Solar System Books

Great book. Lots of historical data, great photos! Very informative. I have several other meteorite reference pieces and this is one of the best. mike.

Norton is a rare author who combines detailed knowledge of a subject with very entertaining stories. Once I started reading some of the chapters I just could not put it down. On the other hand, it also includes chapters which are technical (and sometimes beyond my understanding in some cases)! It therefore has something for everyone from beginner to advanced, collector or even a noncollector simply interested in the subject. This is a great introduction and very well written. It was not the first book on metorites I read, but should have been!

very informative and well written. a good book to have on the subject.

Excellent book, especially for the beginning/intermediate meteorite collecter. Written in easy-to-understand English, yet technical when it needs to be. Very comprehensive on the subject, and well illustrated with photographs and drawings.

I purchased the book "Rocks From Space (Second Edition)" about seven years ago. My main interest in space is in the field of planetary geology and I have a need to be reasonably conversant with the subscience of meteoritics. The "Rocks From Space" book was recommended by several colleagues, and I also noted that it had received good reviews.

In general, I find "popular" books directed to the interests of amateurs to be shallow and even corny. "Rocks From Space" is an exception. This book is outstanding. It provides a concise but excellent introduction to the subjects of meteorites, asteroids, comets, meteors and impact sites. It is presented in a way that amateur collectors, amateur astronomers or anyone interested in these space-related subjects can easily read and understand, but, at the same time, it is very informative and authoritative. I would not hesitate to recommend the book to anyone who was interested in meteorites and other space debris. In fact, I have recommended it to countless individuals as an excellent place to start.

"Rocks From Space" is well written, well illustrated and interesting to read. It has achieved a permanent and respected place in my reference book collection. I give talks on planetary geology to groups of geologists and astronomers and I use some of the illustrations in my presentations. For people who are interested is collecting meteorites, Norton presents a series of guidelines, anecdotes and useful information including a list of laboratories where one might get an identification confirmed. For a small and inexpensive paperback, this book contains a wealth of information.

Gary Peterson

Yes, the coordinates are badly outdated. But anybody can get updated coordinates for any of the many thousands of astronomical objects described in this encyclopedia of observing. What's totally irreplaceable are the descriptions and star lore associated with all the objects.

What Burnham has compiled here is nothing short of miraculous. I know of no serious amateur astronomers who doesn't hold these three volumes dear to their heart. If you are a serious amateur and you don't own them, you are missing out. If you are a beginner, the introduction to Volume 1 is alone worth the purchase.

No, they are not pretty, and the typesetting is straight out of the Jurassic, but once one realizes just how much information is here, one realizes that there are no substitutes.

One word review: "Essential"

If I were to take a guess at the number of times I needed to consult a reference like this, I'd probably be way off - on the low side. And if I were to estimate the number of times this 3-volume set could have pulled me out of the proverbial jam, you'd probably think I was exaggerating.

There is enough information in these three handbooks to keep the average amateur astronomer busy and occupied for years. Case in point: I was recently interested in generating a list of double and multiple stars compiled by constellation. No big deal, right? Open one of the Burnham's Handbooks, and go to any constellation. For example, in Cygnus alone, there are nine pages of double and multiple stars! You say you want data? There's enough data here to lock up a water-cooled calculator. I love it!

There's only one thing I have an issue with: The pages are all done with type that's reminiscent of NCR mimeograph flyers back in the 50's. Computer generated type would have made the perfect finishing touch to an already marvelous work. I know, picky-picky.

Each volume is affordable enough to justify the purchase of the whole set. In fact, it's rather silly that they're not sold as a set in the first place. Kind of like buying an encyclopedia a piece at a time - also reminiscent of the 50's. Though each volume is alike in its presentation of information and data, they all differ in subtle ways, which even Burnham notes at the beginning of each. I find this to be neither a device nor a flaw, but interesting to note that the author took the time to explain it.

If you happen to be interested in copious amounts of data, and an abundance of information about all the objects in all the constellations, then get thee to this 3-volume set. And even if you rarely refer to it after placing it on your bookshelf, you've done a great service to your library by putting the rest of your collection in good company.

Robert Burnham, Jr., spent twenty years at Lowell Observatory participating in a proper motion survey. During his tenure, he wrote this mammoth 3-volume work covering nearly every object visible in 2- to 12-inch telescopes. Each chapter, covering one constellation (both northern and southern hemispheres), begins with a detailed list of all stellar objects (double stars, variable stars, and deep sky objects). Then, he delves, sometimes rather deeply, into the more significant objects of that constellation, bringing together history, philosophy, and science to describe each one. His chapter on Sagittarius, for example, includes a 25-page section on the dense portion of the Milky Way blending current 1970s science with wonderful passages from Greek and Eastern philosophies, Native American legends, and the history of science. His prose for each chapter reflects the content he covers: lyrical prose when describing the "personal" aspects of observing objects, and readable, accessible language to delineate the science behind what we know about objects in the heavens. Moreover, each chapter has photographs of many of the stars and nebulae with telescopes and cameras ranging from a 5-inch astrograph to the 200-inch Hale telescope of Palomar Observatory.

