FLO4571640: Antoinette de Pons, Marquise de Guercheville, Countess de La Roche-Guyon, Lady of Honour to Marie de Medici, 1560-1632. Handcoloured lithograph directed by Breton and Borromee after a contemporary engraving from Le Bibliophile Jacob aka Paul Lacroix's Costumes Historique de la France (Historical Costumes of France), Administration de Librairie, Paris, 1852. / Bridgeman Images

FLO4571655: Master of the Chamber of Accounts, reign of King Henry IV of France. Handcoloured lithograph directed by Breton and Borromee after a miniature from Le Bibliophile Jacob aka Paul Lacroix's Costumes Historique de la France (Historical Costumes of France), Administration de Librairie, Paris, 1852. / Bridgeman Images

PIX4571657: Star Sky in Winter - Starry Sky in Winter - A woman in the Lofoten Mountains in Norway. In the sky, the winter hexagon, an asterism formed by the stars Sirius (masked by the mountain), Procyon, Pollux, Capella, Aldebaran and Rigel. A female hiker is seen on the top of a mountain in Lofoten, Norway, under the Winter Hexagon, an asterism formed by Sirius (hidden by the mountain), Procyon, Pollux, Capella, Aldebaran and Rigel / Bridgeman Images

PIX4571678: Shooting star rain - Perseides - Shooting star rain of the Perseid swarm seen on August 13, 2013. The Perseides are a rain of shooting stars associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle. Meteors as appeared in the sky during the peak hours of 2013 Perseid Meteor Shower / Bridgeman Images

PIX4571699: Star Antares in Scorpio - Star Antares in Scorpius - Supergeant star - On its left the globular cluster M4. To its left, the globular cluster M4 / Bridgeman Images

FLO4571738: Antoine Coiffier de Ruze, Marquis d'Effiat, Marshal of France and Superintendent of Finance to King Louis XIII, 1581-1632. Handcoloured lithograph after a print by Jean Valdor from Le Bibliophile Jacob aka Paul Lacroix's Costumes Historique de la France (Historical Costumes of France), Administration de Librairie, Paris, 1852. / Bridgeman Images

PIX4571743: Capella Star in the Coach - Star Capella in Auriga - The brightest star in the constellation of the Coach, Capella (Aur), is a yellow giant star with an apparent magnitude of 0.08 and the sixth brightest star in the sky. Located 42 years of light from us, it is one of the 100 closest stars on Earth. Star Capella in Auriga constellation is the 6th brightest star in the night sky. It is located 42 light years from the earth / Bridgeman Images

FLO4571744: Antoine du Pluvinel, French riding master, 1852 (lithograph), Van de Passe, Willem (c.1598-c.1637) (after) / Bridgeman Images

PIX4571758: Star Vega in the Lyre - Star Vega in infrared - Vega (Alpha Lyrae) is the main star of the constellation Lyra, located only 25.4 light years from the Sun. It is the second brightest star after Sirius in the northern hemisphere. It's seen here in infrared by the Spitzer space telescope. Observed in this wavelength, the dust cloud surrounding the star appears. Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope captured these images of the star Vega, located 25 light years away in the constellation Lyra. Spitzer was able to detect the heat radiation from the cloud of dust around the star and found that the debris disk is much larger than previously thought. This side - by - side comparison, taken by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer, shows the warm infrared glows from dust particles orbiting the star at wavelengths of 24 microns (on the left in blue) and 70 microns (on the right in red). Both images show a very large, circular and smooth debris disk. The disk radius extends to at least 815 astronomical units. (One astronomical unit is the distance from Earth to the Sun, which is 150 - million kilometers or 93 - million miles). Scientists compared the surface brightness of the disk in the infrared wavelengths to determine the temperature distribution of the disk and then refer the corresponding particle size in the disk. Most of the particles in the disk are only a few microns in size, or 100 times smaller than a grain of Earth sand. These fine dust particles originate from collisions of embryonic planets near the star at a radius of approximately 90 astronomical units, and are then blown away by Vega's intense radiation. The mass and short lifetime of these small particles indicate that the disk detected by Spitzer is the aftermath of a large and relatively recent collision, involving bodies perhaps as big as the planet Pluto. The images are 3 arcminutes on each side. North is oriented upward and east is to the left / Bridgeman Images

