Things that Go Bump in the Universe

C Renée James Johns Hopkins £25 HB

Since ancient times, stargazers and philosophers have often seen the Universe beyond Earth as a static, unchanging realm. Even today, part of astronomy’s wonder is that, for the most part, stars and galaxies change and evolve on timescales far beyond our own. But amid all this reliability, we now know there are also violent outbursts, known broadly as ‘transients’. Such events may last anything from several months to just a few milliseconds, yet in that time they may release energy comparable to 10 billion years of sunshine.

C Renée James’s new book sets out to tell the story of transient astronomy, from ancient observations of ‘new stars’ to today’s gravitational wave observatories.

Beginning with the vast stellar explosions known as supernovae, she skilfully weaves together the science of many other types of cosmic outburst and disturbance, ranging from the periodic radiation flashes of collapsed stellar cores to rare particles ejected from the violent hearts of distant galaxies.

The facts and figures are often mindboggling, but at the heart of the book lie a series of visits to key telescopes and experiments around the world, and discussions with researchers in this fast-developing field. Coupled with explanations of the varied and ingenious methods that astronomers past and present have used to retrieve tell-tale hints of cosmic meaning from vast, unfathomable seas of data, these humanlevel insights make Things that Go Bump in the Universe not only a fascinating guide to the Universe’s most violent events, but also an intriguing look under the bonnet of modern science. ★★★★★

Giles Sparrow is a science writer and author