Yes, the book is thirty years old and a little out-of-date. And, the typewritten font looks homely. But that's part of its charm. Burnham initially self-published this very personal book from his kitchen table. Literally. (Astronomy magazine published a very interesting "self-interview" by Burnham in March, 1982 which provides some background on his struggles to get it published.) From a small-press run of looseleaf copies in binders, it became somewhat of a cult classic among amateurs because nothing as detailed like this had been published before. (True, T.W. Webb's "Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes" was available, but it was last published in 1917.)

I know of no other book that combines personal, reflective commentary on "mundane" objects like the Big Dipper (officially, the Ursa Major Moving Cluster), and clear, concise descriptions of variable stars, Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams, and finder charts for objects like 3C273, the brightest quasar visible to amateur-sized scopes. (Trust me: spend the 30-minutes or so tracking this last one down at a star party and you'll have a line of folks waiting to look at a faint star-like object, the light of which left 3C273 long before the earth was even formed.)

One side note: if you're interested in the rather tragic life of Burnham, search for "Sky Writer", an article by Tony Ortega, published in the Phoenix, AZ "New Times" newspaper for September 25-October 1, 1997. All readers of Celestial Handbook owe Ortega a nod for the herculean task of piecing together Burnham's life.

There isn't too much this book has left out when it comes to information about stars, galaxies, clusters, nebula etc... These 3 volumes are more like an enclyclopedia set. Any star or other celestial object you want to know more about will probably be here. In fact it would take you more than a lifetime to study and find all of the different wonders of the galaxy and universe that are listed in these volumes. I never realized just how many galaxies had been documented along with variables, eclipsing binaries, star clusters, double stars etc... If you see a star in the heavens that has a certain luster or location or interests you in some way just look it up in this guide and you will find out all kinds of things about it that other books don't delve into.

Robert Burnham (NOT the former Editor of Sky and Telescope, BTW) from the 50's to the late 60's spent many years working for an observatory on the tedious project of "blink comparing" countless photographic plates. In his spare time, he made and recorded observations of thousands of the most interesting objects in the deep sky. In addition he compiled a library of observations from other great observers, as well as star lore, scientific data, and personal refleciton. The result is a hodge-podge, somewhat out of date, collection that nonethless facinates.

Thousands of objects are cataloged by constellation, and hundreds are described in detail. When arriving at an object that seems to be the most familliar of its class (M13 for globular clusters, Sirius B for white dwarfs etc,.) Burham provides an essay on that class of objects (state of the art for its time, usually the 1970s)- often including very useful cross-references to other objects in that class.

Most useful to the observer are the countless orbital charts of double stars.

These books are an addictive way to pass the time. Most of the essays on featured objects are a few pages long, and can be read in the short "in between" moments that life is filled with. For two years I had one or more volumes of this series of three books in my bathroom, so as to pass the time a bit more productively learning about the sky. Needless to say, some of my bathroom trips grew a bit lengthy as I found myself plowing through Burnham's collection of personal observations, scientific data, and historical tales.

This book came out when I was pretty young, and it got me interested in astronomy since the age of five. Now planetary science is my career, and I put that down in part to the influence this book had on me as a kid! :)

the magic school bus get lost in space is a very good book read it all the time you will love it

All the magic school bus books are fantastic. This one is no different.
It is great for learning about the solar system.

My 5yr old son is a huge fan of Magic School Bus series.
Especially, Solat system and human body are his favorite among them.
He memorizes the order of all the plantes in the Solar system. Draw pictures about it and make planets with playdough. Great book!

This book is a blast (no pun intended)! Mrs. Frizzle and her class travel to every planet in the solar system. The bus breaks down in the asteroid belt and the students have to find Mrs. Frizzle on a very cold planet. You'll love all the colorful pictures and Arnold's crazy cousin! Blast-off to this book and learn a lot about space in a fun way!

This is one of the most enjoyable and most readable books I've read on any aspect of astronomy. It does show that some planetary astronomers are a bit more human than they ought to be, putting fame ahead of knowledge, but at least they're fussing about something that might conceivably be useful (but hardly, right?) and not about how old Time is, or how to convince me that there is no center to the universe although 'it did so start with an explosion!'. Much of astronomy, and all of cosmology, is just a big boondoggle for smart graduate students and their mentors, but at least the ones Ken Croswell writes about are almost 'down to earth'.

