This beautifully illustrates atlas takes you on a journey of discovery from our home planet, through the Solar System, and on to the Milky Way and beyond. This ultimate guide to the universe combines hundreds of specially commissioned maps, diagrams and illustrations, with the very latest colour photographs of the cosmos. It begins at home with a survey of planet Earth and the Moon. Then, chapter by chapter, ever-larger regions of the cosmos are considered until, ultimately, the entire visible universe is revealed. At each stage charting diagrams and maps are provided to make sense of the vast scale of the universe. The planets and many of the satellites of the Solar System are shown in beautifully rendered maps of exquisite detail. The book also offers a series of expertly crafted seasonal star maps for both the southern and northern hemispheres, and a complete cartographic survey of the constellations that will enable the enthusiast to trace the patterns in the sky that have fascinated humankind for thousands of years.

In this guided tour of our planetary neighborhood, the Milky Way and other galaxies, and beyond, detailed maps and fascinating imagery from recent space missions partner with clear, authoritative scientific information. For this new edition, and to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his moonwalk, astronaut and American hero Buzz Aldrin offers a new special section on Earth's moon and its essential role in space exploration past and future.

The ultimate family reference which combines sophisticated cartography with hundreds of photos, satellite views, illustrations, diagrams and charts to document our world as never before.

What makes one atlas better than another? Accuracy, up-to-date information, ease of use, attractive maps, completeness, utility, authority?. All these features come together in the The Macmillan World Atlas and are set off by a presentation of unparalleled beauty. FRATURES OF THE MACMILLAN WORLD ATLAS: Maps created from a revolutionary new digital cartographic database 28 pages of dazzling satellite photographs 138 photos of natural and cultural sites 288 pages of extraordinary beautiful and accurate color maps Locator maps, time zones, and scale in feet and kilometers on each map spread 105,000-entry index Single, unifies, detailed scale of 1:4.5 million used throughout the world Plus additional close-up maps of the United States and southern Canada at 1:2.25 million scale Detailed road mapping information for the business and leisure traveler Realistic, natural map coloration A new standard for beauty, accuracy, and utility

After the enormous international success of The Phantom Atlas and The Golden Atlas, Edward Brooke-Hitching's stunning new book unveils some of the most beautiful maps and charts ever created during mankind's quest to map the skies above us. This richly illustrated treasury showcases the finest examples of celestial cartography - a glorious genre of map-making often overlooked by modern map books - as well as medieval manuscripts, masterpiece paintings, ancient star catalogues, antique instruments and other appealing curiosities. This is the sky as it has never been presented before: the realm of stars and planets, but also of gods, devils, weather wizards, flying sailors, medieval aliens, mythological animals and rampaging spirits. The reader is taken on a tour of star-obsessed cultures around the world, learning about Tibetan sky burials, star-covered Inuit dancing coats, Mongolian astral prophets and Sir William Herschel's 1781 discovery of Uranus, the first planet to be found since antiquity. Even stranger are the forgotten stories from European history, like the English belief of the Middle Ages in ships that sailed a sea above the clouds, 16th-century German UFO sightings and the Edwardian aristocrat who mistakenly mapped alien-made canals on the surface of Mars. As the intricacies of our universe are today being revealed with unprecedented clarity, there has never been a better time for a highly readable book as beautiful as the night sky to contextualise the scale of these achievements for the general reader.