Every night, above our heads, a drama of epic proportions is playing
out. Diamond planets, zombie stars, black holes heavier than a billion
Suns. The cast of characters is extraordinary, and each one has its own
incredible story to tell.
We once thought of our Earth as unique, but we have now discovered
thousands of alien planets, and that's barely a fraction of the worlds
that are out there. And there are more stars in the Universe than grains
of sand on every planet in the Solar System. But amid all this vastness,
the Milky Way Galaxy, our Sun and the Earth are home to the only known
life in the Universe - at least for now.
With a foreword from Professor Brian Cox, and access to all the latest
stunning NASA photography, Andrew Cohen takes readers on a voyage of
discovery, via the probes and telescopes exploring the outer reaches of
our galaxy, revealing how it was formed and how it will inevitably be
destroyed by the enigmatic black hole at its heart. And beyond our
galaxy, the expanding Universe, which holds clues to the biggest mystery
of all - how did it all begin? We now know more about those first
moments of existence than we ever thought possible, and hidden in this
story of how it all began are the clues to the fate of the Universe
itself and everything in it.