HorizonTelescope (EHT) Collaboration, that took the first pictures of black holes.

Sir Brian May CBE, PhD, ARCS, FRAS is a founding member of the rock group Queen,a world-renowned guitarist,songwriter, producer, performer,3-D photographic authority, author, publisher, and passionate campaigner for animal rights. A graduate of Imperial College London,Brian started a PhD in Astrophysics but in 1974 music took over, and it was not until 2006 that he was able to complete his studies at Imperialand was awarded his PhD in 2007.Since then he has co-written five astronomy books, and has worked with NASA, ESA and JAXA providing 3-D imaging for numerous current space missions.

J-P Metsävainio is a Finnish visual artist and impassioned astronomical photographer who uses scientific and computational tools and methods to reveal the nocturnal world of wonders. To satisfy his endless curiosity, he developed a method to turn any cosmic photograph into a realistic 3-D image. In his work, Art meets Science in a most beautiful way. He createdthe 3-D astronomical images for aprevious collaboration with Sir Brian and David J. Eicher: Cosmic Clouds3-D (2020).

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Astronomers estimate that there are about 100 billion stars in our Milky Way Galaxy, which measures about 100 thousand light-years across. And now it is estimated that there may be 100 to 200 billion galaxies in the observable Universe, in which the furthest galaxy is seen as it was over 13 billion years ago, only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, when space, time and the Universe as we know them began.

Edition details

• Publisher: London Stereoscopic Company
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1838164561
• ISBN 13: 9781838164560
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192