The Universe and Beyond. 4th ed.

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Nearly two decades have passed since the first edition of The Universe
and Beyond appeared. Since then, the Hubble telescope, dozens of
space-shuttle missions, and several unmanned space probes have added
immeasurably to humanity’s knowledge of outer space. This fourth
edition adds new data and photographs that have been collected since the
third edition and summarizes what scientists now think they know about
the universe.

The text is divided into 11 chapters. Chapter 1, “A Journey Through
Time and Space,” provides an overview of what the mainstream
scientific community accepts as the “correct” theory (or theories)
of what we know. Other chapters include “Nearby Worlds” (our closest
neighbours in the solar system), “Realm of the Giants” (the gas
planets Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus), “Ice Worlds” (frozen
moons), “Cosmic Furnaces” (Red Dwarfs, Black Holes, and Super
Novas), “Galaxies” (origin, quasars, and galactic collisions),
“Into the Abyss” (the expanding and accelerating universe, dark
matter and energy, other universes), “In Search of
Extraterrestrials” (possibilities), “How the Universe Will End”
(fire or ice), “Telescopes for the 21st Century” (Hubble, move
over), and “Reflections on Astronomical Illustration” (where to draw
the line).

Dickinson does a masterful job at keeping his prose highly entertaining
and informative for seasoned stargazers, yet easily understandable for
novices. And, as in the earlier editions, the images he includes are
absolutely mind-boggling. Besides scores of high-resolution pictures,
are dozens of beautiful full-colour diagrams that explain how the
universe works. One of the highlights of this new edition is four pages
of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, which reveal the universe’s early days
just after the Big Bang. This book is a must-have for every library.