Welcome to the Universe

Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss, J. Richard Gott

Welcome to the Universe (2016) grew out of the introductory astrophysics course that Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss and J. Richard Gott taught together at Princeton. Moving from the scale of the cosmos and the motions of the planets to the lives and deaths of stars, the book goes on to galaxies, quasars and black holes. It ends with the Big Bang, cosmic inflation and the shape and future of the universe. Along the way it takes up questions such as why Pluto lost its planet status, whether life exists elsewhere, whether the universe is infinite and whether time travel is possible. This summary distills its key ideas.