Atlas of the Universe is the ultimate reference to the stars, planets and celestial objects using the most comprehensive information available.The book features the latest images from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Very Large Telescope, Mars Express, the Cassini spacecraft and 2004 Huygens probe of Saturn and Titan. The stunning images are explained with clear and detailed text. The full color book illustrates and explains the nature of every category of celestial object in a clear and concise manner.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author with this name.
Sir Alfred Patrick Caldwell-Moore, CBE, Hon FRS, FRAS, known as Patrick Moore, was an English amateur astronomer, who is the most well known English promoter of astronomy. Moore wrote numerous books on the subject, as well as make public, television and radio appearances, over the course of his long life. He is credited as having done more than any other to raise the profile of astronomy among the British general public.
The sky at night and all it's environs is synonymous with the name of Patrick Moore. The editions of his Atlas of the Universe is highly indicative of this increasingly accelerating and expanding subject. No sooner has he published one edition, the advances in the science necessitate a further edition. In just a couple of decades of abeyance from the heavens, so much has changed. The Hubble Space Telescope, who's pictures are generously included in this book, has made huge inroads into the wonder of it all. We are now 'looking' at the sky in other wavelengths than the visible. Mr Moore begins with the ancients of China and Egypt, the sky of Ptolemy and on through the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Cassini etc etc. The Solar System, contrary to popular belief, has required, and is requiring continual updates, thanks to interplanetary probes. The 'gas giants' now have more moons than the Rolling Stones have offspring. Shock horror...Pluto is no longer a planet! I really become open jawed once the book goes into deep space. Quarks, Big Bangs, atomic formations as the universe cools, increasing speeds of galaxies moving away from our sight, and perhaps Big Crunches and Black Holes. Do black holes form in the centre of galaxies? Or do black holes come first to create galaxies? Add some dark matter with a pinch of dark energy, bring to the boil and simmer for eons. Serve cold. It's a soup Jim, but not as we know it.
We are just a speck of time and dust combined together by forces of subatomic energy and the gravitational forces. People are intelligent enough to undersatb the vastness, eternity and coldness of the Universe they come from and are the part of. But the whole cosmos would have been fruitless and hopeless if deprived of emotions and senses of human beings...