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The problem is when it comes to big, I know whether or not we are thinking of our children are not frame, the young people of the sea and drowned or adult message of confusion. Researchers have found a new variety - a minor, despite many problems, and conundrums is very exciting, so that to prove the vibrant mature science.           Emerging Picture of the Universe       The progress of astronomy — or, more precisely, astrophysics — over the past century, and particularly the past generation, is not easily pigeon-holed. On the one hand, profound truths have tumbled abundantly from the sky. Here are four diverse examples:   1. Our universe began some 14 billion years ago in a single cataclysmic event called the Big Bang. 2. Galaxies reside mainly in huge weblike ensembles. 3. Our neighbouring planets and their satellites come in a bewildering variety. 4. Earth itself is threatened (at least within politicians’ horizons) by impacts from mean-spirited asteroids or comets.   On the other hand, ordinary citizens may well feel that astronomers are a confused lot and that they are farther away than ever from understanding how the universe is put together and how it works. For example, ‘yesterday’ we were told the universe is expanding as a consequence of the Big Bang; ‘today’ we are told it is accelerating due to some mysterious and possibly unrelated force. It doesn’t help that the media dine exclusively on ‘gee-whiz’ results, many of them contradictory and too often reported without historical context. I can’t help but savour the pre-1960s era, before quasars and pulsars were discovered, when we naïvely envisioned a simple, orderly universe understandable in everyday terms.   ...Where do astronomers go from here? ‘Towards the unknown’ may seem like a cliché, but it isn’t. With so much of the universe invisible or unsampled, there simply have to be many enormous surprises awaiting!   When it comes to the Big Questions, I don’t know whether we are children unable to frame our thoughts, or teenagers at sea, or adults awash in obfuscating information. Researchers find the plethora of new discoveries — despite myriad loose ends and conundrums — to be very exciting, for it attests to the vibrancy and maturation of the science. Yet, as we enter the 21st century, astronomers are still a very long way from answering the two most common and profound questions people ask: what kind of universe do we live in, and is life pervasive?              —  Leif J. Robinson, in Foreword to Philip's Astronomy Encyclopedia             Indexes/05