365 Starry Nights
by Chet Raymo | 
Seeing in the Dark
by Timothy Ferris | 
Strange New Worlds
by Ray Jayawardhana | 
Wonders of the Universe
by Brian Cox | 
The Red Limit
by Timothy Ferris |
First Light
by Richard Preston | 
The Collapsing Universe
by Isaac Asimov | 
Nightwatch
by Terence Dickinson | 
The Backyard Astronomer's Guide
by Terence Dickinson |
Frozen Star
by George Greenstein | 
Universe
by Martin Rees | 
Bang!
by Brian May | 
Afterglow of Creation
by Marcus Chown | 
Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos
by Dennis Overbye | 
Wonders of the Solar System
by Brian Cox | 
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
by Neil deGrasse Tyson |
The Hidden Life of Trees
by Peter Wohlleben |
Mycelium Running
by Paul Stamets | 
This Phenomenal Life
by Misha Blaise | 
Parasite Rex
by Carl Zimmer |
The Alchemy Of The Heavens offers an exciting and accessible survey of what we know about our galaxy. The home of the earth, the sun, and countless other stars, the Milky Way has long been an object of human fascintation, but it's been in the last forty years that astromoners and astrophysicists have made the most startling discoveries about our galaxy. Author Ken Croswell reveals that the Milky Way formed as many earlier galaxies collopsed and smashed together; that may of the elements in the galaxy--including the iron and carbon that course through our bodies--were born in exploding supernovae; that in all likelihood there is a massive black hole at the center of the galaxy, with a million times more mass than the sun, and that the Milky Way's oldest stars preserve the elements created in the big bang, thereby serving as "fossils" of the universe's earliest days. A captivating journey through the modern astronomy of the Milky Way, Croswell shows us how a deeper understanding of the nature and working of the galaxy can offer larger clues into the origins of the universe itself.