FLO4571759: Antoine de Saint Chamans, Lord of Mery, Lord of Meri, 1563-1627. Handcoloured lithograph after a portrait in Roger de Gaignieres' gallery portfolio X 38 from Le Bibliophile Jacob aka Paul Lacroix's Costumes Historique de la France (Historical Costumes of France), Administration de Librairie, Paris, 1852. / Bridgeman Images

FLO4571798: Louise Motier de Lafayette, 1618-1665, French broker and friend to King Louis XIII. Handcoloured lithograph after a portrait in Roger de Gaignieres' portfolios from Le Bibliophile Jacob aka Paul Lacroix's Costumes Historique de la France (Historical Costumes of France), Administration de Librairie, Paris, 1852. / Bridgeman Images

FLO4571802: Marie de Hautefort, Duchesse de Schomberg, French noble and lady-in-waiting at the court of King Louis XIII, 1616-1691. Handcoloured lithograph after a contemporary portrait in Versailles from Le Bibliophile Jacob aka Paul Lacroix's Costumes Historique de la France (Historical Costumes of France), Administration de Librairie, Paris, 1852. / Bridgeman Images

PIX4571821: Proxima Star of Centauri - Proxima Centauri - Proxima of Centaur (in the center of the image) is the closest star to the Sun, at a distance of 4.2 years - light. Image obtained from the 1.2m Schmidt UK telescope of Siding Spring. Proxima Centauri is the nearest known star to the sun, at a distance of about 4.2 light years. It is an intrinsically faint red star, more than ten magnitudes (ten thousand times) fainter than the Sun. It is also much cooler, with a surface temperature of about 3100 C. Its visual (apparent) magnitude is eleven, so it is only visible with a good telescope, and only then from southern latitudes. Proxima is about one - tenth the mass of the sun, which accounts for its low surface temperature. It is possibly an outlying member of the triple alpha Centauri system just a few light days closer to us than the other, much brighter stars in the group / Bridgeman Images

FLO4571828: George Brossin, Knight of Mother, soldier and writer, 1610-1685. Handcoloured lithograph after an engraved portrait from Le Bibliophile Jacob aka Paul Lacroix's Costumes Historique de la France (Historical Costumes of France), Administration de Librairie, Paris, 1852. / Bridgeman Images

PIX4571830: The three stars that make up the Centaur Alpha System are the closest stars to the Sun. The image on the left shows the double alpha star of the Centauri (Alpha Centauri A and B) overexposed to the red dwarf star Proxima of the Centaurus (indicated by the arrow). Proxima du Centaur is located at a distance of 4.22 years - light from the Sun but is invisible to the naked eye. Alpha Centauri A and B are a little further away, 4.36 years from the Sun. These two stars are relatively similar to the Sun. Although Proxima of Centauri is distant from the Alpha couple of Centauri, its movement seems to link it to this system and is sometimes called Alpha Centauri C. Location of the Alpha Centauri triple stellar system in the sky. The brighter stars (Alpha Centauri A and B) are strongly overexposed, with the outlying member, Proxima lying approx. 2.2* to the south - west (arrow). Smaller areas around the stars are shown in the inserts to the right. The photo has been reproduced from a blue - sensitive photographic plate obtained by the ESO 1 - m Schmidt Telescope, a wide - angle telescope at the La Silla observatory in Chile that has now been decommissioned. The Alpha Centauri triple stellar system is our closest neighbour in space. It is located at a distance of 4.36 light - years, or 41 million km, in the direction of the southern constellation Centaurus (The Centaur). The two main stars in the system, Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, are rather similar to the Sun; their stellar spectral types are “” G2V”” and “” K1V””, respectively. The third star is a “” red dwarf”” known as Proxima. It is much cooler and smaller than the other two. Alpha Centauri A and B orbit each other at a distance of about 3600 million km, or somewhat more than the distance of planet Uranus from the Sun. The orbital period is almost exactly 80 years. Their smaller companion, Proxima, is about / Bridgeman Images

