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Pillars of Creation

How the James Webb Telescope Unlocked the Secrets of the Cosmos

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Pillars of Creation

Written by: Richard Panek
Narrated by: Ray Porter
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Summary

The James Webb Space Telescope is transforming the universe right before our eyes—and here, for the first time, is the inside account of how the mission originated, how it performs its miracles of science, and what its revolutionary images are revealing.

Pillars of Creation tells the story of one of the greatest scientific achievements in the history of civilization, a $10 billion instrument with a staggeringly ambitious goal: unlocking the secrets of the cosmos. Award-winning science writer Richard Panek stands us shoulder to shoulder with senior scientists as they conceive the mission, meet decades-long challenges to bring it to fruition, and, now, use its unprecedented technology to yield new discoveries about the origins of our solar system, to search for life on planets around other suns, and to trace the growth of hundreds of billions of galaxies all the way back to the birth of the first stars. The Webb telescope has captured the world’s imagination, and Pillars of Creation shows how and why—including through sixteen pages of awe-inspiring, full-color photos.

At once a testament to human ingenuity and a celebration of mankind’s biggest leap yet into the cosmos, Panek’s eye-opening book reveals our universe as we’ve never seen it before—through the lens of the James Webb Space Telescope, a marvel that is itself a pillar of creation.

A 2025 Nautilus Book Awards Silver Winner
Astronomy & Space Science Science Solar System Astronomy Interstellar
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If you're a fan of Science, astronomy and telescopes, this is a good book for you. You'll learn some history behind some of the most famous space telescopes you've always heard of. Ray Porter narrates this book and I'm always happy to hear his voice when I'm listening to audio books. I thoroughly enjoyed this one and will be looking for more like it on the future.

Telescopes in space!

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