Space. It has captivated and confounded human beings since the very moment our earliest ancestors gazed upward toward the starry heavens. From the seventeenth century, when Galileo viewed the moon through his newly invented telescope, to the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope just a few years ago, mankind continues to pursue its profound secrets. Is there life in our solar system beyond our own planet? Will the vast universe that surrounds us continue to expand infinitely? What are the chances that earth will collide with a celestial body in the near future, and would the consequences be catastrophic?

In The Scientific American Book of Astronomy, some of the biggest names presently working in the field address these and other inquiries in thirty-two cutting edge articles: Travel to a black hole with Leonard Susskind as he investigates the fate of matter that slips beyond its horizon; witness firsthand the heart-stopping 1994 collision between Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Jupiter, as presented by David H. Levy, Eugene M. Shoemaker, and Carolyn S. Shoemaker; reevaluate the Big Bang theory with Alan H. Guth and Paul J. Steinhardt, who explain why its flaws have led to the development of an alternate model, the inflationary universe; learn why Vera Rubin believes the existence of so-called dark matter will help us better predict the destiny of the universe.

The Scientific American Book of Astronomy presents an astonishing array of knowledge that has shaped our understanding of space thus far and continues to stimulate and drive the imagination. As Timothy Ferris so eloquently writes in his introduction, "Consider some of the cosmic wonders explored in the book, and ask yourself what poet or artist ever imagined anything so strange."