PIX4571864: Barnard's Star Movement - The proper motion of Barnard's star - Barnard's Star is a red dwarf less than six years from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus. Its proximity makes it move quickly ahead of the other stars. Barnard's star is known for having the most important clean movement. This composite image made from three images taken in 1988 (blue), 1991 (red) and 1993 (green) shows the shift of the star in 15 years. Barnard's Star is red dwarf star approximately 6 light - years away from Earth in the constellation of Ophiuchus Its proper motion is 10.3 arcseconds per year, which remains the largest known proper motion of any star relative to the Sun. The monochrome plates from which this 3 - colour picture were made were taken in 1988 (blue), 1991 (red) and 1993 (green) showing its movement over 15 years / Bridgeman Images

FLO4571901: Louis, Duke of Burgundy and Dauphin of France, 1682-1712. Louis, Duke of Burgundy, Little Dauphin of France 1697. Handcoloured lithograph after a print by Bonnard from Le Bibliophile Jacob aka Paul Lacroix's Costumes Historique de la France (Historical Costumes of France), Administration de Librairie, Paris, 1852. / Bridgeman Images

PIX4573100: Planet around the star Fomalhaut - Planet orbiting star Fomalhaut - First visible light photo of an extrasolar planet obtained by the space telescope Hubble. The planet called Fomalhaut b, is a planet with a mass close to Jupiter, orbiting the star Fomalhaut, 25 years - light from Earth in the constellation of Southern Fish. The star Fomalhaut (indicated by a white dot) is hidden here to show the dust disc surrounding it and the position of the planet. Located at a distance of about four times that separating Neptune from the Sun, Fomalhaut b makes a complete orbit around its star in 872 years. November 2008 - This image, taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the newly discovered planet, Fomalhaut b, orbiting its parent star, Fomalhaut. The small white box at lower right pinpoints the planet's location. Fomalhaut b has carved a path along the inner edge of a vast, dusty debris ring encircling Fomalhaut that is 34.5 billion kilometers across. Fomalhaut b lies three billion kilometers inside the ring's inner edge and orbits 17 billion kilometers from its star. The inset at bottom right is a composite image showing the planet's position during Hubble observations taken in 2004 and 2006. Astronomers have calculated that Fomalhaut b completes an orbit around its parent star every 872 years. The white dot in the centre of the image marks the star's location. The region around Fomalhaut's location is black because astronomers used the Advanced Camera's coronagraph to block out the star's bright glare so that the dim planet could be seen. Fomalhaut b is 100 million times fainter than its star. The radial streaks are scattered starlight. The red dot at lower left is a background star. The Fomalhaut system is 25 light - years away in the constellation Piscis Austrinus. This false - colour image was taken in October 2004 and July 2006 / Bridgeman Images

PIX4573107: Planet around the star Fomalhaut - Planet orbiting star Fomalhaut - First visible light photo of an extrasolar planet obtained by the space telescope Hubble. The planet called Fomalhaut b, is a planet with a mass close to Jupiter, orbiting the star Fomalhaut, 25 years - light from Earth in the constellation of Southern Fish. The star Fomalhaut (indicated by a white dot) is hidden here to show the dust disc surrounding it and the position of the planet. Located at a distance of about four times that separating Neptune from the Sun, Fomalhaut b makes a complete orbit around its star in 872 years. November 2008 - This image, taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the newly discovered planet, Fomalhaut b, orbiting its parent star, Fomalhaut. The small white box at lower right pinpoints the planet's location. Fomalhaut b has carved a path along the inner edge of a vast, dusty debris ring encircling Fomalhaut that is 34.5 billion kilometers across. Fomalhaut b lies three billion kilometers inside the ring's inner edge and orbits 17 billion kilometers from its star. The inset at bottom right is a composite image showing the planet's position during Hubble observations taken in 2004 and 2006. Astronomers have calculated that Fomalhaut b completes an orbit around its parent star every 872 years. The white dot in the centre of the image marks the star's location. The region around Fomalhaut's location is black because astronomers used the Advanced Camera's coronagraph to block out the star's bright glare so that the dim planet could be seen. Fomalhaut b is 100 million times fainter than its star. The radial streaks are scattered starlight. The red dot at lower left is a background star. The Fomalhaut system is 25 light - years away in the constellation Piscis Austrinus. This false - colour image was taken in October 2004 and July 2006 / Bridgeman Images

