Prefac DE DC m e What is our place in the universe This fundamental th question has been asked by almost every person who has ever lived but until quite recently in human history no one really knew the answer Today we do Thanks to the ho combined efforts of scholars and scientists both male and female and of virtually every race religion culture and nationality we now know that we live on a planet called Earth which orbits one star the Sun in one galaxy the of Milky Way in a universe filled with wonders far beyond fro anything our ancestors could ever have imagined The story of how we have learned so much about our place in the universe should fill every human with pride and with hope for the future After all if we can figure out the answer to such a deep and ancient question ar about our existence solving the problems of our time should be well within our capabilities ag Of course we can only draw lessons from a story if we are familiar with it and the sad truth is that even though a ac V1 W How to Read TI The main story is in the largest print torn dinated Items with that could prefer the line at plants is precinctly that I was almost sure any new idea en more convinced after built my first telescopes forning hope peering of everything I saw Venus appearing to change shape in a way that furnituits the Sun In Earth Assue A my sky is made up of countless By shoot 40 years ago there was a more doubt in my mind Earth is not the enter of the universe but just one of the planets orbiting Illustrations and their descriptions provide additional details about ideas in the
particular story belongs to the entire human race many ople have not yet had the privilege of hearing it This is my attempt to share the story more broadly and in a simple and compelling way Please note that in keeping this book short've simplified concepts and have left out many important historical and discoveries I hope that readers will fill in some these missing pieces for themselves In addition with help my friends at Story Time From Space we have created site that will provide you with additional details and you can try at home or in school I hope you will it www BigKidScience com ihumanity Perhaps I am naive but I believe the story told here is important one and one that will help us all learn to together to build a better future for all I hope you will ree Reach for the stars Jeffrey Bennett his Book 2 Now that there the plant arried the Sur under way To find out I used the same approach that had well for me airport made careful observations for simple ways of making some of the othervations and 1ame mathematics to make predictions that local tel ith more observations called his approach since and it on passisted my answer the very same gravity that keeps py feet on the ground also holds the Man in content around Earth and the planets in orbit around the Sun I had discovered Ins hold both The narrator T represents the entire human race As you read imagine yourself E as humanity growing from childhood long ago to young adulthood
Imagine that you could represent the entire humd through thousands of years of history and science T contain the story you would tell about how we've lea in a vast universe Milky Way Galaxy Universe
race living following pages Earth s place V Our place in the universe as we know it today Earth is a planet the third from the Sun in our solar system Our solar system is one of more than 100 billion star systems in the Milky Way Galaxy Our galaxy is one of more than 100 billion galaxies in our universe Solar System not to scale Earth
