Using dramatic illustrations, many courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope, this book is an opportunity for readers to take a grand tour of the universe. Begin with our home solar system and its diverse planets and moons. Then move on to the home of our solar system, the Milky Way galaxy with its billions of stars. Here readers can trace the life cycle of our solar system’s sun, from its birth to its quiet end some six billion years yet to come.

Move into the universe, where galaxies are merely building blocks for billions and billions of stars. But the universe is not about single stars for starstuff is only a minor bit in a universe where dark matter and dark energy would seem to rule.

What do we know? What remains for us to learn?

No matter how much we learn about the universe and its many components, we still don’t have the answer. How did the universe begin? How did the universe end? We may never have all the answers, but here, hidden in the pictures and charts, are clues that will strengthen understanding about the small corner of the universe we call home and about the starstuff scattered throughout, the starstuff that flows through each of us.

Here readers will find imagery from observatories, from space missions, from x-ray and infrared telescopes. Along with maps of the planets and their moons, readers can glide through the universe of a mission of knowledge and discovery.

Highly recommended, especially for readers interested in expanding their knowledge of the universe. ( )

All of those spectacular Hubble photos in one book. ( )

Another large-format beauty of a picture book. Many of the images are cast in the form of maps, especially when it comes to the solar system's planets and large moons (taking up half the book). I think it is a major design flaw to have the maps split across facing pages, so that a strip down the middle gets lost in the book's binding.