EDITORIAL INFORMATION

When we watch a starry sky, we can't help agreeing with those ancient wise men who imagined a static, majestic universe. However, this tranquility is only apparent. Up there, comets and meteors pierce moons and planets; stars explode like colossal atomic bombs; cannibal galaxies consisting in millions of bodies devour one another. And whole worlds disappear, swallowed by the dreadful abysses which are known as black holes.

With the outstanding accuracy and the complete scientific rigour of an expert in the field, Jorge Munnshe brings us, a privileged audience, face to face with this great cosmic drama of death and destruction.

(Extracted from the back cover).

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Prólogo.

-1- Shoemaker-Levy, el Holocausto Planetario del Milenio.

-2- Catástrofes Pasadas y Futuras en el Sistema Solar.

-3- La Caótica Meteorología de Otros Mundos.

-4- Soles Caníbales.

-5- Cuando las Estrellas Explotan.

-6- Agujeros Negros, las Máquinas que Trituran Mundos.

-7- Colisiones de Galaxias.

-8- Los Rayos que Acribillan el Cosmos.

-9- El Enigma de la Materia Oscura.

-Bibliografía.

-Agradecimientos.

OUR REVIEW

Through the nine chapters in this book, the author leads us to a trip to the most violent events happening outside our planet. In a simple, clear and also a literary style, numerous phenomena are described, both in a planetary scale and to an intergalactic extent. For instance, there are sections dealing with special phenomena such as the Great Spot in Jupiter, the object known as The Great Annihilator, all kinds of storms, solar eruptions, the mysterious gamma ray bursts, some of the most massive black holes, the immense bubbles of hot gas covering vast intergalactic spaces, explosive events in stars, and many more catastrophic or violent events.

The discoveries made by the Hubble Space Telescope play an important role in several of the phenomena described in the book. The author has taken into account many of these findings so as to offer us an updated vision of these violent phenomena, including some whose existence or nature was unknown before the observations of the Hubble telescope were possible.

Last but not least, this work does not deal with general questions in astrophysics, but is solely centered in the description and explanation of the violent phenomena, even if many of them appear in many of the mechanisms that control the functioning of sky bodies and galaxies.