Stuart G. Clark Books

With approximately 500 cutting-edge images, 'Galaxy' investigates every aspect of the Milky Way, from its place in the universe to its large-scale anatomy, from its history to its future.

A fantastic voyage across 276 billion trillion miles of space and 13.5 billion years of time, told through more than 300 of the most dramatic astronomical images ever captured The 101 greatest sights between earth and the edge of the cosmos are depicted in this collection of more than 300 of the most beautiful space photographs ever taken. The dramatic large format makes the perfect showcase for the latest images from Hubble's new camera, and the majority of the photographs will be displayed at full or double page size. Readers should prepare to embark on a journey that will take them to the edge of the Universe and the beginning of time, crossing 46.5 billion light years of space and exploring 101 celestial wonders ranging from comets to quasars. They will start on Earth, nestled in the Orion Spur of the Milky Way Galaxy, near the center of the Local Group of galaxies, gravitationally bound to the Virgo Supercluster, but the entire universe is here to explore. There are photos of sand dunes snaking across the northern plains of Mars, driven by the winds of spring; alien cloudscapes of fluorescing gases; and secret nests of new stars hidden within. Hypergiant stars tear themselves to pieces, galaxies collide, and superclusters gather like motes of dust on a cosmic web. The journey that these photos represent is organized into four zones--interplanetary, interstellar, intergalactic, and, finally, intertemporal. "Voyager"'s grand tour of space offers an unrivaled portrait of our cosmic habitat. Quite simply, there is no better way to see the Universe.

Voyager takes the reader on a visually stunning grand tour of the universe. We blast off from Earth and into space at the speed of light, reaching the moon in just 1.3 seconds, the Sun in eight minutes and Saturn in an hour. Every page turned takes the reader deeper into the Universe. The cycles of stellar life unfold before our eyes: we traverse clouds of dust and gas in which clusters of embryonic stars are incubating, we discover spectacular nebulae blazing in the fierce radiation of stellar new-borns, we watch dying stars blossom and expire - or explode, with a luminosity that can outshine a galaxy, in the stellar last hurrah of a supernova. 100,000 light years out, we cross into intergalactic space, sailing on threads of 'dark matter' that weave through the cosmos like cobwebs encrusted with a glittering menagerie of galaxies. From here we can discern the large-scale anatomy of the Universe, its history and perhaps even its future. Every object visited on this extraordinary journey - planet, comet, star, nebula, white dwarf, black hole, pulsar or quasar - is accompanied by an awe-inspiring full-page image and a concise but enlightening text.