Celestial Treasury

Marc Lachièze-Rey is a director of research at the Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique and astrophysicist at the Centre d'Etudes de Saclay. He is the author of the The Cosmic Background Radiation (1999), and Cosmology: A First Course (1995), both published by Cambridge University Press, and The Quest for Unity published by Oxford University Press (1999), as well as many books in French. Jean-Pierre Luminet is a research director of the Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique, based at the Paris-Meudon observatory. In addition to many research papers in cosmology, the structure of space-time and relativistic astrophysics, he has written several popular science articles and books (including Black Holes, Cambridge University Press, 1992), as well as science documentaries for television. Beyond his outstanding scientific research, he is also a renowned expert in the history of cosmology, and astronomical art and poetry. His first novel, Le rendez-vous de Vénus, was published in 1999 by JC Lattès.

Part I. Celestial Harmony: 1. Geometry and the cosmos; 2. The celestial hierarchy; 3. The grandeur of space; 4. Finite or infinite?; 5. The structure of the world; 6. Celestial music; 7. World systems; Part II. Uranometry: 8. Mapping the sky; 9. Naming the stars; 10. The development of celestial atlases; 11. The depths of space; Part III. The Creation: 12. From myth to myth; 13. The metamorphosis of chaos; 14. Time and creation; 15. The Creator; 16. The order of creation; 17. The date of creation; 18. The theory of evolution; 19. The Big Bang; 20. A modern creation; Part IV. Creatures of the Sky: 21. Humanity beneath the sky; 22. The sky in humanity; 23. Humanity in the sky; 24. The worlds in the sky.