Emily Levesque discusses The Last Stargazers
Special guest host: Dana Stabenow
Emily Levesque. The Last Stargazers (Sourcebooks, trade pb $16.99 unsigned copy)
The story of the people who see beyond the stars—an astronomy book for adults still spellbound by the night sky.
Humans from the earliest civilizations through today have craned their necks each night, using the stars to orient themselves in the large, strange world around them. Stargazing is a pursuit that continues to fascinate us: from Copernicus to Carl Sagan, astronomers throughout history have spent their lives trying to answer the biggest questions in the universe. Now, award-winning astronomer Emily Levesque shares the stories of modern-day stargazers in this new nonfiction release, the people willing to adventure across high mountaintops and to some of the most remote corners of the planet, all in the name of science.
From the lonely quiet of midnight stargazing to tall tales of wild bears loose in the observatory, The Last Stargazers is a love letter to astronomy and an affirmation of the crucial role that humans can and must play in the future of scientific discovery.
In this sweeping work of narrative science, Levesque shows how astronomers in this scrappy and evolving field are going beyond the machines to infuse creativity and passion into the stars and space and inspires us all to peer skyward in pursuit of the universe's secrets.
Emily Levesque is a professor in the University of Washington’s astronomy department. Her research program is focused on improving our overall understanding of how massive stars evolve and die.
Her first popular science book, The Last Stargazers, shares the tales and experiences of astronomical observing; read more about it at the link! Levesque has also written two academic books: a professional text on red supergiants and a graduate textbook on stellar interiors and evolution written with co-author Henny J. G. L. M. Lamers.
Emily Levesque is the recipient of the 2020 Newton Lacy Pierce prize and the 2014 Annie Jump Cannon award from the American Astronomical Society. She is also a 2019 Cottrell Scholar and a 2017 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow. From 2010 to 2015 Levesque was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She received her astronomy PhD at University of Hawaii in 2010 and her S.B. in physics from MIT in 2006. Levesque is a professor in the University of Washington’s astronomy department. Her research program is focused on improving our overall understanding of how massive stars evolve and die.
Dana Stabenow is the author of the award-winning, bestselling Kate Shugak series. The first book in the series, A Cold Day for Murder, received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Her latest book is The Disappearance of a Scribe.