The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy’s Vanishing Explorers

LOCAL AUTHOR

In her first book, Emily Levesque’s enthusiasm trumpets the industry of astronomy with profound salesmanship for a young scientist. Indeed her contagious excitement carries the reader through what might otherwise be a bombardment of facts about our universe that most of us are perfectly content not knowing. Very few astrophysicists share their discoveries with the rest of us earthlings, and when they do it seems to be in a language of its own. The exceptions can be counted on one hand—Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking. And now Emily Levesque.

In this circuitous narrative about how computerization and women in the industry have changed the way we gather data from the universe, Levesque invents a word, “roboticize,” to describe the newest methods of remote viewing telescopes that only a few decades ago had to literally be manhandled. She includes pictures of people and observatories, and writes in a language anyone can all understand about dying stars and black holes in the universe that sometimes collide and produce a slight chirp all the way across the expanse of space. She shares not only the triumphant gains, but also the embarrassments that come at the cutting edge of science. She ends with an uncertainly of what the future holds for astronomers and the rest of us.

Like most first-time authors, Levesque tries to cram too much into a book with too broad a focus. But her bubbling personality shines through the pages. Most assuredly, Levesque will write more books because she has a lot to say, and we still have a lot to learn.