Abrams Books for Young Readers | 9781419736261
Last month, I was fortunate to hear author, Sandra Nickel, share a portion of the beginning of her newest picture book, THE STUFF BETWEEN THE STARS: How Vera Rubin Discovered Most of the Universe. She talked about reading Vera’s story for the first time (in a NYT article) and shared a little about her research. I was hooked and knew I had to pick up a copy.
From the flap:
Before Vera Rubin discovered most of the universe, she was a girl who loved the night sky. She watched the Big Dipper circle the North Star. And when her eyelids grew heavy, she dreamed not about what she had seen, but about what she had not seen. She dreamed about the mysteries between the stars.
CLICK TO ENLARGE © illustration by Aimée Sicuro
Vera had questions and set her sights on the “man’s world” of astronomy. Though, for many years, her conclusions were met with scorn, Vera persisted. Eventually, her discoveries proved that there was more to the universe than had been assumed. Thanks, in large part, to her work, scientists now believe that most of the matter in the cosmos is yet unseen. This strange ingredient, known as dark matter, does not emit light or energy.
CLICK TO ENLARGE © illustration by Aimée Sicuro
“Dark matter might not burn bright like stars, but Vera
could tell it was there by how it made the stars move…
The senior astronomers stopped shaking their heads.
They finally admitted Vera was right. She had shown
that the mysterious dark matter made up more than
80 percent of the matter in the universe.”
- Read a Publisher’s Weekly interview with Sandra Nichol HERE,
- Visit Sandra Nickel’s and Aimée Sicuro’s websites to learn more about the book and Vera Rubin.
