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Daydreaming in the Solar System: Surfing Saturn's Rings, Golfing on the Moon, and Other Adventures in Space Exploration
A thrilling journey through the solar system that merges imagination with hard science
Imagine traveling to the far reaches of the solar system, pausing for close-up encounters with distant planets, moons, asteroids, and comets, accompanied by a congenial guide to the science behind what you see. What, for instance, would it be like to fly in Titan’s hazy atmosphere? To walk across the surface of Mercury? To feel the rumble of a volcano brewing on one of Jupiter's largest moons?
In Daydreaming in the Solar System, John Moores and Jesse Rogerson bring that dream to virtual life. Through a combination of story and science they let readers know what such an otherworldly experience would actually look, feel, and even taste like. With data gathered over the decades by our robotic spacecraft, and with Michelle Parsons’s evocative illustrations, Moores and Rogerson boldly take you where no living being has gone before, giving an engaging and accurate explanation of the science along the way. Where Carl Sagan’s storied “spaceship of the imagination” provided a window to outer space, Daydreaming in the Solar System opens a door, inviting readers to step through and truly explore the strange new worlds of the solar system.
Imagine traveling to the far reaches of the solar system, pausing for close-up encounters with distant planets, moons, asteroids, and comets, accompanied by a congenial guide to the science behind what you see. What, for instance, would it be like to fly in Titan’s hazy atmosphere? To walk across the surface of Mercury? To feel the rumble of a volcano brewing on one of Jupiter's largest moons?
In Daydreaming in the Solar System, John Moores and Jesse Rogerson bring that dream to virtual life. Through a combination of story and science they let readers know what such an otherworldly experience would actually look, feel, and even taste like. With data gathered over the decades by our robotic spacecraft, and with Michelle Parsons’s evocative illustrations, Moores and Rogerson boldly take you where no living being has gone before, giving an engaging and accurate explanation of the science along the way. Where Carl Sagan’s storied “spaceship of the imagination” provided a window to outer space, Daydreaming in the Solar System opens a door, inviting readers to step through and truly explore the strange new worlds of the solar system.
- GenresNonfictionScienceSpace
256 pages, Hardcover
Published October 22, 2024
About the author
John E. Moores
2 books22 followersJohn is an Associate Professor in the Centre for Research in Earth and Space Science at York University. He is a member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, a recipient of the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute’s McCurdy Award and served as the Science Advisor to the President of the Canadian Space Agency from 2022-2024. John holds a BASc in Engineering Science from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in Planetary Science. An author on nearly 100 articles in planetary science, John has also been a member of five NASA and ESA-led space mission teams.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 22, 2024
It has always seemed that combining fiction and non-fiction should be a good way to put popular science across. After all, SF provides a great vehicle for exploring places where we can't actually go. In practice, though, it seems extremely difficult to successfully pull off the crossover without the result seeming overly contrived. Thankfully, John Moores and Jesse Rogerson make it work well.
It's interesting to make a comparison with Interstellar Tours, which takes a tour of our galaxy on a fictional starship. There, the setting is provided by fiction, but what's experienced around the galaxy is based on best current science. In Daydreaming in the the Solar System we stick to our near neighbourhood: each location from the Moon out to Pluto starts with a short fictional account of 'being there', followed by a chapter on the science behind that scene. This is like a more effective version of the approach attempted with mixed results in the Springer Science and Fiction series, such as Plato's Labyrinth, where a shortish SF novel is followed by a breakdown of the science featured.
The science bits of Daydreaming work effectively to explore what was experienced in the ‘fiction’, in a way that is rather more mathematical than most popular science, though that's not a bad thing. Having said that, I don’t share the authors’ assertion that, having explained what an astronomical unit is 'A fun challenge would be to figure out what the Earth-Moon distance is when expressed in astronomical units instead of kilometres.' If they think that’s fun, they need to get out more.
One thing I didn't like about the generally bland but passable fiction is the use of the second person throughout. It is too specific for this to work in such a setting. A statement like ‘Your first job here on the Moon was at one of those observatories’, which is not about the scene described but a reference to an imaginary past, doesn’t ring true because it gives the reader a back story for which they have no point of reference.
Despite this, I felt that Daydreaming provided an effective way to explore our current understanding of an impressive 15 solar system locations. I enjoyed the book, and anyone with an enthusiasm for space or 'hard' science fiction should do so too.
It's interesting to make a comparison with Interstellar Tours, which takes a tour of our galaxy on a fictional starship. There, the setting is provided by fiction, but what's experienced around the galaxy is based on best current science. In Daydreaming in the the Solar System we stick to our near neighbourhood: each location from the Moon out to Pluto starts with a short fictional account of 'being there', followed by a chapter on the science behind that scene. This is like a more effective version of the approach attempted with mixed results in the Springer Science and Fiction series, such as Plato's Labyrinth, where a shortish SF novel is followed by a breakdown of the science featured.
The science bits of Daydreaming work effectively to explore what was experienced in the ‘fiction’, in a way that is rather more mathematical than most popular science, though that's not a bad thing. Having said that, I don’t share the authors’ assertion that, having explained what an astronomical unit is 'A fun challenge would be to figure out what the Earth-Moon distance is when expressed in astronomical units instead of kilometres.' If they think that’s fun, they need to get out more.
One thing I didn't like about the generally bland but passable fiction is the use of the second person throughout. It is too specific for this to work in such a setting. A statement like ‘Your first job here on the Moon was at one of those observatories’, which is not about the scene described but a reference to an imaginary past, doesn’t ring true because it gives the reader a back story for which they have no point of reference.
Despite this, I felt that Daydreaming provided an effective way to explore our current understanding of an impressive 15 solar system locations. I enjoyed the book, and anyone with an enthusiasm for space or 'hard' science fiction should do so too.
July 23, 2025
The fact and fiction writing style was solid. Very intriguing and interesting topics. The fictional stories, while fun and creative and added a way of showcasing the facts presented, were overall pretty good, some better than others,of course. Enjoyable to lose yourself in.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews