" . . . begins in Earth's neighborhood, explaining the nature of the Solar System, the stars in our night sky, and the Milky Way . . . moves out past nearby galaxies--and back in time--to the horizon of the observable universe, which contains over a hundred billion galaxies, each with billions of stars, many orbited by planets, some of which may host life. These visible objects in space sit in a web of dark matter, mysterious stuff we cannot see or yet understand . . . traces the evolution of the universe from the Big Bang fourteen billion years ago, past the birth of the Sun and our planets, to today and beyond . . . explains cutting-edge debates about such perplexing phenomena as the accelerating expansion of the universe and the possibility that our universe is only one of many"--Publisher.