FLO4573109: King Louis Philippe I of France 1773-1850. Handcoloured lithograph from Le Bibliophile Jacob aka Paul Lacroix's Costumes Historique de la France (Historical Costumes of France), Administration de Librairie, Paris, 1852. / Bridgeman Images

PIX4573224: Exoplanets around 70 Virginis - A jovian planet orbiting 70 Virginis - Artist's view of the extrasolar planet 70 Vir B, a giant gas planet orbiting around a solar star, about 78 years old - light from the Sun. This exoplanet has about 6 times the mass of Jupiter and its distance from its star 70 Virginis is almost the same as that of Mercury from the Sun. A ringed 70 Vir B presides over the hot and airless terrain of a hypothetical moon. While it is not known if 70 Vir B has rings, it is certainly possible. 70 Vir B's rings would have no ice in them due to is proximity to its sun. Such rings would likely be less than 100 million years old and could have been formed from the shattered remnants of an asteroid that wondered too close to this giant planet. 70 Vir B's eccentric orbit would increase the likelihood of its encountering other objects in orbit around 70 Virginis. About 78 light years from the Earth astronomers believe that there is a large planet orbiting 70 Virginis, a type G5V star (similar to our own sun). Designated 70 Vir B, this planet is believed to have over six times the mass of the planet Jupiter and orbits around its sun in an eccentric orbit once every 116 days. 70 Vir B's average distance from its sun is about the same as that of the planet Mercury from our own sun / Bridgeman Images

FLO4573247: Coffee maker - Coffee tree with ripe fruit, Coffea arabica 1, and sugar cane, Saccharum officinarum 2. Handcoloured copperplate engraving from Friedrich Johann Bertuch's “” Bilderbuch fur Kinder”” (Picture Book for Children), Weimar, 1792. / Bridgeman Images

FLO4573261: Asian elephant, Elephas maximus, endangered, and Bactrian camel, Camelus bactrianus, critically endangered. Handcoloured copperplate engraving from Bertuch's “” Bilderbuch fur Kinder”” (Picture Book for Children), Weimar, 1792. Friedrich Johann Bertuch (1747-1822) was a German publisher and man of arts most famous for his 12-volume encyclopedia for children illustrated with 1,200 engraved plates on natural history, science, costume, mythology, etc., published from 1790-1830. / Bridgeman Images

PIX4573280: Life on an exoplanet - Alien flora - Artist's view of an extrasolar planet where plant life developed there. Artwork showing an exoplanet with vegetal life / Bridgeman Images

PIX4573296: Colors of Plants on Alien Worlds - An artist's view of extrasolar planets where plant life could be very different from what we know on Earth. Artwork showing different colors of vegetal life on exoplanets / Bridgeman Images

PIX4573350: Planete extrasolaire - Artist view - Extrasolar planet - Artist vie / Bridgeman Images

PIX4573351: Artist's View of a Hot Jupiter - Artist's View of a Giant Gas Exoplanet Very Close to its Star, Dixon, Don (b.1951) / Bridgeman Images

FLO4573357: Pastel of dyers and yellow reseda - Woad or glastum, Isatis tinctoria 1, and dyer's rocket, Reseda luteola 2. Handcoloured copperplate engraving from Friedrich Johann Bertuch's Bilderbuch fur Kinder (Picture Book for Children), Weimar, 1795. / Bridgeman Images