I generally liked this book. I will mention here that the author does tend to write in all the politics amongst the different astronomers and their institutions, making these people real and their discoveries intriguing. However, the bitterness he dotes on gets tiring in some places. Also, he writes to keep you in suspence and only a few times does the anticipation get annoying.

This is an excellent book on the given subject, covering the history of the search for other planets in a technically proficient but accessible way. Croswell frequently brings in the scientists involved and lets us hear what they have to say. Since the search for planets has often been controversial, this makes for exciting reading sometimes, as two leaders in the field take turns taking potshots at each other.

Mostly, though, it brings more of a human face to this arcane endeavor. Croswell also takes pains to explain how the search is progressing and how so many false alarms have managed to take place over the years.

Again, an excellent book.

Planet Quest is a great book for all you armchair astronomers who want to learn more! I am not an astronomer or even an amateur astronomer, in fact, Planet Quest is only the Third book I've read on the subject but my interest is growing. Planet Quest is very easy to understand because all of the scientific jargon is followed by words and explanations that beginners, like you and me, can follow. Read this book, you won't be disappointed!

Ken Croswell's book, "Planet Quest" is a must for anyone interested in the search for planets outside of the solar system. The book reads well, telling a fascinating story from the beginnings of speculation about the existence of alien worlds right up to the present when information is coming to us all the time about strange new worlds around distant stars. Anybody with an interest in the possibilities of life elsewhere must read this book.

If you ever played Traveller, or GURPS or anything else like that, you will love this story. Very well written and entertaining. Piper's death was a loss that the SCIFI community will never recover from, especially with books he wrote like this one.

What can any one say about his writing? Always top of the heap and riviting to the end of the book.

_Space Viking_ (1963) was a four-part serial in _Analog_ in 1962-63 and was accompanied by some marvelous John Schoenherr illustrations. It was reprinted by Ace shortly thereafter to modest attention. Since Piper's death by suicide in 1964, a number of his admirers have tried to make a case that the novel is a classic. Well, it isn't. It is a well-crafted space adventure that has some intelligent things to say about politics and warfare. But there is nothing highly original about the novel in plot, style, or content. It doesn't have the sparkle of his own Little Fuzzy novels.

Briefly, the story is this: The Galactic Federation has collapsed, and planets are now at the mercy of marauding Space Vikings. The hero is a nobleman named Lucas Trask whose bride is murdered on their wedding day by a madman. To catch the killer, Trask becomes a Space Viking and begins a series of conquests across the galaxy. But gradually, he finds that he is also rebuilding...

One of the characters in _Space Viking_ is an admiral named Otto Harkaman, who becomes a right hand man to Trask. The name sparked an echo in my mind when I reread Piper's novel. And then it clicked. It reminded me of the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in Frank Herbert's _Dune_ (1965), another _Analog_ novel. One man is essentially heroic, while the other is essentially villainous. But both are politically savy. Orson Scott Card once complained that most science fiction writers knew little about politics. They would have politicians in their stories say things that politicians would never say in real life and do things that real politicians would never do. This is not true of Piper and Herbert. You sense that their depictions of political meetings are authentic and that the policies that they make are realistic. Granted, their politics are somewhat on the medieval and Machiavellian side, but they are realistic nonetheless.

In any event, I heartily recommend _Space Viking_. Classic it may not be, but it deserves more attention than it has received in the past.

I picked this book up the other day at a used bookstore. I decided to do this when I saw that the book was in better shape than the one I have in the basement and the price was great (only $3.00, not bad at all for a book that I love). Having picked it up, I immediately started to read Space Viking (again for the upteenth time). As with many of Mr. Piper's books, Space Viking is as much a look at society and political systems as it is a space opera. In this case a futuristic feudalism is examined while remnants of the Old Federation raid their poorer neighbors.



For me this is a five star book. The story telling is descriptive, the plot; while simple it does have a style that enables the space opera to move forward nicely while Mr. Piper explores space feudalism (and other forms of government) and the impact when people leave one country/planet to seek their fame and fortune. While this book was written in 1963, Mr. Piper does a great job making this a timeless classic. More science fiction writers would be better if they'd emulate Mr. Piper's works.

