Jean-Pierre Verdet, born in 1932, is a French astronomer and historian of astronomy. He joined the Paris Observatory in 1963, where he pioneered infrared astronomy in France and headed the department of fundamental astronomy. From 1976 onward he devoted much of his work to the history of ancient astronomy, leading a team that translated Latin, Greek and Arabic astronomical texts, efforts crowned by a critical edition of Copernicus's De revolutionibus. A prolific author, he has written many popular-science books, especially for young readers, among them Une histoire de l'astronomie and Le ciel, ordre et désordre. He wrote the epilogue to the French edition of Les colonies de l'espace.