Some Like It Cold

TITLE: THE LIGHT AT THE EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE

AUTHOR: MICHAEL D. LEMONICK

PUBLISHER: VILLARD; 325 PAGES; $24

THE BOTTOM LINE: Astronomers gaze at mysterious structures that challenge current theories.

Most books about the nature of the universe leave the reader lost in space. Michael Lemonick understands the problem: how to deal with the immense and the minute on a human scale. His The Light at the Edge of the Universe does just that. By visiting astronomers in remote observatories and at university seminars, Lemonick, who covers such matters for this magazine, conveys both the science and the excitement of a surprisingly seductive subject.

His report from the edge indicates that today's stargazers are on the verge of yet another breakthrough in understanding. Or at least a higher confusion. Until the late '70s it was assumed that matter is distributed more or less evenly through deep space. Lemonick listens attentively to new hypotheses, among them that recently discovered bubbles of emptiness stretching across the heavens are the result of dark matter, unseen masses whose gravity shapes the arrangement of galaxies. Some scientists like their dark matter hot. Some like it cold. But nature, lukewarm to any unifying theory, continues its ) tantalizing bubble dance.