A memoir from a world-renowned planetary scientist explores her remarkable life story, the struggles she faced as a woman in the field, and her work as the leader of NASA's Psyche mission to explore the largest known metal-rich asteroid.

"Covering Nobel Prize winners and major innovators, as well as lesser-known but hugely significant scientists who influence our every day, Rachel Swaby's ... profiles span centuries of courageous thinkers and illustrate how each one's ideas developed, from their first moment of scientific engagement through the research and discovery for which they're best known"--Page 4 of cover.

In late-eighteenth-century Ireland, accidental stargazer Caroline Ainsworth learns that her life is not what it seems when her father, Arthur, throws himself from his rooftop observatory. Caroline had often assisted her father with his observations, in pursuit of an unknown planet; when astronomer William Herschel discovered Uranus, Caroline could only watch helplessly as unremitting jealousy drove Arthur to madness. Now, gone blind from staring at...

Describes the life and work of Eratosthenes, the Greek geographer and astronomer who accurately measured the circumference of the Earth.

It is 1845, and Hannah Gardner Price has lived all twenty-four years of her life according to the principles of the Nantucket Quaker community in which she was raised, where simplicity and restraint are valued above all, and a woman's path is expected to lead to marriage and motherhood. But up on the rooftop each night, Hannah pursues a very different -- and elusive -- goal: discovering a comet and thereby winning a gold medal awarded by the King...

"A biography of twentieth-century American astronomer Edwin Hubble who is renowned for determining that there are other galaxies in the Universe beyond the Milky Way, and for observing that the universe is expanding at a constant rate. Includes related activities for readers"--

Augustine, a brilliant, aging astronomer, refuses to abandon the research center in the Arctic when he receives news of a catastrophic event. Soon after, he discovers a mysterious child and realizes that the airwaves have gone silent. They are alone. Meanwhile, Mission Specialist Sullivan and her crew, the first astronauts to delve into deep space, discover that Mission Control is no longer on the air. Sullivan's career has cost her her marriage,...

Profiles four women who have been integral to NASA's space program, helping to develop the Hubble Space Telescope, create computer code to send spacecraft to the moon, and work onboard the space shuttle.

"1938. The Golden Age of Hollywood. Palm trees and movie stars. Film studios pumping out musicals, westerns, and gangster films at a furious pace. Everyone wants to be a star--except society girl and aspiring astronomer Kate Hildebrand, who'd rather study them in the night sky. She's already famous after a childhood tragedy turned her into a newspaper headline. What she craves is stability. But when Kate has to move to Hollywood to live with her washed-up...