Astronomy History

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Dava Sobel, the "inspiring" (People), little-known true story of women's landmark contributions to astronomy A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017 Named one of the best books of the year by NPR, The Economist, Smithsonian, Nature, and...

On October 4, 1957, a time of Cold War paranoia, the Soviet Union secretly launched the Earth's first artificial moon. No bigger than a basketball, the tiny satellite was powered by a car battery. Yet, for all its simplicity, Sputnik stunned the world.

"A gripping guide to the modern taming of the infinite." —New York Times Part history, part philosophy, part love letter to the study of mathematics, Everything and More is an illuminating tour of infinity. With his infectious curiosity and trademark verbal pyrotechnics, David Foster Wallace...

Thad Roberts, a fellow in a prestigious NASA program had an idea—a romantic, albeit crazy, idea. He wanted to give his girlfriend the moon. Literally. Thad convinced his girlfriend and another female accomplice, both NASA interns, to break into an impregnable laboratory at NASA—past...

The galaxy, the multiverse, and the history of astronomy are explored in this engaging compilation of cosmological "tales" by multiple award-winning science writer Marcia Bartusiak. In 32 concise and engrossing essays, the author provides a deeper understanding of the nature of the universe and those who strive to uncover its mysteries. Bartusiak shares the back stories for many momentous astronomical discoveries, including the contributions of such pioneers as Beatrice Tinsley and her groundbreaking research in galactic evolution.

From the Marginalian creator and bestselling author Maria Popova, a bold exploration of what makes a meaningful life. What is life? What is death? What makes a body a person? What makes a planet a world? In Traversal, Maria Popova illuminates our various instruments of reckoning with the...

For more than 50 years, the world's top scientists searched for the "missing" planet Vulcan, whose existence was mandated by Isaac Newton's theories of gravity. Countless hours were spent on the hunt for the elusive orb, and some of the era's most skilled astronomers even claimed to have found it. There was just one problem: It was never there.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Thirteen extraordinary essays shed new light on the mystery of the universe—and on one of the most brilliant thinkers of our time. “[Hawking] sprinkles his explanations with a wry sense of humor and a keen awareness that the sciences today delve not only into...

The author of the highly acclaimed Founding Gardeners now gives us an enlightening chronicle of the first truly international scientific endeavor—the eighteenth-century quest to observe the transit of Venus and measure the solar system. On June 6, 1761, the world paused to observe a...

In this book, John Moffat shares the history of black holes and presents the latest research into these mysterious celestial objects, including the astounding results from gravitational wave detection and the shadow of the black hole.

In 1977, two spacecraft were launched from Earth to explore the outer Solar System, and incredibly, the now-ancient technology from the 1970s is still working, sending daily reports back to the planet that sent the two robotic envoys on their way, over 40 years ago. Voyager 1 and 2 have done far more than accomplish their original missions. In fact, they are now exploring interstellar space, far beyond the outer planets, in the cold wasteland between the stars.

A Nature Best Book of 2025 A Wall Street Journal Holiday Gift Pick An elegantly written exploration of the cutting edge science of the strangest and most remarkable creatures on our planet by a leading marine biologist Hundred-year-old giant clams, coral kingdoms that rival human cities, and...

Humans from the earliest civilizations were spellbound by the night sky - craning their necks each night, they used the stars to orient themselves in the large, strange world around them. Stargazing is a pursuit that continues to fascinate us: from Copernicus to Carl Sagan, astronomers throughout history have spent their lives trying to answer the biggest questions in the universe. Now, award-winning astronomer Emily Levesque shares the stories of modern-day stargazers.

This Fleeting World tells the story of the universe and history of humanity. Prize-winning historian David Christian covers it all in this compact, accessible, and inspiring guide to the history of everything from stars and empires to cities to the World Wide Web, capitalism, and globalization. David Christian's approach to human history and big history is a call to action based on a profound and fresh understanding of our place in the universe.

The flight of Apollo 11 was a triumph of human endeavor, persistence, and technology, one of the greatest achievements in human history. This book begins with the mission that sent Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin to the moon, then follows American spaceflight through the harrowing rescue of Apollo 13 before moving on to the successful joint Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975.

Lost Discoveries, Dick Teresi's innovative history of science, explores the unheralded scientific breakthroughs from peoples of the ancient world -- Babylonians, Egyptians, Indians, Africans, New World and Oceanic tribes, among others -- and the non-European medieval world. They left an...

At first glance, it looks like just another auditorium in just another government building. But among the talented men (and later women) who worked in mission control, the room located on the third floor of Building 30—at what is now Johnson Space Center—would become known by many as "the Cathedral." These members of the space program were the brightest of their generations, making split-second decisions that determined the success or failure of a mission.

When people look up into the night sky, the stars seem fixed and immutable, as unchanging as the darkness of space itself, but the truth is that stars are born, live, and die in a never-ending cycle of creation and annihilation. These cycles stretch over such vast spans of time that to short-lived humans, they seem to last forever. No one knows just how many stars there are, but their number is almost beyond comprehension.

From Archimedes to Einstein, discover the lives and works of the scientists who helped shape the world we live in today. Delve into the lives, inspirations, motivations, and achievements of the greatest scientists in the world and through all time. Explore the stories of more than 85 of the...

Analyzes ancient Coptic-Egyptian texts and evidence from astronomy and archaeology to show how the Big Void may be a grand “Hall of Ancestors” Explores the controversy surrounding the discovery of the Big Void and debunks many of the theories regarding the purpose of this massive new...