Exploring Our Solar System

by Sally Ride, Tam O'Shaughnessy

Enhanced with full color photos, the evolution of the solar system is examined and explored through scientific facts about the sun, the earth, and all the planets with a review of their past and present day composition, potential for sustaining living organisms, and more.

Genres: Science

112 pages, Library Binding

First published November 1, 2003

About the author

Dr. Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951–July 23, 2012) was an American astronaut and physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978 and became the first American woman in space in 1983. Ride was the third woman in space overall, after USSR cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova (1963) and Svetlana Savitskaya (1982). Ride remains the youngest American astronaut to have traveled to space, having done so at the age of 32. After flying twice on the Orbiter Challenger, she left NASA in 1987.

Ride worked for two years at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control, then at the University of California, San Diego as a professor of physics, primarily researching nonlinear optics and Thomson scattering. She served on the committees that investigated the Challenger and Columbia Space Shuttle disasters, the only person to participate in both. Ride died of pancreatic cancer on July 23, 2012.

Reviews

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Realization: Space might not be my thing. Sally Ride did a good job of making astronomy understandable, for children & for people like me who aren't science-y. But I ended up being a bit bored by this book. This is a moment where I think it might have been me & not the book. The book is easy to get through & easy to understand. It's a great introduction to our solar system for those who are not scientific, as well as children.

[Dana]

About the Solar System and good for kids.