Cosmic Quest Omnibus - The Galaxy and Beyond

Early ideas about the nature of the Milky Way and fuzzy patches or nebulae were transformed by precise astronomical measurements. It took several centuries for astronomers to accept that the Milky Way is a giant body of stars of which our solar system is but one outlying member. As techniques to estimate the distances of stars improved, the nebulae were revealed to be galaxies in their own right, island universes that were flying apart in a great expansion from the big bang of creation. Read by Timothy West, Annette Badland, Robin Sebastian, Julian Rhind-Tutt, John Palmer.