Exploring Space

Gr 6–8—While the page design is the opposite of "spacious," these richly detailed summary accounts offer broad pictures of our ventures into the immediate celestial neighborhood and what we know or believe about the universe at large. Universe begins with black holes and goes on to describe, among much else, galactic types and life cycles, quantum and string theory, the "Fab Four," the search for extraterrestrial life, and dark matter. Along with mixes of photos, graphic conceptions, constellation maps, and cutaway views of various spacecraft, the narrative is supplemented by many inset lists, sets of facts, space mission profiles, and biographical notes. The information is current, but unevenly so; the arrival of the New Horizons probe near Pluto in mid-2015 gets a mention in Exploring Space, for instance, but the MAVEN and Mars Orbiter Mission craft are described as not having reached orbit—though they both did in 2014. Also, Shuttles and Space Missions does not cover recent commercial space initiatives, and there is no mention in any volume of exoplanet discoveries.