With the transition of much of H. Beam Piper's work into the public domain publishers like Aegypan Press have finally begun to bring Piper's work back into print and for that fans of Piper owe them a debt of gratitude. This novel, set in Piper's Terrohuman Future History, is his writing at its best. Centuries ago, rebels fleeing the Terran Federation settled the distant Sworld Worlds. Now their descendants, the Space Vikings, plunder and loot the worlds of the collapsed Old Federation. Lucas Trask, a Sword Worlds nobleman, begins the novel as a critic of the Space Vikings, believing they are draining the Sword Worlds of their most capable talent. But after suffering a terrible crime Trask turns Space Viking himself, venturing into the Old Federation seeking retribution. Eventually, Trask becomes a Space Viking prince at the center of brewing conflict between the Sworld Worlds, other Space Viking planets, and the "civilized" worlds of the Old Federation. Part space opera, part political intrigue, and all action this novel is an excellent introduction to Piper's centuries-spanning Future History.

Also recommended by Piper are Four-Day Planet, Uller Uprising, Little Fuzzy, and The Cosmic Computer.

This is a fun and exciting trek around the Red Planet. I absolutely love the "hike" format, and this book is probably the next best thing to actually being there on Martian soil. Tidbits like what to wear on Mars and how to tell time definitely give the book a light-hearted personality. Another great feature is the author's own "personal experiences" / Mars exploration observation sections entitled "My Martian Chronicles." Thanks to the author, a great guide, I felt so involved in my "trip" that I wanted to buy a souvenir T-shirt! LOL I love the Classic Martian Map and Topographic Map foldouts at the front of the book. I especially like the easy-to-read large font of the text. I didn't have to squint while reading the book, which is a good thing.

In this book, we see Mars treated almost as if it was a tourist region. The author has divided Mars into areas of interest. He then discussed separately each area. Just like Earth, Mars has many different regions and scenery.

Although I am keen on space, somehow this book did little for me. After awhile I found it too much and lost interest in the details of each region. What I would have preferred on Mars is fewer notes and more pictures.

The other point is the book is full of interesting pictures unfortunately to appreciate them you need a large size book then this one.

Having said that if your interested in Mars geography though you will find this author knows his information, it is current and he explains his points well.

A Traveler's Guide to Mars is well written and quite fascinating for anyone with an interest in the planetary geology of Mars.

Hartmann breaks down the history of Mars into three geologic eras (Noachian, Hesperain, and Amazonian) based on the amount of cratering on the Martian surface. From there, he explores each one of these regions in detail.

From the majestic Mons Olympus volcano and 2500 mile long Valles Marineris Canyon to the probable glacial "melting mountains" of Promethei Terra and controversial ancient ocean shorelines of Vastitas Borealis , Hartmann provides the reader with a sweeping scope of Martian history, replete with stunning aerial photography and images, that is simply quite amazing. He even discusses the "microbial fossil" Martian meteorites as well as the notorious "Face on Mars" in the Cydonia highlands.

Take a trip to Mars ... you won't be disappointed

This is a really cool book! I didn't know we had the so-called red planet (a better name is the butterscotch planet) mapped out to the extent that we do. I've always loved geography and to take a tour of the features of another world is thrilling. If you like astronomy, geography, or have an optimist's bent on human destiny being among the stars, read this great book!

Have you ever wanted to go beyond the headlines concerning discoveries about Mars and get a thorough overview so that you can put things into perspective? This book is more than a collection of pretty pictures from a far away place. It gives a good introductory account of what we think we know about the planet, and why.

William Hartmann has been involved in uncovering knowledge about objects in the Solar system since the time that mankind first developed the ability to go beyond the Earth's atmosphere for an unobstructed view. He is in an authoritative position for attaching meaning to the images, and yet the explanations he gives are very much 'down to Earth', so to speak.

Data from space probes (starting with the Mariner series) have literally redrawn the map of the surface of Mars. The time varying dark regions were found to be not seas, or canals, or vegetation, but rather wind blown sand. New names were needed in 1972 to identify actual terrain features. The contrast between old and new can be see by comparing the two foldout maps inside the front cover.

Does Mars have a global magnetic field? No. But it used to! Metal particles in rocks older than 3,000,000 years ago are polarized. Particles in younger rocks are not polarized. The core of Mars was likely molten for the first 1,500,00 years and then cooled. Lack of a magnetic field has resulted in more Solar radiation reaching the surface, and may have played a role in carrying away the atmosphere.

Is there life on Mars? Was there life on Mars? That's still an open question. It's clear that there is evidence of large quantities of liquid water on the planet in its early years. That at least opens the possibility that Mars harbored life at that time. What we are finding today is that life survives in very hostile environments here on Earth, and microbes survived on a Moon probe visited years later by an Apollo crew, so who can say at this point?

