Carried along by the book's vibrant main theme - the process of scientific discovery - readers will encounter spectacular sights, landmark experiments, and recent discoveries, while learning to avoid the pitfalls created by common misconceptions about astronomy.

PART I: UNDERSTANDING ASTRONOMY
Discovering the Night Sky
Gravitation and the Waltz of the Planets
Light and Telescopes
Visible Light and Other Electromagnetic Radiation
PART II: UNDERSTANDING THE SOLAR SYSTEM
Formation of The Solar System and Other Planetary Systems
Earth and Moon
The Other Terrestrial Planets
The Outer Planets
Vagabonds of the Solar System
The Sun: Our Extraordinary, Ordinary Star
PART III: UNDERSTANDING THE STARS
The Challenge of Characterizing Stars
The Lives of Stars from Birth Through Middle Ages
The Deaths of Stars
Black Holes
PART IV: UNDERSTANDING THE UNIVERSE
The Milky Way Galaxy
Galaxies
Quasars, Active Galaxies, and Gamma-Ray Bursters
Cosmology
The Search for Extraterrestrial Life
Appendix I: Table of Data
Appendix II: Math Foundation

NEIL F. COMINS is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Maine, Orono, USA.
WILLIAM J. KAUFMANN III, late of San Diego State University, USA.