The Glass Universe

On reading The Glass Universe
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Annie: When I was about ten, I wanted to be an astronomer.

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Harlow: Why?

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Annie: I liked the pictures of the moon and planets.

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Harlow: Stars?

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Annie: I liked the planets. They were bigger. They had features. I could relate to those whereas the stars just, well, they just shone.

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Harlow: When you were ten… that was before the universe had been mapped.

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Annie: Steady on, I’m not a hundred and fifty yet. Reading Dava Sobel’s The Glass Universe and those women astronomers last month got me interested in astronomy again and particularly, the stars more than the planets. Their sizes, magnitudes, compositions, distances and the fact that the universe is expanding..

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Harlow: I see reviews of The Glass Universe split the readers into two camps: those who like the science and those who grumble there wasn’t enough about the women astronomers’ personal lives.

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Annie: It was a little hard to visualize the women, although there were pictures of them. But because my knowledge of astronomy stopped at the planets and the stories of the stellar research was so gripping, the science was enough for me.

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Voice-over

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“Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us to other worlds.” Plato.

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