Of all the places in the Solar system besides Earth, Mars is the one which has the most resources that would support manned exploration and colonization. There is still water on Mars, although in frozen form. The atmosphere contains CO2, from which oxygen can be extracted for propellant and for breathing. The presence of an atmosphere itself if of interest for aerobraking and radiation shielding. The fact of a day/night cycle very close to 24 hours is conducive to agriculture.

Robert Zubrin and others have been advocating for years that travel to Mars is worthwhile and affordable, and NASA now has a congressionally supported presidential mandate to proceed in that direction. The concept that one day a reader of William Hartmann's Traveler's Guide will in fact make the trip is no longer so far fetched.

This is a good read for anyone interested in Mars as a destination, or who would just like to know a bit more about that pink speck in the night sky. It also provides food for thought concerning climate change on our own planet. We didn't destroy the atmosphere on Mars, but maybe we can learn how to avoid Mars' fate here on Earth.

I asked my son when he was 4 years old why the Sun moved across the sky over the day. He answered me "because the earth turns". This seems like an obvious answer even for a 4 year old, but 400 years ago his response would be meet with ridicule and even worse would be considered heresy. Thomas S. Kuhn is able to beautifully and logically describe from a scientific perspective the ideas and discoveries through the ages that lead to the enormous conceptual leap from a geocentric to heliocentric world. This alone makes this book a great read. But what I valued more from the book is Kuhn's revealing of the impact of the "Copernican Revolution" outside the scientific world. It's influence on religion, society and the entire scientific process is still felt today. The idea of a heliocentric universe was not only a great scientific theory, it was really a turning point in the human race and how we see ourselves in the universe. I would also recommend "The book nobody read" and "Galileo's Daughter" as more modern follow ups to "The Copernican Revolution".

The Sun and the planets and all the stars revolve around the Earth, which is itself at the center of the universe. Beyond the sphere of the fixed stars is nothing; there is no void or matter or anything, as voids cannot exist in nature. All these celestial bodies that do exist revolve in nice perfect circles. All these statements were once common knowledge to anyone with a smattering of education, even though astronomers were known to make slight variations on the concepts of circular motion. But today every single one of these concepts is demolished, and only fools believe in the Earth centered universe. Why was there a change? It certainly wasn't because of a mass of new information. The old geocentric universe was rejected long before anyone put up satellites and space probes to go zipping around the solar system. Even the invention of the telescope only provided the final blow to the old system. It was a fundamental change in thinking that made up the subject of The Copernican Revolution, Thomas Kuhn's look at the break between ancient and modern thinking on the subject.

Copernicus himself made no observations. He worked only with acquired data and ancient texts. What system did he start out with? This is important, as we can't understand what changed without knowing what was. Kuhn traces the nature of the Ptolemaic system with diagrams but virtually no equations (until the technical appendix at the end) to give the reader an understanding of what sorts of phenomena caught the eyes of ancient astronomers. The Sun and Moon and stars move in their own peculiar manners, and the planets, the wandering stars, behaved in the most peculiar manner of all. The ancients developed rather sophisticated methods to track and predict these movements using their own location as a reasonable starting point. Yet Copernicus had the idea that this starting point was not properly speaking the actual center of the universe. He developed a Sun centered system that qualitatively explained many phenomena (such as retrograde motion of the planets, a notable improvement) without some of the mathematical oddities of the old system, but required so many of its own modifications for accuracy that the final system was no neater than the original.

Yet some astronomers preferred the new to the old. This was, all myth busting aside, still a dangerous idea to advocate in the midst of the Reformation. There was a subtle distinction between advocating a mathematical model and advocating a statement of physical reality. There were many reasons to reject Copernicus, and Kuhn covers them here. There are two main themes: the first is that ancient astronomy was bound up with ancient physics and with theology, and rejecting one introduced many awkward questions about the rest that intellectually honest scholars couldn't ignore. The second is political. Most people know something of the story of Galileo and his confrontations with the Inquisition. It didn't help him that he was arrogant, that he mocked powerful people he called friends, and that politically it was a bad time to make waves. This is also touched upon briefly in Kuhn, but the focus remains on the intellectual revolution, and there Galileo had much to contribute in his new observations. Ultimately, the revolution was as much about insight and vision as about calculations and observations.

Readers more familiar with Kuhn from his later The Structure of Scientific Revolutions will find some of his discussion taking a familiar tone. Indeed, the Copernican revolution fits well with that model; it was a revolutionary idea that marked a turning point in Western science, straddling both the ancient and modern viewpoints. For the reader who is willing to visualize the issues and absorb the history, Kuhn has provided the most succinct and clear explanation of Copernicus's contribution to the Western world likely to be found anywhere.

