So, recently this thread got me on a kick of watching the entire series of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” (also conveniently available on YouTube!). One of the episodes discussing the possible directions life might take on other worlds gave me a sudden flashback to a book I remember having as a young child, and I now have a strong urge to identify it and obtain a copy by whatever means necessary.
I don’t remember the title, but in physical characteristics it was a fairly large book (at least, that’s how I remember it), hardcover, with an aspect ratio somewhat more square than usual. The cover was black and glossy, with a photograph or maybe a painting of a starfield covering it front and back. There may have been a rainbow and/or a spaceship of some kind on the front cover, but I am not sure; I have a vague recollection of these elements.
The most remarkable thing about it was its contents. It pretty much entirely consisted of glossy plates filled with pictures: diagrams of the planets, the Solar system, galaxies and nebulae and all manner of cosmic phenomena. I think there were also pictures of large observatories and such things on Earth. But one large section of the book was given over to artistic renditions of life and conditions on other planets. I can vaguely remember a tremendous number of fantastical paintings of possible alien life: buoyant flying sacs in the clouds of Jupiter, bizarre serpentine creatures snaking their way through some extraterrestrial ocean, and many more things that faintly tug at my memory but which I cannot precisely recall.
I’m pretty sure my family had it by the time I was 5 or so, so it probably couldn’t have been published any later than 1990. Given the condition and content, it probably came sometime after 1970, and my feeling is that it was most likely published in the 80s.
As a child it was one of the things that fueled my imagination and my sense of wonder and appreciation for the cosmos; I probably would not be who I am today without it. I’m sure I’d recognize it instantly on sight, but unsurprisingly just searching Amazon for books about “space” published between 1970 and 1990 yields too many results to sift through manually. 
So I call upon the collective hivemind of Dopers everywhere! If you have any idea what book I’m talking about here, I would much appreciate your suggestion.
