We are made of stardust--and so is all life as we know it. All the chemical elements on earth except hydrogen--including the ones in our bodies--have been processed inside stars, scattered across the universe in great stellar explosions, and recycled to become new stars, planets, and parts of us.
In this engrossing book, John and Mary Gribbin relate the developments in twentieth-century astronomy that have led to this shattering realization. They begin their account in the 1920s, when astronomers discovered that the oldest stars are chiefly composed of the primordial elements hydrogen and...

Doomday, Dinosaurs, and Humankind An engaging and ominous history of how asteroid and comet collisions with the Earth have shaped the course of human events--and the dangers that may lie ahead.