This volume will guide you in a fantastic voyage through the universe that surrounds us, into the mysteries of black holes, into explosions of gamma rays, to the nearby planets-Mars, Saturn and Venus-and on to the exoplanets. You'll be accompanied in the crossing by incredible images collected over the years by satellites, orbital telescopes, and the International Space Station, fixed on the incredible moments of the life above us. You'll visit Mars, the Red Planet, where the most recent space missions- including NASA's Mars Curiosity mission-have sought proof of the existence of some form of life: on November 26, 2011, Curiosity was launched from Cape Canaveral. The Curiosity rover is a car-sized robotic rover exploring Gale Crater on Mars as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission (MSL). Moreover, you'll discover other marvels of the solar system, like Saturn's rings or the gases that envelop Jupiter. You'll retrace the main stages of the various explorations: from the first experimental launches of the 1950s, passing through the enterprises of Yuri Gagarin, the first man to orbit the Earth, and on to the race to conquer the moon in the 1960s. You'll revisit the successes, achievements and accidents of the shuttles, the International Space Station, and the Hubble Space Telescope, and follow the itineraries of the probes reaching now to the edges of our Solar System.