Like the fifteenth-century navigators, astronomers today are embarked on voyages of exploration, charting unknown regions. The aim of this adventure is to bring back not gold or spices or silks but something more valuable: a map of the universe that will tell of its origin, its texture, and its fate.

In: Marcia Bartusiak - Thursday's Universe - Chapter 7 (p. 167), Random House, Inc. 1986