Kuhn's The Copernican Revolution was written as a text for an undergraduate course in the intellectual history of science. As such, its approach is focused and temporally expansive. The drawback of such an approach is the deficit of analysis in key areas. The analysis of the Church's role in science during the late middle ages and Renaissance was rather one-dimensional, but this obviously is not Kuhn's focus. Instead, he would like the reader to realize that any set of data can be modeled to an infinite number of paradigms (in anticipation of Structure of Scientific Revolutions). The heliocentric argument solved some qualitative problems but was largely Ptolemaic in articulation. Its aesthetic and geometric harmonies were extracted by astronomers who could could apply a mathematical rigor to it, in a post-Ptolemaic tradition (Kepler and Newton).

Kuhn challenges the reader's imagination to decipher the heavenly phenomena in the same way Ptolemy might have, without being hampered by the technical minutia of astronomy. He writes so lucidly as to pick the reader up and drop him or her under the ancient sky, and to follow a long, through time. Paramount to Kuhn is the practical importance of astronomical data and the logic of its categorization.

Perhaps the most persuasive analysis that Kuhn endeavors is that of the progression of the Renaissance neo-Platonics: Brahe, Galilei, Kepler, Descartes, and the mutation of the Copernican system into Newtonian synthesis. In one sense, his analysis is very non-Kuhnian as it can't point to a singular moment, and involves more of a patchwork of adopting new features (that is until Newton).

A concise introduction to the evolution of astronomical thought from antiquity to newton and a compelling classic.

This is a great overview of the development of the Copernican system. The main text is very clear and readable and the "technical appendix" has good expositions of key mathematical arguments. Nevertheless, I think Kuhn's interpretation of "the Copernican revolution" has some shortcomings. Kuhn wishes the Copernican revolution to conform to his idea (as presented in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) of a revolution brought on by a crisis: "[Copernicus'] famous preface still provides one of the classic descriptions of a crisis state" and "Ptolemaic astronomy had failed to solve its problems; the time had come to give a competitor a chance." But Kuhn does not support this position very well. For instance he writes: "When Copernicus listed the aspects of contemporary astronomy that had led him to consider his radical theory, he began, 'For, first, the mathematicians are so unsure of the movements of the Sun and the Moon that they cannot even explain or observe the constant length of the seasonal year.'" Here Kuhn is using a rather underhand trick. He is implying, of course, that this calendar issue was Copernicus' primary motivation, but fails to address two crucial counterarguments. First, Copernicus' preface is addressed to the Pope and he is clearly interested in emphasising that "my labors contribute somewhat even to the Commonwealth of the Church, of which your Holiness is now Prince," mentioning specifically how the calendar issue was a concern for Leo X, etc. Second, when Copernicus says "first...", he does not mean "first" as in "most important," for he continues with a "second" and then reaches "the chief point of all." This chief point of all is the fact that the Copernican model has a beautiful implication: the planetary distances. A geocentric model cannot give such information because we could scale the orbit of Saturn, say, to make it twice as big and it would still look exactly the same seen from earth. But in a heliocentric model the distances are determined because if we scaled the orbit of Saturn then it would look the same seen from the sun but different seen from earth. So with the earth in the center we cannot determine planetary distances because we are the center of scaling, but with the sun in the center we would notice scaling and thus the planetary distances are locked, or, as Copernicus puts it, "this correlation binds together so closely the order and the magnitudes of all the planets and of their spheres or orbital circles and the heavens themselves that nothing can be shifted around in any part of them without disrupting the remaining parts and the universe as a whole." Thus he can claim triumphantly that earlier astronomers "have not been able to discover or to infer the chief point of all, i.e., the form of the world and the certain commensurability of its parts. But they are in exactly the same fix as someone taking from different places hands, feet, head, and the other limbs---shaped very beautifully but not with reference to one body and without correspondence to one another---so that such parts made up a monster rather than a man." (I'm using the translation from Goldoni's excellent article in the Mathematical Intelligencer.) Kuhn admits that the Copernicus' determination of the planetary distances is "crucially important" but dismisses it as the main reason for the acceptance of the theory: "'Harmony' seems a strange basis on which to argue for the earth's motion... Copernicus' arguments are not pragmatic. They appeal, if at all, not to the utilitarian sense of the practising astronomer but to his aesthetic sense and to that alone. ... New harmonies did not increase accuracy or simplicity. Therefore they could and did appeal primarily to that limited and perhaps irrational subgroup of mathematical astronomers whose Neoplatonic ear for mathematical harmonies could not be obstructed by page after page of complex mathematics leading finally to numerical predictions scarcely better than those they had before." The correct reading---beauty before truth---is staring Kuhn in the face but he refuses to recognise it, opting instead to dismiss Copernicus as "strange" and Kepler as "irrational."

