Sky & Telescope - February 2023 - 72

BOOK REVIEW by Peter Tyson
In Her Own Words
THE MILKY WAY: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy
Moiya McTier
Grand Central Publishing, 2022
256 pages, ISBN 9781538754153
US$27.00, hardcover
MOIYA MCTIER, an astrophysicist and
folklorist, explains in the opening pages
of this book why she chose the unusual
approach of having the Milky Way tell
its own story. When she, an only child,
was young, her family moved from
Pittsburgh into Pennsylvania's coal
country, " full of people, " as she writes
in the Foreword, " who had only seen a
Black person on TV . . . " She lived in a
log cabin in the woods with no running
water and stood out uncomfortably as
" the blackest person " at her school.
McTier felt most herself at night, and
later, in college, she became captivated
by " the logical, data-driven nature of
astronomy. " She loved folklore as well,
and she came to realize that mythology
and science aren't as contradictory
as they might at first appear. " Both are
tools we humans use to understand how
we fit in with the rest of the universe, "
she writes. McTier went on to become
the first undergraduate in Harvard's
history to study both astronomy and
mythology. By the time she finished her
PhD in astrophysics at Columbia, she
says, her perspective had widened " in
the most illuminating way. "
McTier writes as herself only in
the Foreword and Notes. The rest of
the book is written as if by the Milky
Way. I was curious to see how well this
approach would work. Would I retain
information as well as with a more traditional
style? Would I gain a new perspective,
akin to McTier's own broadening?
Would I like the Milky Way?
Once I settled into the book's flow,
acquiescing to a sort of willing suspension
of disbelief, its contents went down
72 FEBRUARY 2023 * SKY & TELESCOPE
refreshingly. McTier is
witty, irreverent, and
deeply knowledgeable in
all matters astrophysical.
After introducing
herself, the Milky Way
(now's your turn to suspend
disbelief) notes that
we have given her many
names, among them
Silver River, Way of Birds,
and the Deer Jump.
Most, she stresses, derive
from myths, which are
" tools for understanding
the natural world and communicating
that knowledge to others. "
Through her protagonist, McTier
succeeds in communicating heaps of
specifics engagingly. We learn that, in
the first tiny fraction of a second, the
universe during the Big Bang inflated
by 100 septillion, or 1026. (The author
enjoys toying with big numbers, as
when she informs us in the Notes that
1010,000 is ten tremilliatrecendotrigintillion.)
" Every single proton, neutron,
and electron in your body was made
in the first three minutes after the Big
Bang, " our galaxy informs us. " That
must blow your little human mind! "
As she unfolds the Milky Way's life
story, McTier delves into the cosmic
background radiation, galaxy evolution,
black holes, dark energy, and much
more. She explains interferometry
and Hawking radiation and the main
sequence, all in easy-to-grasp ways.
Fittingly, she honors the major contributions
to astronomy by women such
as Annie Jump Cannon and Henrietta
Swan Leavitt (S&T: Dec. 2021, p. 12).
McTier always factors in the big picture
and deep time, as when the Milky
Way mentions that in the next four
or five billion years, the Andromeda
Galaxy will get so close
to her that " the spiral
beauty will stretch across
half your sky . . . " (What
a sight that will be, if
any intelligent beings
are around to appreciate
it.) Or how the Moon,
which drifts away from
our planet every year by
about 3.8 centimeters
(1.5 inches), will eventually
lie so far that total
solar eclipses will no
longer occur on Earth.
The author's sense of humor shines
throughout. Upon explaining that the
Small Magellanic Cloud is called an
irregular dwarf galaxy, the Milky Way
says, " 'Irregular,' as far as I can tell, is
a human astronomer's way of saying
'misshapen blob' without sounding rude
or overly colloquial. " After introducing
the term parsec, our galaxy-cum-author
remarks, " In case it makes a difference,
and you aren't just reading these values
as 'blah blah blah really big number blah
blah blah,' one parsec is a little more
than three light-years. "
Humor is subjective, of course,
so whether this style - and McTier's
approach as a whole - gratifies or
grates will be up to each reader. But,
while I can't say I gained a new way of
contemplating the universe, I did enjoy
the read, learned a few things, and felt
upon finishing that, if this take appeals
to a wider or just different demographic
than the usual introductory books on
astronomy, excellent. It's all about getting
the word out and inspiring people,
however you go about it.
¢ Editor in Chief PETER TYSON did
like the Milky Way in the end and looks
forward to our next rendezvous.
Sky & Telescope - February 2023

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