The Very First Light

By John C. Mather, John Boslough,

Book cover of The Very First Light: The True inside Story of the Scientific Journey Back to the Dawn of the Universe

Book description

The inside story behind one of the most important cosmological findings of our generation, the mapping of the cosmic background radiation, by the leader of the scientific team that made the discovery. . In this no-holds-barred account, the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) projects originator and project scientist, John Mather, and…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked The Very First Light as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is the fascinating personal account, by physics Nobel laureate Mather, of the discovery with NASA’s COBE satellite, of the tiny variations in intensity over the sky (“ripples”) of the microwave background radiation of the universe. This background radiation originates from the time when the universe first became transparent, about 380 000 years after the Big Bang. 

Theorists had predicted that this radiation may hold information on density fluctuations in the first fraction of a second of the expanding hot universe. Mather and his colleagues succeeded in detecting the predicted very small intensity variations, which earned him and his colleague…

Want books like The Very First Light?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 77 books like The Very First Light.

Browse books like The Very First Light

Book cover of Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe
Book cover of The Inflationary Universe
Book cover of A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,593

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in NASA, astronauts, and space horror?

NASA 76 books
Astronauts 65 books
Space Horror 28 books