Hubble: The Mirror on the Universe

To the naked eye, the heavens may look monochrome and still-blue during the day, black at night, dotted with little sparkles of starlight. But the universe as shown to us by the Hubble Space Telescope-as shown extravagantly in the photos in this volume-is full of color, as well as movement and drama. Kerrod, an astronomer and author, explains the heavenly phenomena captured by the HST: the smoky Ring Nebula in the constellation Lyra; the birth of stars; Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 headed for a fiery impact with Jupiter. She also provides a history of the use of telescopes in astronomy and of the HST in particular, from its launch in 1990 and the emergency repair of a flawed mirror, to the later servicings of what Kerrod calls "one of the most amazing scientific instruments ever made."