The Complete Idiot's Guide to Astronomy 2nd Ed

You are not alone. Relax. That statement has nothing to do with the existence of extraterrestrial life— though we will get around to that, too, way out in Chapter 24, “Table for One.” For the present, it applies only to our mutual interest in astronomy. For we (the authors) and you (the reader) have come together because we are the kind of people who look up at the sky a lot and have all kinds of questions about it. This habit hardly brands us as unique. Astronomy, the scientific study of matter in outer space, is among the most ancient of human studies. The very earliest scientific records we have—from Babylon, from Egypt, from China—all concern astronomy.