What do you think?
Rate this book
When Galaxies Were Born: The Quest for Cosmic Dawn
One of today’s leading astronomers takes readers inside the decades-long search for the first galaxies and the origin of starlight
Astronomers are like time travelers, scanning the night sky for the outermost galaxies that first came into being when our universe was a mere fraction of its present age. When Galaxies Were Born is Richard Ellis’s firsthand account of how a pioneering generation of scientists harnessed the world’s largest telescopes to decipher the history of the universe and witness cosmic dawn, the time when starlight first bathed the cosmos and galaxies emerged from darkness.
In a remarkable career spanning more than forty years, Ellis has made some of the most spectacular discoveries in modern cosmology. He has traveled the world to conduct observations in locales as beautiful and remote as the Australian outback, the Canary Islands, Hawaii, and the Chilean desert. In this book, he brings to life a golden age of astronomy, describing the triumphs and the technical setbacks, the rivalries with competing teams, and the perennial challenge of cloudy nights. Ellis reveals the astonishing progress we have made in building ever larger and more powerful telescopes, and provides a tantalizing glimpse of cosmic dawn.
Stunningly illustrated with a wealth of dramatic photos, When Galaxies Were Born is a bold scientific adventure enlivened by personal insights and anecdotes that enable readers to share in the thrill of discovery at the frontiers of astronomy.
Astronomers are like time travelers, scanning the night sky for the outermost galaxies that first came into being when our universe was a mere fraction of its present age. When Galaxies Were Born is Richard Ellis’s firsthand account of how a pioneering generation of scientists harnessed the world’s largest telescopes to decipher the history of the universe and witness cosmic dawn, the time when starlight first bathed the cosmos and galaxies emerged from darkness.
In a remarkable career spanning more than forty years, Ellis has made some of the most spectacular discoveries in modern cosmology. He has traveled the world to conduct observations in locales as beautiful and remote as the Australian outback, the Canary Islands, Hawaii, and the Chilean desert. In this book, he brings to life a golden age of astronomy, describing the triumphs and the technical setbacks, the rivalries with competing teams, and the perennial challenge of cloudy nights. Ellis reveals the astonishing progress we have made in building ever larger and more powerful telescopes, and provides a tantalizing glimpse of cosmic dawn.
Stunningly illustrated with a wealth of dramatic photos, When Galaxies Were Born is a bold scientific adventure enlivened by personal insights and anecdotes that enable readers to share in the thrill of discovery at the frontiers of astronomy.
280 pages, Hardcover
Published November 8, 2022
12 people are currently reading
151 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 27, 2022
This is a delightful read and hard to put down - in part because I was a student at UCL a decade after the author, Richard Ellis, and I can relate to his early stories. Since then I have closely followed the story of the search for the most distant objects in the universe, which is now reaching an exciting crescendo with the first results from JWST. This book sets the scene admirably as to why JWST is so important and fascinating, and provides the reader with many details to place JWST in the context of a longer quest.
This story carries you along with the personal adventure of one of the leading astronomers of our time, filled with wonderful personal anecdotes that reveals the humanity behind the quest for the origin of the first stars and galaxies, plus it's packed with enough detail to attract more knowledgeable readers.
As a teacher who introduces non-science students to cosmology, I think this is an ideal book to add breadth and depth to any introductory astronomy course.
It is also a timely book, right up to date with the launch of JWST and perfectly sets the scene for what the next few years of results will bring.
You'll see JWST in the headlines, but the real work of scientists takes years, and here's that story. I can't wait for a sequel in a year or two, once the headline results get confirmed (Princeton University Press, you heard that, right?)
This story carries you along with the personal adventure of one of the leading astronomers of our time, filled with wonderful personal anecdotes that reveals the humanity behind the quest for the origin of the first stars and galaxies, plus it's packed with enough detail to attract more knowledgeable readers.
As a teacher who introduces non-science students to cosmology, I think this is an ideal book to add breadth and depth to any introductory astronomy course.
It is also a timely book, right up to date with the launch of JWST and perfectly sets the scene for what the next few years of results will bring.
You'll see JWST in the headlines, but the real work of scientists takes years, and here's that story. I can't wait for a sequel in a year or two, once the headline results get confirmed (Princeton University Press, you heard that, right?)
