Visions of the Cosmos: Interpreting the Sky in East and West

Starting with Edwin Hubble’s 1929 revelation that the universe is not static but expanding, research has catapulted humanity to new insights regarding our place in the cosmos. Astronomers and astrophysicists have dated the origin of the universe to around 13.8 billion years ago, and we have come to realize that we are a relatively small planet circling an unremarkable star in the outskirts of an average galaxy alongside 100—400 billion other stars. It is estimated there are between 200 billion and 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, in addition to those we cannot see. Moreover, according to recent theories, it is possible that our cosmos might be just one of an infinite number of universes born out of an endless chain of big bangs. 

Many of these revolutionary insights into the origin and character of the universe were first developed during the Cold War. How did they play out in the scientific communities of the East and the West? What was their impact on ideological and utopian thinking? Was there a communist and a capitalist version of the cosmos, and if so, how did they differ? How did Cold War cosmology and the space race impact dreams and fantasies about the cosmos as shared in science fiction literature, movies and the visual arts all over the world?