Reddit mentions of The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millennium

It helps to know where you are starting from and where you want to go. They are big fields you can spend your life exploring.

If you are interested in just knowing what's out there, that is astronomy and space science. If you are interested in using or traveling to space, that falls under space systems engineering. That's the field I work in.

At a high-school level, there is an introductory textbook at the CK-12 Foundation. At the college level there are a number of textbooks like The Cosmos by Pasachoff. You can probably find one at your local library.

The National Academies Press has hundreds of free downloadable books on space and aeronautics.

For space systems engineering, you can try the online wikibook I have been working on, and as a bonus I'm here on reddit to answer questions.

Wikipedia has tons of articles on astronomy and space. You can start with their Astronomy Portal, and follow the links at the bottom until your eyes bleed.

For any of these, when you find something of interest, type it into google search, or YouTube and you can find more stuff.

This is a more specific question than most here, but does anyone know if this book was ever published in hardcover? It seems to be only sold in paperback everywhere.

I like The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millenium by Pasachoff & Flippenko

New expensive edition: http://www.amazon.com/Cosmos-Astronomy-New-Millennium/dp/110768756X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408850672&sr=1-1

Previous cheap edition: http://www.amazon.com/Cosmos-Astronomy-Millennium-AceAstronomy-Virtual/dp/049501303X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408850672&sr=1-2