Why are plants green, the daytime sky blue and Mars red? Florian Freistetter, astronomer, science author and member of the Science Busters, takes a tour into the realm of light and its many facets in “The Colors of the Universe”. He gives an introduction to the electromagnetic spectrum and explains what we humans see and what we can only measure.
The six colors of the rainbow are the part of the light that we can see. Freistetter uses them as starting points for optical and astronomical phenomena: such as the refraction and diffraction of light, so-called black bodies, the luminosity of stars and the colors of the northern lights. He also tells exciting things about research: for example, what colors reveal about the chemical composition of distant planets, how oxygen causes a planetary nebula to glow green or how Cherenkov radiation is used to search for neutrinos. The entertaining journey goes from the color of the Big Bang to the first light in the universe to green dwarf galaxies discovered by a citizen science project.
Florian Freistetter’s book offers a good overview of the properties of light and which colors exist where in the vastness of the universe. It has a casual tone and builds on each other chapter by chapter, making it easy to follow the author’s explanations.
Review: Petra Wiemann
Florian Freistetter
The colors of the universe
Hanser Verlag, 256 pages, €24
ISBN 978–3–446–28308–4