Responsible for the greatest advances in astronomy since Copernicus, William and Caroline Herschel transformed our view of the heavens. A trained musician, amateur scientist William found international fame after discovering the planet Uranus in 1781. His partnership with his sister Caroline yielded groundbreaking work, including techniques that remain in use today.
The duo pioneered comprehensive surveys of the night sky, carefully categorising every visible object in the void. Caroline wrote an influential catalogue of nebulae and William discovered infrared radiation. Michael Lemonick guides readers through the depths of the solar system and into his protagonists' private lives. Erudite and accessible, "The Georgian Star" is a lively portrait of the pair who invented modern astronomy.
* MICHAEL LEMONICK teaches at Princeton, Columbia and Johns Hopkins Universities. The author of several books, he was formerly a senior science writer at Time. * Author website: www.mikelemonick.com and blog: time-blog.com/eye_on_science/