February 11, 2023
Disclosure: I used to work for Richard Ellis when he was director of Caltech Optical Observatories and am sure that somewhat increased my interest in his book, but, putting that aside, I very much enjoyed the book.
When Galaxies Were Born is a very personal look at how astronomers have relentlessly been pushing the limits of the known universe by observing deeper into space and further back in time. Richard Ellis was likely the best possible person to write such a book as his career was spent in this pursuit. He vividly explains the science and the highs and lows of observing at observatories around the world. The story can be somewhat technical at times, but everything is nicely explained. I highly recommend this for anyone interested in the universe and on how astronomers do what they do.
When Galaxies Were Born is a very personal look at how astronomers have relentlessly been pushing the limits of the known universe by observing deeper into space and further back in time. Richard Ellis was likely the best possible person to write such a book as his career was spent in this pursuit. He vividly explains the science and the highs and lows of observing at observatories around the world. The story can be somewhat technical at times, but everything is nicely explained. I highly recommend this for anyone interested in the universe and on how astronomers do what they do.
April 15, 2023
The late 1960s and early 1970s were periods of cultural and social “revolutions”: civil rights movement, anti-war protests, women’s rights, gay rights, environmental movements and, in many ways, a revolution in astronomy. At that time, the young astronomer Richard S. Ellis was just starting his career. He wanted to be part of this change and his curiosity led him to an exciting career in astronomy research. Here, he details the incredible journey of making sense of the early Universe, when our Universe was only at 1% of its 13.8 billion years.
Richard S. Ellis: When Galaxies Were Born — The Quest for Cosmic Dawn, Princeton University Press, 2022; 280pp.
Ellis’s story starts three decades before he was born. In the early 1920s, the astronomy community was still debating the nature of our Milky Way and the many nebulae we could observe in the night sky. In what was known as the Great Debate, two fields of astronomy exchanged arguments regarding the nature of these objects. One side argued that the nebulae were small objects just outside our own Milky Way, and the other side that these nebulae were large and distant galaxies. In the late 1920s, astronomers in Europe and the USA calculated the distance to the Andromeda Nebulae, proving that this was a celestial body well beyond our own galaxy. This marked the beginning of a new field of astronomy in which Ellis made his career: extragalactic astronomy.
Ellis was in the driving seat of many key research infrastructures and programmes that contributed to exciting discoveries of the last five decades concerning the earliest known galaxies in our Universe. These early galaxies are the lighthouses of a very young Universe and are essential to understanding the early physics of our Universe: a few hundred thousand years after the big bang, protons and electrons started joining to form the simplest element, hydrogen. About 150 million years later, the first stars and galaxies emerged but were surrounded by a “fog” of hydrogen gas. This gas absorbed the light emitted by these early stars.
Over the next several hundred million years, the radiation from these early stars and galaxies split the surrounding hydrogen into protons and electrons, thus clearing away the “hydrogen” fog and making the Universe transparent. This transparency now allows astronomers to observe some early galaxies directly. As he chronicles in this book, Ellis and many of his colleagues meticulously observed these early galaxies and contributed to a deep understanding of the physical properties and nature of some of the most distant objects in our Universe.
Astronomy explores some of the largest philosophical questions facing humanity: Where do we come from? Where will we end? Space is one of the greatest adventures in the history of humanity: an all-action, violent arena with exotic phenomena that are counter-intuitive, spectacular, mystifying, intriguing and fascinating. This book is a significant contribution to understanding the inner workings of that journey of discovery.
Ellis also points out some of the challenges in highlighting the importance of science communication to many leading scientists, revealing attitudes regarding science communication by the (European) research community:
After the panel’s recommendations [a US report regarding the Hubble Space Telescope and future space telescopes] were agreed, I was required to present the conclusions to senior ESA staff in Paris … An interesting section of [the] report emphasised American scientists’ strong desire for public accountability. This was contained in a sympathetically written section of the report entitled “Sharing the Adventure: Inviting the Public Along.” When I began talking about this aspect of our report during my ESA presentation, I was interrupted by the ESA director of science, Roger Bonnet […] who interjected with some frustration, “Please, Dr Ellis, spare us this aspect of your presentation! We, in Europe, do not share this curious American desire to engage the general public.”
