The James Webb Space Telescope is transforming the universe right before our eyes—and here for
the first time is the inside account of how the mission originated how it performs its
miracles of science and what its revolutionary images are revealing. Pillars of Creation
tells the story of one of the greatest scientific achievements in the history of civilization
a $10 billion instrument with a staggeringly ambitious goal: unlocking the secrets of the
cosmos. Award-winning science writer Richard Panek stands us shoulder to shoulder with senior
scientists as they conceive the mission meet decades-long challenges to bring it to fruition
and now use its unprecedented technology to yield new discoveries about the origins of our
solar system to search for life on planets around other suns and to trace the growth of
hundreds of billions of galaxies all the way back to the birth of the first stars. The Webb
telescope has captured the world’s imagination and Pillars of Creation shows how and
why—including through sixteen pages of awe-inspiring full-color photos. At once a testament
to human ingenuity and a celebration of mankind’s biggest leap yet into the cosmos Panek’s
eye-opening book reveals our universe as we’ve never seen it before—through the lens of the
James Webb Space Telescope a marvel that is itself a pillar of creation.
