A Question and Answer Guide to Astronomy by Pierre-Yves Bely, Carol Christian, and Jean-René Roy (Cambridge University Press, 2010). Chris Raymond photo
This work — by authors Pierre-Yves Bely, Carol Christian, and Jean-René Roy — is an updated English version of the trio’s original book in French, first published in 2008. Divided into 10 sections, the authors provide answers to 250 questions that range from the astronomically fundamental, such as “How do refracting and reflecting telescopes differ?” and “How can one tell if the Moon is waning or waxing?” to numerous “big” conundrums, such as “What was there before the Big Bang?” and “What is life?”
Across 263 pages (not counting the reference, bibliography, and index sections), the authors tackle an amazing range of questions, each explanation generally no more than a page and most illustrated with at least one four-color image, chart, or graph to enhance understanding.
Two of the seven contents pages, which offer a glimpse of the broad range of questions this book addresses, ranging from the fundamental to the significant “big” questions that inspire scientific research today. Chris Raymond photo
Bottom line: Regardless of how advanced you consider yourself in astronomy or science in general, I don’t doubt you will find this trio’s collaborative effort intriguing and highly thought provoking — and that you’ll probably need to reread one or more entries at least twice to digest the full scope of the information presented. Because each answer also offers a reference to a related entry when necessary, it’s easy to skip and skim among questions, hitting those you find most interesting or intriguing before working through the rest of the book. I think this work should reside on every astronomy enthusiast’s bookshelf; it will certainly sit on mine.
A Question and Answer Guide to Astronomy by Pierre-Yves Bely, Carol Christian, and Jean-René Roy. Cambridge University Press, 2010. Paperback, 294 pages, 66 B/W illustrations, 305 color illustrations. $28.99 list. Available from Cambridge University Press (www.cambridge.org/us), Amazon (www.amazon.com), and other sellers.