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The Dark Night-Sky Riddle, “Olbers's Paradox”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2017

Edward Harrison
Edward Harrison*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01002 USA

Abstract

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The riddle of cosmic darkness, nowadays known as Olbers's paradox, asks, “Why is the sky at night dark?” The riddle is almost as old as the Copernican revolution and has inspired important contributions to the development of astronomy and cosmology. It climaxes in the twentieth century with the realization that the sky is covered not by unseen stars but by the infrared gloom of the big bang.

Type
I. A Historical Review
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 139: The Galactic and Extragalactic Background Radiation , 1990 , pp. 3 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1990 

References

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