"The Copernican Revolution" tells the epochal story of how the earth-centered cosmology of Ptolemy was replaced by the sun-centered cosmology of Copernicus and Kepler. The book is a classic. Kuhn understood how ideas influence each other and hang together in a system. He could write with equal erudition about observational astronomy, medieval theology, astrology, and Aristotelian physics.

"The Copernican Revolution" is a trove of historical and intellectual insights. Perhaps the main lesson is that scientific progress is not a simple matter of theory being adapted to observation. Multiple theories can account for the same observations, theories have complex non-observational bases of support, and extra-theoretical assumptions provided by "common sense" (such as the immobility of the earth) can be highly contingent products of a culture. Scientific progress is never guaranteed. Erroneous theories -- such as the theory placing the earth at the center of the universe -- can hold sway for centuries and generate a vast body of supporting evidence, only to fall out of sync with new observations and a new climate of opinion -- at which point they can hang on tenaciously, or collapse "suddenly" over the course of a generation or two. It all comes down to history.

Kuhn's great contribution to thought was to situate the history of science within the history of ideas -- he treated scientific theories as the products of cultures, institutions, and sheer accidents, not as deliverances of pure logic. "The Copernican Revolution" is fantastic and should be ready by anyone who enjoyed and learned from "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." It's become fashionable to bash Kuhn lately but his books have a secure place in the canon of history and philosophy of science. Six stars!

Astronaut Jay Apt, with the help of geographer Justin Wilkinson and climatologist Michael Helfert, has assembled a book full of pictures of Earth taken from orbit. These photographs were chosen from over a 145,000 that are available from the NASA photographic library and focus on many different aspects of our planet's geology and climate. The large coffee table style format and the high quality of the reproductions allows this book bring out the stunning features of our home and is welcome addition to anyone who is interested in space photography, especially since most of the book is photographs and very little text.

The book is divided into sections covering each continent, the Pacific Ocean and the aurora. To show the range of Earth's geology and climate, each section highlights the major geological features found in each region and if appropriate mankind's influence. To further emphasis to geological diversity of the planet, occasional surface photographs that correspond to an orbital photograph are also included. For example, in the section on Africa, there are photos of the Nile, Nile cities, the Sahara desert, various coastline features and cloud formations. The only portions of the Earth not covered are the North and South Poles, since the shuttle does not fly over these regions. There is also one extremely interesting two page map spread which shows the location of each one of the 268,000 photographs taken by the astronauts.

This book is one of my favorite space photography books and I look at it often and each time that I do I always notice something different. This is a great book and well worth the price.

Shuttle astronaut Jay Apt, together with scientists Michael Helfert and Justin Wilkinson, has put together a wonderful book of photographs under the auspices of National Geographic, Orbit. These are all photographs taken by astronauts from the space shuttle while in orbit (with a few exceptions, historically significant photographs from moon circlings and early trips into space). Photography, interestingly enough, is never really scheduled as a shuttle activity, but rather done 'in between' the other assignments. The photographs included in this book do not come from special 'space' cameras, but rather from regular hand-held, off-the-shelf cameras that astronauts took with them.

The shuttle offers a unique platform for photography, to say the least. It has 11 different windows, and as the shuttle orbits in what one might consider an upside-down position, the windows and cargo-bay with doors open are almost always facing the earth. Astronauts take lots of film with them, and record many phenomena. This book is divided geographically, by earth region: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific, Middle and South America, and North America. There is also a special section on the Aurora, with dazzling photographs of things that look right out of Star Trek!

The images include daytime and nighttime views, calm views and stormy views. One can see hurricanes and cyclones from high above, stretching their entire lengths across great portions of the globe. One can see the difference lighting makes in an urban area at night, the way terrain and human-engineering connect, and how much of the world seems to remain unspoilt when viewed from a distance of even a few hundred miles away.

This is a remarkable book, full of glorious photographs of the 'home world', a great coffee-table book, a great gift, and a great guide of inspiration for younger readers who might be interested in science, geography, or even becoming an astronaut.

Truely a magnificent piece of work to wiew the wonder of God's creation leaves you in awe of the beauty of the Earth. I pick it up regularly, for maximum enjoyment choose times where you are not rushed so you can drink in the superb pictures. A book no household can afford to be without.

The book is published by National Geographic, so it goes without saying that the quality of the photographs is superb. But to look at this collection of space-born images is to never see the earth in the same way again. All the contintents and oceans are covered and even the Aurora is documented. The astronauts who took these photographs are some of the luckiest men and women on (or off) the earth, and this book will show you why.

