Magnitude The Scale of the Universe

In the tradition of illustrated science bestsellers, like Thing Explainer andharkening back to the classic film The Powers of Ten, this unique, fully-illustrated, four-color book explores and visualizes the concept of scale in our universe.

In Magnitude, Kimberly Arcand and Megan Watzke take us on an expansive journey to the limits of size, mass, distance, time, temperature in our universe, from the tiniest particle within the structure of an atom to the most massive galaxy in the universe; from the speed at which grass grows (about 2 to 6 inches a month) to the speed of light. Fully-illustrated with four-color drawings and infographics throughout and organized into sections including Size and Amount (Distance, Area, Volume, Mass, Time, Temperature), Motion and Rate (Speed, Acceleration, Density, Rotation), and Phenomena and Processes (Energy, Pressure, Sound, Wind, Computation), Magnitude shows us the scale of our world in a clear, visual way that our relatively medium-sized human brains can easily understand.

Kimberly Arcand is the visualization lead for NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, specializing in image and meaning research, and in data representation. She lives near Providence, RI.

Megan Watzke is the press officer for NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, specializing in communicating astronomy with the public. She lives in Seattle, WA. Together, Arcand and Watzke are the authors of Light: The Visible Spectrum and Beyond.

Katie Peek began her career as an astrophysicist, searching for planets that circle distant stars and and investigating the history of our own Milky Way galaxy. After earning her Ph.D., she transitioned to science journalism and ultimately to data visualization and illustration. The former information graphics editor at Popular Science magazine, today she creates graphics for many publications, scientific and not.