This volume will guide you in a fantastic voyage through the universe that surrounds us, into the mysteries of black holes, into explosions of gamma rays, to the nearby planets ? Mars, Saturn and Venus ? and on to the exoplanets. You'll be accompanied in the crossing by incredible images collected over the years by satellites, orbital telescopes, and the International Space Station, fixed on the incredible moments of the life above us. You'll visit Mars, the Red Planet, where the most recent space missions ? including NASA's Mars Curiosity mission ? have sought proof of the existence of some form of life: on November 26, 2011, Curiosity was launched from Cape Canaveral. The Curiosity rover is a car-sized robotic rover exploring Gale Crater on Mars as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission (MSL). Moreover, you'll discover other marvels of the solar system, like Saturn's rings or the gases that envelop Jupiter. You'll retrace the main stages of the various explorations: from the first experimental launches of the 1950s, passing through the enterprises of Yuri Gagarin, the first man to orbit the Earth, and on to the race to conquer the moon in the 1960s. You'll revisit the successes, achievements and accidents of the shuttles, the International Space Station, and the Hubble Space Telescope, and follow the itineraries of the probes reaching now to the edges of our Solar System. AUTHOR: Marcello D'Angelo was the American correspondent for Il Secolo XIX, head of the Home Affairs News Department for the AdnKronos news agency and also completed a traineeship with The Washington Post. Subsequently, he founded the communications company InMedia and then became head of External Relations for the Italian Space Agency. SELLING POINTS: ?A fantastic journey through the solar system, from the Sun to Pluto, on to the ends of the universe. ?The entire history of space exploration, the secrets of black holes, gamma ray explosions, and curiosities about the individual planets, including the Mars mission with the Curiosity rover. ?Spectacular photographs taken from NASA archives. ILLUSTRATIONS: Colour photographs
