This information is expected to unlock new information about the structure, origin and evolution of our Galaxy.

BBC: A billion pixels for a billion stars

This allows them to rule in some models to explain the origin and evolution of the cosmos, while ruling out a host of others.

BBC: Planck satellite: Maps detail Universe's ancient light

Using informed but clear language, she guides the reader through Darwin's own encounters with giant tortoises, iguanas and finches on these islands in the 1830s that led him, years later, to formulate his theories about the origin and evolution of species.

ECONOMIST: Island life

He landed, camped there, left and returned, studied, researched and conceived his earth-shaking theory of evolution, On the Origin of Species, in 1859.

FORBES: Connect

That similarity, though, is almost certainly the result of convergent evolution rather than a common origin, since the last joint ancestor of Crassicorophium and spiders lived way longer ago than the ancestor of Crassicorophium and barnacles.

ECONOMIST: A species of crustacean makes silk underwater

Other texts appearing online for the first time include the first editions of the Journal Of Researches (1839), The Descent Of Man (1871), The Zoology Of The Voyage Of HMS Beagle (1838-43) and the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th editions of the Origin Of Species, the pivotal tome that elucidated his thoughts on evolution.

BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Charles Darwin's works go online