First Light-The Search For the Edge of the Universe.(#2)

In Richard Preston's nonfiction First Light (1996), in section two of the novel Preston presents the couple the Shoemakers who are deeply involved in the search of the asteroids and comets and also how many astronomers did indepth studies in researching galaxies for the asteroids but they easily gave up in completing their tasks. Preston describes how the geologists astronomers Eugene Shoemaker and Carolyn Shoemaker are captivated by the science of the asteroids and comets so they go to Palomar Mountain to  discover asteroids and comets by using facts and statistics through critiquing answers through research and validating unresolved scientific research that hasn't been prove to be true. Preston asserts that the Shoemakers use a different type of telescope, not the Hale's telescope, they use a faster telescope called the Schmidt telescope to observe asteroids and comets that passes through Earth's Orbit by using imagery, he then describes the historical background behind the different asteroids and their given names by using mathematical and scientific statistics, and to conclude he presents the reader of how the Schmidt telescope came into creation and he deeply reveals his experiences working as a side helper with the telescope. Preston's purpose is to evoke in readers that each new telescope used on Palomar mountain has to have some type of deep meaning to it. He seems to have again an audience prone to intellectual curiosity and his tone again is informative.

• emulsion- a fine dispersion of minute droplets of one liquid in another in which it is not soluble or miscible.
• creosate bushes- a shrub native to arid parts of Mexico and the western U.S. Its leaves smell of creosote and when steeped in boiling water, they yield an antiseptic lotion. 
• celestial- positioned in or relating to the sky, or outer space as observed in astronomy.

Tone: informative, logical, straight-forward.

1) Statistics: Another 65,800 planets have been seen once or twice, not often enough to have their orbits plotted with certainty and thus to be eligible for numbering.(96)

2) Denotation: A supernova is the heatcomb of a star.(97)

3) Listing: It was titled "Known Trojans," and it contained a list of heroes from the Trojan War- Achilles, Patroclus, Hektor, Nestor, Priam. (68)

4) Personification: A flash of blue sparks danced around the telescope's mounting.(85)

5) Simile: I remarked to her that it felt as though we were in free-fall.(87)

• Why does Preston use the location of every telescope being used on Palomar Mountain to be the first greatest telecope?
•  In what structure does Preston use listing in the sentence?
• What impact will the Earth have if it is hit by an asteroid?

Quotation: " Darkness had triggered the death of much singled-celled life in the sea, dynamiting the pyramid of life at its base, causing mass extinction to ripple upward." (128)