An Introduction to the Solar System

by David A. Rothery (Editor), Neil McBride (Editor), Iain Gilmour (Editor)

Major leaps in space technology now allow us to view the splendour and diversity of the Solar System in remarkable detail. This textbook presents a fascinating description of the bodies in the Solar System and their origin and evolution. It highlights important concepts and techniques in boxed summaries. There are questions and answers throughout the text, as well as exercises with full solutions. Written and edited by practising planetary scientists, this new edition has been updated to reflect current knowledge and contains new figures to bring it up to date. It is ideal for introductory courses on the subject and is suitable for self-study. Online resources include electronic versions of figures from the book, sample assignments with suggested answers and links to websites featuring video clips and news stories related to the textbook.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science

418 pages, Paperback

First published May 12, 2011

About the author

David Rothery is Professor of Planetary Geosciences at the School of Physical Sciences within the Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics at the Open University.

Reviews

[Darius · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I bought this book, I wanted to get a simple and general introduction to the solar system. It was the first book of this kind I was looking for. I needed a simple and complete introduction to the topic. And I was not disappointed, the book is accessible and informative, what's more, it doesn't need any prior knowledge to understand it. This is exactly what's needed for an introduction. The book covers most of the themes associated with the study of stars (the Sun) and planets (the planet system). The book includes some simple physics, cosmology of star and planet formation. You'll also find the main notions of planetology and geology explained. The types of planets, their parameters, structure and so on. Additionally, this introduction has lots of photos taken on the missions to the planets, as well as pictures and graphs. They let you get acquainted with the solar system visually. This book doesn't provide a deeper understanding on the physical laws of planet systems, there are no advanced formulas and notions, though I think that at this level they would be a stumbling block.