Prologue : The beginning of science
Section 1 : The nature of knowledge : the challenges of knowing what is knowable in the universe
2. On Earth as in the heavens
3. Seeing isn't believing
5. Stick-in-the-mud science
Section 2 : The knowledge of nature : the challenges of discovering the contents of the cosmos
6. Journeys from the center of the Sun
8. Vagabonds of the solar system
9. The five points of Lagrange
Section 3 : Ways and means of nature : how nature presents herself to the inquiring mind
11. The importance of being constant
Section 4 : The meaning of life : the challenges and triumphs of knowing how we got here
23. Goldilocks and the three planets
Section 5 : When the universe turns bad : all the ways the cosmos wants to kill us
28. Chaos in the solar system
Section 6 : Science and culture : the ruffled interface between cosmic discovery and the public's reaction to it
37. Footprints in the sands of science
Section 7 : Science and God : when ways of knowing collide
42. The perimeter of ignorance
