Stardust: Supernovae and Life: The Cosmic Connection [Paperback]

Mary Gribbin (Author), John Gribbin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0300090978 | ISBN-13: 978-0300090970 | Publication Date: September 1, 2001 | Edition: 1st Edition Thus

We are made of stardust-and so is all life as we know it. All the chemical elements on earth except hydrogen-including the ones in our bodies-have been processed inside stars, scattered across the universe in great stellar explosions, and recycled to become new stars, planets, and parts of us. In this engrossing book, John and Mary Gribbin relate the developments in twentieth-century astronomy that have led to this shattering realization. They begin their account in the 1920s, when astronomers discovered that the oldest stars are chiefly composed of the primordial elements hydrogen and helium, produced in the birth of the universe in a Big Bang. They then describe the seminal work of the 1950s and 1960s, which unlocked the secret of how elements are "cooked" by nuclear fusion inside stars. The heart of the story is their discussion of supernovae, only recently understood as great stellar explosions in which the resulting ash is spread far and wide through the cosmos, forming new generations of stars, planets, and people. Focusing on the relationship between the universe and the Earth, the authors eloquently explain how the physical structure of the universe has produced conditions ideal for life.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"All manner of fascinating historical anecdotes fill the book." -- Literary Review

"An excellent book." -- Choice

"Astonishing . . . fascinating." -- New Yorker

"Stardust is a stunning little book, poetic in feeling, as vast as a voyage through outer space." -- John Cornwell, Sunday Times (London)

About the Author

John Gribbin, visiting fellow in astronomy at the University of Sussex, is author of many bestselling books of science, including In Search of Schrödinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality; The Search for Superstrings, Symmetry, and the Theory of Everything; Almost Everyone's Guide to Science: The Universe, Life, and Everything; and The Birth of Time: How Astronomers Measured the Age of the Universe, the last two published by Yale University Press. He is married to Mary Gribbin, also a science writer.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1st Edition Thus edition (September 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300090978
• ISBN-13: 978-0300090970
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 4.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,001,224 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Twinkle, twinkle, little star, January 9, 2007

By 

Vladimir Miskovic - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stardust: Supernovae and Life: The Cosmic Connection (Paperback)

What is the nature of the relationship between the Universe and life? If this sort of a question piques your interest, then you should read John Gribbin's "Stardust."

The four chemical elements most important to life as we know it include: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. How did these elements - the prerequisites for complex, organic molecules - come into existence? The Big Bang produced mainly hydrogen and helium (in addition to a smattering of a few other light elements). But what about the heavy elements required for life? They are the products of stellar nucleosynthesis - a process that happens in the interiors of stars. The atoms lodged in your body now, the nitrogen that is part of your DNA double helix was once `cooked' inside stars and then scattered into cold clouds of interstellar dust. If that does not give you a sense of (cosmic!) wonder, then you have not paused to let the information sink in.

John Gribbin reviews the long, intellectual road that led to this startling discovery. Before one could say that we are made of stardust, scientists first had to answer many other questions, like what stars are made of. Besides being a good science book, "Stardust" is also a good book about the history of science, showing, for example, what a vital role the development of photography and spectroscopy played in 20th century astrophysics. One of the especially interesting historical lessons here concerns our understanding of what goes on in the Sun (and the other stars for that matter) to generate heat. Before arriving at the answer that stars generate energy by nuclear fusion, which converts hydrogen to helium, there were many failed hypotheses, such as the gravitational collapse hypothesis. This problem, of how the Sun generates the energy that it does, was for some time a point of contention between the geologists and evolutionary biologists on the one hand and the physicists on the other. The former camp required the Sun to have been in operation for a very long time, in order for evolution to have the sorts of immense temporal scales required for the emergence of complex life, while the physicists estimated that the Sun had to be much younger, in order for it not to have exhausted its energy reservoir. Remarkably, it was the application of quantum physics (the physics of extremely small particles) which eventually provided the science needed to explain how stars shine.
The book is filled with many other stories, showing how our scientific knowledge of the Universe progressed in starts and stops. The B2FH paper (named after the scientists involved: Burbidge, Burbidge, Fowler and Hoyle), entitled `Synthesis of the Elements in Stars' was a watershed event in explaining the exact process by which the heavy elements are generated inside stars.

These heavy elements (from carbon to iron) are ultimately expelled in several different ways: (a) through the gradual stripping of Red Giant star's layers, or if the stars are massive, (b) through novae and supernovae explosions. Supernovae explosions also provide the energy needed to synthesize elements heavier than iron. The scattering of fine dusty particles (stardust) provides the site where chemical interactions can occur as well as the seeds for a complex interstellar chemistry. Spectroscopic studies have more recently revealed the existence of organic, polyatomic molecules as part of the interstellar chemistry -- our Galaxy is seeded with the ingredients for life.

The appendix offers a short review of theoretical physicist Lee Smolin's principle of cosmological natural selection (an alternative to versions of the Anthropic principle). Many of the ideas presented here (at the cutting edge of cosmology) are extremely abstract and speculative and present many difficulties in terms of being subjected to experimental testing. However, they make for highly fascinating reading.

One of the themes in John Gribbin's book concerns the co-dependency between science and technology and the intimate connections between the two. Improvements in one ultimately lead to improvements in the other, and so on, in a circle. Technology continues to make gains. Some of the latest developments in cosmology are mind-bogglingly strange and there are indications that more big findings will emerge in the not-so-distant future. We may be in for another radical paradigm shift relatively soon, that will once again change our view of the relationship between the Universe and us, and our place in it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We Are Part of the Universe, January 21, 2009

By 

Jay Young (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stardust: Supernovae and Life: The Cosmic Connection (Paperback)

John Gribbin, a masterful popular science writer, has written an excellent book on how we literally are all stardust. Of course, the theme of his book bears more than a little resemblance to Carl Sagan's famous "we are all starstuff" phrase, and it would have been nice if Gribbin had acknowledged that. But still, this is a more than worthwhile book.

Gribbin gives a detailed explanation of how, after the big bang, a mixture of hydrogen and helium coalesced into the first stars. Due to the high temperature of the stars, a process known as nucleosynthesis occurred, creating the elements crucial to life, including nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon, among others. When stars reached the end of their lives, there are novae and supernovae explosions, which carry the new chemical elements into the reaches of space, eventually creating new stars and planets. All of the amino acids necessary for life in the DNA "alphabet" are made up of what Gribbin calls CHON- Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen. So we really did come from stardust. I find that very profound and inspiring.

Of course, there's quite a bit more in the book than what I just outlined. Gribbin also discusses the history of how we know how stars can burn for so long, the structure of DNA, the development of the Big Bang Theory, and is very detailed about chemistry and the processes of star formation and nucleosynthesis. "Stardust" is an excellent book for any reasonably educated layman, and will assist in understanding how we are all connected to the universe and each other.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars brilliant mind, July 15, 2003

By 

Author Brian Wallace (Mind Transmission, Inc.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stardust: Supernovae and Life: The Cosmic Connection (Paperback)

highly enlightening/illuminating ideas straight from the mind of the stars!

awesome.