Camille Flammarion

Camille Flammarion (1842–1925) was France’s most famous popular astronomer, and his passion for the plurality of worlds spilled into visionary fiction. Urania and, above all, Omega: The Last Days of the World imagine alien life, reincarnation across planets and the end of humanity on a cosmic timescale. His blend of real astronomy and speculative wonder made him an important ancestor of science fiction on both sides of the Atlantic.