Why read Minding the Heavens?

Book cover of Minding the Heavens: The Story of Our Discovery of the Milky Way

Book description

Praise for the first edition:

"A terrific blend of the science and the history."

Martha Haynes, Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy, Cornell University, New York, USA

"The book is a treat... Highly recommended for public and academic libraries."

Peter Hepburn, now Head Librarian, College of the Canyons, Santa Clarita, California,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Minding the Heavens as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Barbara J. Becker

Author

Young people today casually speak of "galaxies far, far away". They seem to have an intuitive, even if fanciful, understanding that, like science fiction aliens, they and their fellow humans also reside in a galaxy of their own. A mere century ago, such a belief was a matter of highly debatable conjecture. How did earthbound observers learn that the Sun is just one of the hundreds of billions of stars bound gravitationally in a vast spiral-shaped galaxy?

As Minding the Heavens ably demonstrates, the answer to that question is a long and fascinating story, one that author Leila Belkora vividly…

From Barbara's list on the history of astrophysics.