William Waller’s book is subtitled “An Insider’s Guide.” One might think that from inside a galaxy we know quite a bit about our own. And we do. Much of it has come in the fairly recent past. But inside doesn’t always give the full picture. It wasn’t until just several years ago that we realized our home galaxy was a barred spiral not a classic one like this.
Mr Waller gives the reader a fairly wide range of material: history of science, including mythology about the Milky Way, the development of the evolution of stars, nebula, and other “contents” of a galaxy. Like Gould’s Belt–which up till yesterday I had never heard of. And there’s the Local Bubble, which I had.
It’s written for an intelligent lay reader: amateur astronomers won’t have any difficulty with this. Ditto intelligent high schoolers.
This book has a nice narrative to it. Learn about the wider neighborhood. Read this book.
Catholic Sensibility 