Table of Contents

Introduction. Part I: Stalking the Cosmos. Chapter 1: Seeing the Light: The Art and Science of Astronomy. Chapter 2: Join the Crowd: Skywatching Activities and Resources. Chapter 3: The Way You Watch Tonight: Terrific Tools for Observing the Skies. Chapter 4: Just Passing Through: Meteors, Comets, and Artificial Satellites. Part II: Going Once Around the Solar System. Chapter 5: A Matched Pair: Earth and Its Moon. Chapter 6: Earth's Near Neighbors: Mercury, Venus, and Mars. Chapter 7: Rock On: The Asteroid Belt and Near-Earth Objects. Chapter 8: Great Balls of Gas: Jupiter and Saturn. Chapter 9: Far Out! Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Beyond. Part III: Meeting Old Sol and Other Stars. Chapter 10: The Sun: Star of the Earth. Chapter 11: Taking a Trip to the Stars. Chapter 12: Galaxies: The Milky Way and Beyond. Chapter 13: Digging into Black Holes and Quasars. Part IV: Pondering the Remarkable Universe. Chapter 14: Is Anybody Out There? SETI and Planets of Other Suns. Chapter 15: Delving into Dark Matter and Antimatter. Chapter 16: The Big Bang and the Evolution of the Universe. Part V: The Part of Tens. Chapter 17: Ten Strange Facts about Astronomy and Space. Chapter 18: Ten Common Errors about Astronomy and Space. Part VI: Appendixes. Appendix A: Finding the Planets: 2006 to 2010. Appendix B: Star Maps. Appendix C: Glossary. Index.

About the Author

Stephen P. Maran, PhD, is a 36-year veteran of the space program who has worked on numerous NASA projects, including the Hubble Space Telescope. He is the press officer of the American Astronomical Society.