PIX4573375: Exoplanete HD 209458b - Artist's view - This exoplanet located in the constellation Pegase, about 150 years ago - light from Earth, seems to be a gas giant whose hydrogene evaporates. An international team of astronomers led by Alfred Vidal - Madjar (Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS, France) observed the first signs of oxygen and carbon in the atmosphere of a planet beyond our Solar System for the first time using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The atoms of carbon and oxygen are swept up from the lower atmosphere with the flow of escaping atmospheric atomic hydrogen - like dust in a supersonic whirlwind - in a process called atmospheric 'blow off'. Credit: European Space Agency and Alfred Vidal - Majar (Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS, France / Bridgeman Images

PIX4573380: Planet forming around variable star KH 15D - This young star (to the right) of the constellation Unicorn is surrounded by a large disc of dust that eclipses it every 48 days and in which planets are forming / Bridgeman Images

PIX4573405: Artist's view of a hot Jupiter - Artist's view of the transit of a hot Jupiter (gas-like planet very close to its star) in front of its star / Bridgeman Images

PIX4573429: Artist's view of a hot Jupiter HD 149026b - Exoplanet HD 149026b - Hot Jupiter - HD 149026b (in the background) is to date the hottest exoplanet in the universe. This warm Jupiter reaches a temperature of 2000 degrees; it absorbs almost all the light of its star and is therefore also the darkest planet in the universe. HD 149026b is located 256 years - light in the constellation Hercules. This artist's concept illustrates the hottest planet yet observed in the universe. This “” hot Jupiter”” called HD 149026b, is a sweltering 3,700 degrees Fahrenheit (2,040 degrees Celsius) - about 3 times hotter than the rocky surface of Venus, the hottest planet in our solar system. The planet is so hot that astronomers believe it is absorbing almost all of the heat from its star, and reflecting very little to no light. Objects that reflect no sunlight are black. Consequently, HD 149026b might be the blackest known planet in the universe, in addition to the hottest. HD 149026b is located 256 light - years away in the constellation Hercules. It is the smallest known transiting planet, with a size similar to Saturn's and a suspected dense core 70 to 90 times the mass of Earth. It speeds around its star every 2.9 days / Bridgeman Images

FLO4573439: Whole russule, milky toisonne, alanite kills fly and beetle - Mushrooms: Russula integra 1,2,3, Lactarius torminosus 4,5, Amanita muscaria 6, / Bridgeman Images

PIX4573447: Artist's view of a hot Jupiter HD 149026b - Exoplanet HD 149026b - Hot Jupiter - HD 149026b (in the background) is to date the hottest exoplanet in the universe. This warm Jupiter reaches a temperature of 2000 degrees; it absorbs almost all the light of its star and is therefore also the darkest planet in the universe. HD 149026b is located 256 years - light in the constellation Hercules. This artist's concept illustrates the hottest planet yet observed in the universe. This “” hot Jupiter”” called HD 149026b, is a sweltering 3,700 degrees Fahrenheit (2,040 degrees Celsius) - about 3 times hotter than the rocky surface of Venus, the hottest planet in our solar system. The planet is so hot that astronomers believe it is absorbing almost all of the heat from its star, and reflecting very little to no light. Objects that reflect no sunlight are black. Consequently, HD 149026b might be the blackest known planet in the universe, in addition to the hottest. HD 149026b is located 256 light - years away in the constellation Hercules. It is the smallest known transiting planet, with a size similar to Saturn's and a suspected dense core 70 to 90 times the mass of Earth. It speeds around its star every 2.9 days. Here, the planet is seen at night / Bridgeman Images

PIX4573448: Artist's view of a planet near a globular cluster - Artist's view of a planet near a globulair cluster, Dixon, Don (b.1951) / Bridgeman Images

FLO4571151: Francoise de Foix, Countess de Chateaubriant, mistress to King Francis I of France, 1495-1537. Handcoloured lithograph by Leopold Massard after a figure in Roger de Gaignieres' portfolios from Le Bibliophile Jacob aka Paul Lacroix's Costumes Historique de la France (Historical Costumes of France), Administration de Librairie, Paris, 1852., Massard, Leopold (1812-1889) / Bridgeman Images