Books in Space Explorers series

The V.R. Space Explorers set off to solve the mystery of Titan's black cat. Each one of our young scientists has a job on the mission and the story is full of real science facts! With the help of the on-board Al (artificial intelligence) lead instructor, Dr. Bruce, they quickly realize they can't fly to Titan to investigate in person. But no worries, our young explorers can travel to the farthest reaches of space to conduct their scientific research using the space station's virtual reality explorer room. Before you know it, our young scientists are on their way (virtually, because they'd be way too old if they went in person!) to Saturn's moon, Titan, to investigate the mysterious black cat transmission.Dr. Bruce Betts is a planetary scientist who earned a B.S. in Physics and Math and an M.S. in Applied Physics from Stanford and a Ph.D. in Planetary Science with a minor in Geology from Caltech. He spent several years with San Juan Institute/Planetary Science Institute as a Research Scientist, and later Senior Research Scientist. He studied planetary surfaces, including Mars, the Moon, and Jupiter's moons, using infrared and other data, and published several scientific papers on these subjects. He spent three years at NASA headquarters managing planetary instrument development programs to design spacecraft science instruments. He is currently the Chief Scientist and LightSail Program Manager for The Planetary Society, the world's largest space interest group.

On any clear night, the night sky offers an ever-changing display of fascinating objects, visible to the naked eye: stars, constellations, bright planets, the moon, human-made satellites, and sometimes even meteor showers or the International Space Station. With gorgeous high-definition imagery and a wealth of charts, graphs, and infographics, readers will find here what is visible in the night sky at various times of the year and from what locations around the world. They will learn what additional objects they can see with the help of telescopes, binoculars, and sky maps. Also featured are skywatching terms and night sky observing tips.

Your readers will take a thrilling and mind-boggling voyage of discovery throughout the universe with this information-packed and gorgeously illustrated volume. And when we say "the universe," we mean all of space and time and all that is contained within them, including planets, moons, stars, galaxies, matter, and energy. So this is a grand tour indeed, encompassing the birth of the universe with the Big Bang, hypotheses on its eventual demise, and fascinating conjectures about its shape and possible alternate "mulitiverses." Also examined is humanity's evolving understanding of the universe and the latest discoveries. Always front and center, however, are the universe's many marvels and wonders, all the heavenly bodies, celestial objects, and mind-blowing phenomena that comprise existence past, present, and future.

Luminous spheres of plasma held together by their own gravity, each star is born out of the collapse of gaseous nebula and develops a core that radiates astounding amounts of energy, the result of thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium, through its interior and across outer space. Ever-expanding, the star throws off mass, which helps form new stars, while the core begins to collapse, becoming a white dwarf, a neutron star, or even a black hole. Multiply this single star by 300 sextillion and you see how much drama and energy exist in the universe. The sheer wonder and power of stars is on full display here, with stunning high-definition photographs, intricate computer renderings, cutaway diagrams, and infographics.

Early humans turned what they could see above them into rich creation myths. Later philosophers created cosmologies that pushed myth closer toward empiricism. The flat disc universe yielded to celestial spheres, and the stationary Earth at the center of it all yielded to a spinning planet in a heliocentric solar system that was one of only untold hundreds of billions of solar systems in hundreds of billions of galaxies. This expansion of the cosmos was further revolutionized by theoretical physics, including the theory of relativity. The mind-expanding history of humanity's understanding of the universe is related here with gorgeous full-color photographs, captivating primary source imagery, and loads of capsule information and infographics.