Henbest N. The Mysterious Universe

Ebury Press, London, UK, 1981. – 190 p. – ISBN: 0852232128From Earth, we look out at a vast Universe around us. Space stretches out unimaginable distances in every direction, and it is inhabited by many strange objects. It is the astronomer's job to make sense of the Universe, to confirm understood facts and to interpret new knowledge and theories. We now know as facts, for instance, that Earth is one of nine planets, endlessly circling the much larger
Sun and that the stars in the sky are other suns, dimmed by their great distance. And we also now know that stars congregate together in enormous islands called galaxies, which are speeding apart from one another - a legacy of the explosive force of the Big Bang with which our Universe began. Theory allows us to add a time dimension, and therefore to estimate changes in the sky which cannot be seen because they take far longer to reach us than the recorded history of astronomy. The result is an understanding not only of what stars are, but also of how they are born and die.Birth of the Planets
The Outer Planets
The Inner Planets
The Double Planet Earth and Moon
Cosmic Catastrophes
Biography of the Stars
Iife in the Universe
The Still-Ticking Pulsars
Black Holes
Quasars
The Ultimate Mystery