The Last Stargazers, Emily Levesque
The Last Stargazers, Emily Levesque
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The Last Stargazers
The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers

Author: Emily Levesque

Narrator: Janet Metzger

Unabridged: 11 hr 20 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/04/2020


Synopsis

The story of the people who see beyond the stars

Humans from the earliest civilizations were spellbound by the night sky—craning their necks each night, they used the stars to orient themselves in the large, strange world around them. Stargazing is a pursuit that continues to fascinate us: from Copernicus to Carl Sagan, astronomers throughout history have spent their lives trying to answer the biggest questions in the universe. Now, award-winning astronomer Emily Levesque shares the stories of modern-day stargazers, the people willing to adventure across high mountaintops and to some of the most remote corners of the planet, all in the name of science.

From the lonely quiet of midnight stargazing to tall tales of wild bears loose in the observatory, The Last Stargazers is a love letter to astronomy and an affirmation of the crucial role that humans can and must play in the future of scientific discovery.

In this sweeping work of narrative science, Levesque shows how astronomers in this scrappy and evolving field are going beyond the machines to infuse creativity and passion into the stars and inspires us all to peer skyward in pursuit of the universe's secrets.

About Emily Levesque

Emily Levesque is an astronomy professor at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Emily's research studies how the most massive stars in the universe evolve and die. She has observed for upward of fifty nights on many of the planet's largest telescopes and flown over the Antarctic stratosphere in an experimental aircraft for her research. Her academic accolades include the 2014 Annie Jump Cannon Prize, a 2017 Alfred P. Sloan fellowship, a 2019 Cottrell Scholar Award, and the 2020 Newton Lacy Pierce Prize. She earned a bachelor's degree in physics from MIT and a PhD in astronomy from the University of Hawaii.

When she occasionally stumbles across some spare time, she attempts to spend it traveling, playing violin, skiing, messing with new recipes, or finishing triathlons very slowly. These plans are often waylaid by an old couch and a new book.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lynne on October 29, 2021

What a fabulous and fascinating book! I had no idea what astronomers actually did. I had just assumed that they gazed through the eye-pieces of telescopes at these observatories scattered around the world, which they do but the computer seems to have taken over and does most of the data collecting. E......more

Goodreads review by Elisa on June 26, 2020

The Last Stargazers is so cool that it makes astronomers look like geeky rock stars. I’ve read a lot of books about Astronomy and found them mostly boring. They tend to be dry and too technical, but I keep reading them because I love space. Levesque makes the science approachable and fun. Reading he......more

Goodreads review by Danial on August 01, 2022

Being an environmentalist, a very small part of me always wondered why should people look into the distant space, waste resources which can be used to tackle all the global problems of OUR world, which is literally dying infront of us but Emily Levesque's gorgeous book, has completely floored me to......more

Goodreads review by LAPL on February 01, 2021

Halley's Comet is quite possibly the most famous, and infamous, comet currently known. It is a “periodic” comet, coming close enough to the earth for viewing approximately every 75 years. Over the centuries, the appearance of Halley’s Comet has been erroneously blamed for earthquakes, illnesses (inc......more

Goodreads review by Graeme on December 19, 2021

What a delightful book. There are those authors that take a stilted academic view of their profession and then there are those who have a fire that burns in their belly. For them, coming to work each day is an adventure and a blessing. Emily Levesque is one of the latter. She is such an amazing cheer......more