Astronomy Book

This is one of those good idea/bad idea books. In the good corner, DK does try to give as full an account as possible in a short amount of pages. In the (somewhat larger) bad corner, the information is too often without connective tissue to really draw it together into cohesive points. Also in that corner is the fact that much of the science is maddeningly under-explained (I passed the physics classes I went to, so I think I should be able to grasp the science presented for an eight year old).

Still, the book does an admirable job of covering the basics and introducing key players in the discoveries; I would have preferred more focus on the discoveries and less on the persons, but I am probably in the minority. It also seems mostly up to date (and much better than the book about the planets of the solar system from 1954 I have somewhere in my house).

I do have some quibbles, though.

p. 27 notes the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory as being located in Ukraine. Probably best to just note it being in Crimea for future editions.

p. 34 notes that NASA is planning on sending "more astronauts to the Moon." This is kind of true in that NASA would really like to do it. They just haven't figured out how to build the vehicle(s) to do it. (They probably have, but they aren't doing a good job of convincing me of that at their site.)

p. 43 ...What the hell?! What happened to the Nickel-Iron core for Earth? Or Iron-Nickel alloy core for Earth? Because even if the core of the Earth is pure iron, it should be written as "Solid iron core". Was this a choice made just to differentiate it from the outer core? It just seems misleading to me. Which probably just means that I have a flawed understanding of the only planet on which I have ever lived. And at no point is there any discussion as to what the core means to Earth, which kind of bothers me.

Quibbles.

There is more than enough information to recommend the book (especially for scientifically minded children), but it could have used more focus on simply delivering the information rather than including as many shiny baubles as possible.

And it noted the Adler Planetarium at the top of its Places to Visit list. So points for that.