Sun

Awe-inspiring and familiar, comforting yet sometimes frightening, the sun is the center around which all life revolves. Now, an expert on solar images teams up with a noted science writer to present a photographic book devoted entirely to the sun, illustrating the star we know and revealing recent discoveries.

Dramatic images from photographers, observatories, and satellites are organized as viewed first from the ground, then from earth's atmosphere and the edge of space, and finally from the surface of the sun itself. Through these images and a clear, precise text, the authors explore the intricate dance between the sun and earth, examining this relationship in both mythical and scientific terms. Perhaps best of all, the book's compact, square size makes The Sun as inviting to hold as it is to read.

Photo researcher and sun-watcher Steele Hill has been a media specialist for the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) mission since 1996. He is probably more familiar with the images from SOHO and other recent solar missions than anyone else on the planet. Hill lives in Maryland.

A science writer and editor, as well as the author of Storms from the Sun, Michael Carlowicz has written dozens of articles on space and earth sciences, most recently for Oceanus magazine and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He lives on Cape Cod.