Here is the essential guide to astronomy, an authoritative reference book and timeline that traces how, over many centuries, great minds have figured out where we and our planet fit in the great expanse of the Universe. Since time immemorial people have looked out into the night sky and brought back knowledge on how the Universe works.

Gradually astronomers have learned how it all began — in a Big Bang — and are now faced with a variety of possible endings for space as we know it. The history of astronomy is as long as civilisation itself: The megalithic cultures of Stonehenge and Carnac sought to anchor themselves to the workings of the cosmos, and as today's astronomers search for alien planets and seek out dark matter, perhaps we are just the same.