Planetfall: New Solar System Visions

by Michael Benson

Thanks to the photographic output of a small squadron of interplanetary spacecraft, we have awakened to the beauty and splendor of the solar system. Since Michael Benson’s masterful book Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes, new, more powerful cameras in probes with greatly improved maneuverability have traversed the wheeling satellites of Jupiter; roamed the boulder-strewn red deserts of Mars; studied Saturn’s immaculate rings; and shown us our own ravishing Earth, a blue-white orb with a disturbingly thin atmosphere, as it plunges deeper into ecological crisis. These new images are the subject of Benson’s Planetfall, a truly revelatory book that uses its large page size to reproduce the greatest achievements in contemporary planetary photography as never before.

Praise for Planetfall:

“This is the way I like to tour the solar system. Find a chair. Sit. Turn some pages. Gaze. Wonder.” —NPR.com

Genres: Science, Photography, Nonfiction, Space, Art Design, Reference

208 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2012

About the author

Michael Benson is a journalist and maker of documentary films, including the award-winning Predictions of Fire (1995). His work has been published in the New York Times, the New Yorker, and Smithsonian, among other publications, and he has been a television (CNN) and radio (NPR) reporter. He is also the author of the Abrams bestseller Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes. He lives in New York City.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Kam Yung Soh · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely gorgeous book, filled to the brim with impressive and wonderful images of some of the planets and their satellites, some asteroids, as well as the Earth and Sun, as taken by various space probes (with a few, ground-based exceptions).

Using mostly newer images being returned by the current generation of space probes, Benson shows us some of the wonders that our Solar System holds, almost as if they are what a traveler in space would see after making the lengthy journey from planet to planet and making 'planetfall' (like sea travelers making a 'landfall').

The images are processed mainly from raw images provided by the Space Agencies to give a view of what the human eye might see. This is, of course, not easy as the raw data is scientific data (at various wavelengths) and needs to be converted to the range of colours that a human eye would pick out. Judging the accuracy of the conversion would be difficult until actual humans visit the planets themselves but for now, they appear to be the best we can get.

One difficulty in such a large, thick book is the constant need to flip back and forth between the images and the captions for each image which are put at the back of the book. Perhaps the idea is to not interrupt the flow of images as you read the book but for a person interested in knowing more about what the image is showing (and how it was taken), this becomes laborious.

Still, a great book for showing off just how wonderful the solar system looks; if you ignore the vast amounts of space that sits between the planets.

[Linda Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

However you can arrange it, put this book in front of your brain. Splendid imagery, humbling technology. The only troubling view is the blue smoke rising over South America as we allow our rainforests to be burned out of existence; and that much of this photography will end because Congress is too preoccupied with dumb ways to spend our money. We stopped funding exploration, continued support of those probes out there already, and new and innovative space exploration. Hopefully there is true intelligent life out in the cosmos. Maybe it's best we stay away from them.

[Juneau Public Library]

This large-format photography book gives you a fascinating, and breath-taking, look at Earth as seen from space, the flares of the Sun, the cratered surface of our moon, the red, sandy dunes of Mars, the rings of Saturn, and much, much more. Author Michael Benson has taken images and data collected from NASA and European Space Agency missions and created beautiful images of other worlds. I don't know if I'd be tempted to visit any of these places in person, should it become possible someday, but I did enjoy taking an arm-chair trip through space, thanks to this book.

Recommended by Catherine

[Dan Carey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The whole point of this book is the pictures; the text is fairly minimal, as it should be. And the pictures are gorgeous. I can stare at some for minutes because of all their detail. Others, while they don't hold my gaze for long, are nonetheless appreciated for the artfulness of their composition.

Interestingly, though, I find the first picture in the book to be the most arresting. It is a picture of the Earth and the Moon, taken from a distance of about 13.5 million miles away. We are so small and fragile.

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Planetfall is a book filled with very little text and a ton of jaw-dropping photographs. These mind-altering images include the familiar blue and white swirls of Earth and black and white craters of the Moon, the violent, roiling surface of the Sun, awesome panoramas taken from the surface of Mars, the gigantic raging storms of Jupiter, and the gracefulness of Saturn and its rings.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

These images will inspire you to dream of doing greater things. The heavens declare the glory of the Lord, and they do so in new ways in this book.

[Richard Archambault · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful pictures, and a much larger book than I expected, which made it easier to look at he images up close. However, I read Michael Benson's other book, Otherworlds: Visions of Our Solar System yesterday, and I was disappointed to find that the majority of the images in that book were in this one; in other words, each book re-uses much of the same images and text. Too bad, because I really want to see more images of all the wondrous moons out there in the solar system.

Also, one thing that bothered me a lot with this book: all the image captions were at the back of the book, instead of right there on the page! Why would you do that? So much flipping back and forth. I guess the book's artistic director didn't want to spoil the white pages and frames with black text, but, it was very annoying!

[alexander shay · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is almost 10 years old now so the information included is a little out of date as many probes/space missions have occurred since this book was published. In the main the photos were neat, but some of them you can't totally tell what you're looking at (unless you read the captions at the back of the book). My main gripe is a lot of the photos look to be photos of the same thing, especially photos of the moon or planetary terrain, it's just different angles of the same thing.

[Thomas Ray]

$60 on amazon
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=1419704222...

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of space photographs from around the solar system.

[Alex Lei · Rating 5 out of 5]

🪐 lotta great pictures in here ngl

[Dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

NPR

[Lois Merritt · Rating 5 out of 5]

my full review - http://wp.me/p1occ2-6B :)

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Otherworldly beauty