Since that event in the mid-1990s the recognition of the importance of science communication has increased globally, also in Europe. But this account is a good reminder that science communication is never a given, and science communicators have to justify frequently their contributions to public understanding, appreciation and participation in science.
Ellis’s rich, deep and comprehensive account of the research also includes the quest to build some of the largest research infrastructures, modern telescopes such as Gemini, Keck, Hubble Space Telescope, Square Kilometre Array (SKA) or the most recent James Webb Space Telescope. Ellis navigates these Big Science projects, the political challenges, the importance of international collaborations, the many drawbacks and compromises and of course, the human nature of working together.
It would be expected that in this personal account of his career, Ellis would also include a deeper reflection on social issues in astronomy. Unfortunately, many key challenges are overlooked: the lost decades of the gender gap in astronomy (Ellis shrugs it off in his preface); the importance of re-examining history and providing the proper account and credit to researchers involved in scientific discoveries (discussed briefly as a footnote in chapter 2); the role of Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile and land rights during the establishment of the European Southern Observatory in Chile in the late 1980s; the ongoing controversies regarding indigenous and land rights and telescopes on Mauna Kea, Hawaii; the social issues around SKA in South Africa.
The astronomy community and its leaders have not been paying enough attention to the other cultural and social revolutions in the last 50 years. They did not deliver on crucial issues of gender, social and environmental justice. We need to reflect deeply on these issues and act to recover the lost time. Kevin Govender, director of the International Astronomical Union’s Office of Astronomy for Development, has asked: “What is more important, producing new knowledge about the Universe or bringing humanity along?” Richard S. Ellis and the astronomy community have been focused on producing new knowledge and it is past time to bring humanity along.
In: https://medium.com/scicomm-book-revie...
Richard S. Ellis: When Galaxies Were Born — The Quest for Cosmic Dawn, Princeton University Press, 2022; 280pp.
Ellis’s story starts three decades before he was born. In the early 1920s, the astronomy community was still debating the nature of our Milky Way and the many nebulae we could observe in the night sky. In what was known as the Great Debate, two fields of astronomy exchanged arguments regarding the nature of these objects. One side argued that the nebulae were small objects just outside our own Milky Way, and the other side that these nebulae were large and distant galaxies. In the late 1920s, astronomers in Europe and the USA calculated the distance to the Andromeda Nebulae, proving that this was a celestial body well beyond our own galaxy. This marked the beginning of a new field of astronomy in which Ellis made his career: extragalactic astronomy.
Ellis was in the driving seat of many key research infrastructures and programmes that contributed to exciting discoveries of the last five decades concerning the earliest known galaxies in our Universe. These early galaxies are the lighthouses of a very young Universe and are essential to understanding the early physics of our Universe: a few hundred thousand years after the big bang, protons and electrons started joining to form the simplest element, hydrogen. About 150 million years later, the first stars and galaxies emerged but were surrounded by a “fog” of hydrogen gas. This gas absorbed the light emitted by these early stars.
Over the next several hundred million years, the radiation from these early stars and galaxies split the surrounding hydrogen into protons and electrons, thus clearing away the “hydrogen” fog and making the Universe transparent. This transparency now allows astronomers to observe some early galaxies directly. As he chronicles in this book, Ellis and many of his colleagues meticulously observed these early galaxies and contributed to a deep understanding of the physical properties and nature of some of the most distant objects in our Universe.
Astronomy explores some of the largest philosophical questions facing humanity: Where do we come from? Where will we end? Space is one of the greatest adventures in the history of humanity: an all-action, violent arena with exotic phenomena that are counter-intuitive, spectacular, mystifying, intriguing and fascinating. This book is a significant contribution to understanding the inner workings of that journey of discovery.
Ellis also points out some of the challenges in highlighting the importance of science communication to many leading scientists, revealing attitudes regarding science communication by the (European) research community:
After the panel’s recommendations [a US report regarding the Hubble Space Telescope and future space telescopes] were agreed, I was required to present the conclusions to senior ESA staff in Paris … An interesting section of [the] report emphasised American scientists’ strong desire for public accountability. This was contained in a sympathetically written section of the report entitled “Sharing the Adventure: Inviting the Public Along.” When I began talking about this aspect of our report during my ESA presentation, I was interrupted by the ESA director of science, Roger Bonnet […] who interjected with some frustration, “Please, Dr Ellis, spare us this aspect of your presentation! We, in Europe, do not share this curious American desire to engage the general public.”
