The Illustrated Guide to Understanding Astrophysics and the Universe

“My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.” - Stephen Hawking From the dawn of time, man has sought to understand the universe and his place in it. How did the Earth and the Solar System come to be? How was the universe created? Like other scientific disciplines, astronomy and astrophysics is one big detective story. Hypotheses are formed, observations taken, and experiments performed in the search for universal laws that describe all that we see. A good hypothesis or theory will make predictions of future observations, the results of which will either refute the theory, or be consistent with it. Astronomy is at a distinct disadvantage over other branches of science in one crucial way: For the most part, our observations only consist of photons (i.e. light) from far away sources, rarely can we touch and manipulate the things we observe, and thus create our own controls for an “experiment”. We must wait for those far-away objects to cooperate.