The New Solar System

by Carolyn Collins Petersen (Editor), J. Kelly Beatty (Editor), Andrew Chaikin (Editor)

As the definitive guide for the armchair astronomer, The New Solar System has established itself as the leading book on planetary science and solar system studies. Incorporating the latest knowledge of the solar system, a distinguished team of researchers, many of them Principal Investigators on NASA missions, explain the solar system with expert ease. The completely-revised text includes the most recent findings on asteroids, comets, the Sun, and our neighboring planets. The book examines the latest research and thinking about the solar system; looks at how the Sun and planets formed; and discusses our search for other planetary systems and the search for life in the solar system. In full-color and heavily-illustrated, the book contains more than 500 photographs, portrayals, and diagrams. An extensive set of tables with the latest characteristics of the planets, their moon and ring systems, comets, asteroids, meteorites, and interplanetary space missions complete the text. New to this edition are descriptions of collisions in the solar system, full scientific results from Galileo's mission to Jupiter and its moons, and the Mars Pathfinder mission. For the curious observer as well as the student of planetary science, this book will be an important library acquisition. J. Kelly Beatty is the senior editor of Sky & Telescope, where for more than twenty years he has reported the latest in planetary science. A renowned science writer, he was among the first journalists to gain access to the Soviet space program. Asteroid 2925 Beatty was named on the occasion of his marriage in 1983. Carolyn Collins Petersen is an award-winning science writer and co-author of Hubble Vision (Cambridge 1995). She has also written planetarium programs seen at hundreds of facilities around the world. Andrew L. Chaikin is a Boston-based science writer. He served as a research geologist at the Smithsonian Institution's Center for Earth and Planetary Studies. He is a contributing editor to Popular Science and writes frequently for other publications.

Genres: Science, Astronomy, Nonfiction, Space, Reference

430 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1981

Reviews

[Marko]

I have the german edition: Die Sonne und Ihre Planeten
and the english edition.

[Tbrierly · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Note: I'm reading the 1998 ed., but couldn't find it in goodreads, just this much earlier ed.)

Our understanding of our local corner of the Universe has accelerated in the last 50-60 years, and it becomes difficult for the interested layman to keep up with it all. So books like this are very useful for those of us who are interested in the Solar System. Despite being 10 years old (and I hope another version is coming soon) there is a great deal here to keep even someone like myself, who tries to Keep Up, busy and in wonder.

The more we know about the Solar System the more we understand how busy a place it is. Pluto as everyone knows has been demoted from "major" planet status, but then promoted to first and foremost of a large and growing family of fascinating transNeptunian or Kuiper Belt objects.

But we are constantly learning about the old familiar planets also. Mars, Venus, even Mercury, are still giving up their secrets. Frozen water on Mercury, so close to the Sun? Yup. Evidence that Mars was once a very wet and slushy place? Yup. And why is Venus so smooth, with so few craters? Then there are the Jovian moons, and Saturn's rings whose complexity is only now being truly understood. And the ice giants Uranus and Neptune...they have their own wonder as well.

This book is a bit technical, and I would be lying if I said I understood everything in it. But like many things, you are only going to stretch if you expose yourself to things that are just a bit beyond you. So...if you are a science and/or Solar System geek to any extent, this is for you. Drink up!