Since that event in the mid-1990s the recognition of the importance of science communication has increased globally, also in Europe. But this account is a good reminder that science communication is never a given, and science communicators have to justify frequently their contributions to public understanding, appreciation and participation in science.
Ellis’s rich, deep and comprehensive account of the research also includes the quest to build some of the largest research infrastructures, modern telescopes such as Gemini, Keck, Hubble Space Telescope, Square Kilometre Array (SKA) or the most recent James Webb Space Telescope. Ellis navigates these Big Science projects, the political challenges, the importance of international collaborations, the many drawbacks and compromises and of course, the human nature of working together.
It would be expected that in this personal account of his career, Ellis would also include a deeper reflection on social issues in astronomy. Unfortunately, many key challenges are overlooked: the lost decades of the gender gap in astronomy (Ellis shrugs it off in his preface); the importance of re-examining history and providing the proper account and credit to researchers involved in scientific discoveries (discussed briefly as a footnote in chapter 2); the role of Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile and land rights during the establishment of the European Southern Observatory in Chile in the late 1980s; the ongoing controversies regarding indigenous and land rights and telescopes on Mauna Kea, Hawaii; the social issues around SKA in South Africa.
The astronomy community and its leaders have not been paying enough attention to the other cultural and social revolutions in the last 50 years. They did not deliver on crucial issues of gender, social and environmental justice. We need to reflect deeply on these issues and act to recover the lost time. Kevin Govender, director of the International Astronomical Union’s Office of Astronomy for Development, has asked: “What is more important, producing new knowledge about the Universe or bringing humanity along?” Richard S. Ellis and the astronomy community have been focused on producing new knowledge and it is past time to bring humanity along.
In: https://medium.com/scicomm-book-revie...
February 8, 2023
There's a strong indicator of the emphasis of this book in the chapter titles, which are based not on scientific discoveries, but on technologies - we get, for example, Palomar, La Palma, Hubble Space Telescope and Keck, each referring to a next generation telescope or telescopes. Richard Ellis has an approachable, conversational manner when introducing the chapters and the book as a whole, such as the one that begins 'In 1977 I cut out a full page advertisement that appeared in the Financial Times...', but the vast bulk of the content is reasonably heavy going unless you are a fully paid up astronomical enthusiast.
We get an awful lot of detail on the telescopes, on the people involved using the telescopes, and on the technical detail of the discoveries (I don't think I've ever seen so many redshift z's on a single page). But though the underlying thrust of the book feels like it should be helping the reader to understand galaxy formation and the 'cosmic dawn', when the universe became transparent to light as what's now the cosmic microwave background started to cross space, there's actually very little on the underlying science. This is largely, in Rutherfordian terms, about stamp collecting. Don't get me wrong, these are very important stamps - essential for developing an understanding - but they are stamps nonetheless.
If you consider yourself part of a general audience with an interest in science (as I do), this is, then, quite hard work to read. If the nitty gritty of astronomy is your thing and you have posters of the Keck telescopes on your wall on the other hand, this is genuinely an essential read and highly recommended.
We get an awful lot of detail on the telescopes, on the people involved using the telescopes, and on the technical detail of the discoveries (I don't think I've ever seen so many redshift z's on a single page). But though the underlying thrust of the book feels like it should be helping the reader to understand galaxy formation and the 'cosmic dawn', when the universe became transparent to light as what's now the cosmic microwave background started to cross space, there's actually very little on the underlying science. This is largely, in Rutherfordian terms, about stamp collecting. Don't get me wrong, these are very important stamps - essential for developing an understanding - but they are stamps nonetheless.
If you consider yourself part of a general audience with an interest in science (as I do), this is, then, quite hard work to read. If the nitty gritty of astronomy is your thing and you have posters of the Keck telescopes on your wall on the other hand, this is genuinely an essential read and highly recommended.
May 24, 2025
Best astronomy book I've ever read!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews