This is a brief history of the solar system composed of 40 articles and presented in a “biographical” form. Instead of presenting the knowledge fragments about the solar system, the author attempts to construct a complete knowledge framework. The 40 articles (with their topics selected among hundreds of candidate topics) will enable readers to recognize the “coordinates” of the main celestial bodies in the solar system in the history of human civilization: Did they play any significant role in developing human civilization? Are they related to some of the major scientific events? How can people change their viewpoints of the Cosmos? And how does the Cosmos relate to our real life? Each section answers one of the most critical questions, and tells anecdotes about scientists. There are almost no mathematical formulas in this book, all of the knowledge points are visualized into physical pictures, and the knowledge is explained with the analogy that is close to real life.

Wang Shuang is associate professor and doctoral supervisor of the School of Physics and Astronomy, Sun Yat-Sen University.