Despite all that man has done to harm the environment, many of the photographs give you an eerie sense of what it might've been like to look down on the earth thousands of years ago, seeing only a beautiful collection of shapes, colors and clouds. Some pictures of the African desert and its coastline will leave you breathless.

A wonderful collection that beats satellite imagery any day of the week.

I first heard about ORBIT while paging through a National Geographic. The images were disorienting and intriguing. Each photo challenged me to look at the planet like I never had before. "Why is that river so muddy?" "Where do those colors come from?" "How could those shapes be natural?" I would highly recommend getting a magnifying glass to best experience these pictures. They are so rich in detail that constant and close-up attention would be very rewarding. The book is divided into chapters of the continents. To look at the whole book in one sitting is so overwhelming, I would suggest perusing it a chapter at a time.

A great, new adventure series - young adult, but lots of Victorian literature overtones that the older kids will love. I love the literary, clever writing and creative worldbuilding that Reeve has done. This is a fresh twist on a familiar story where precocious kids with inventor parents are thrown into an adventure where they learn that there is more to their family than they knew.

I honestly think this is one of my new favorite books! Absolutely wonderful! Funny, creative, cute, charming, endearing, fast-paced, and sweet!
Delightful characters fill the book from cover to cover. The plot is both intriguing and pretty complex without being too confusing or obvious. The illustrations add to story and seem very fitting to the style of writing.
The book is filled with wit and heart. I adored it!

I originally borrowed this book from the library to read aloud to my, now six year old, daughter and I have to tell you the truth, I took it back with out reading it. It was too much for me, I couldn't do the accents right and the lingo and speech patterns were just too much for my brain that day.

So, I borrowed the audio book and let Greg Steinbruner read it to her instead. Which was wonderful for all of us; he did the lingo the accents and the speech patterns of all the different characters flawlessly.

And while she followed along looking at the fabulous illustrations in the book, we all fell in love with Larklight. It's a wonderfully imaginative and fantastic story of the giant spiders who attack Art and Myrtle Mumby and their home, Larklight, which is located in outer space, of course.

If your child likes Peter Pan and pirates she might like this story, though it has a little bit of a scary factor, I could see it scaring some children, there are gigantic spiders attacking after all.

But our kid loved this so much we bought her the sequel, Starcross, and read it to her ourselves. We got the hang of the accents and the lingo and all after repeatedly listening to Greg Steinbruner.

Last year our girl insisted on being Jack Havock, the hero from Larklight for Halloween. And her birthday party last month was planned around Larklight. So, it's really made quite the impression with her.

I highly recommend it and hope you love it as much as we do.

Larklight is a giant Victorian style home orbiting around the moon. It is inhabited by the Mumby's, including 15 year old Myrtle, 12 year old Art, and Edward, their Father. Their mother, Amelia, died a few years back on a trip to the Earth's surface. Edward is studying the habits of Aetheric Icthyomorphs, a breed of fish and sea like creatures that live in space. One day a man named Mr. Webster from the Royal Xenological Society pays a call on Edward to see his work, but Mr. Webster turns out to be a giant white spider that has come to unleash an army of similar creatures onto Larklight. When Art awakens the house is encased in spider webbing and he and his sister have to make an escape, leaving their father behind in the flight.

Thus begins a tremendously adventurous feat of story telling. Reeve has outdone himself with this fine addition to the steam punk, space traveling genre. If Terry Gilliam, L. Frank Baum, George Lucas, and Jules Verne got together and had a lovechild I believe it would resemble this book. Oh, and throw in a bit of Herbert's "Dune" just for flavor. The thing is this, even with all of these influences "Larklight" is a story completely unique in it's own right. A rollicking tale of swashbuckling space pirates, intrigue, and mayhem makes this book a great read and the start of a thrilling new series. I can't wait to read the next one.

Take the arch humor and wild imagination of the Edge Chronicles series, add a dose of alternative universe theory from the Golden Compass, and shake it up with a bit of Victorian-era manners, and you get Larklight, a tremendously fun read. Good upper elementary and middle school readers will find this one hard to put down.

This book is outstanding in every sense. Everything - from science to science fiction and much, much more - you possibly wanted to know about Mars is in here. And Morton's prose is so good, so enthralling and so exuberant you'll find it impossible to stop reading. Especially his musings on the sublime martian landscapes are, well, sublime, conveying a monumental grandeur that we may sometime be able to behold ourselves, somewhere in the future. Without any doubt the best book on Mars available at the moment. Thank you Oliver Morton!

This book would be a perfect acquisition for the student or
scientist in the house. A spectacular Martian volcanic eruption
is depicted by Hartmann. There is an interesting Elysium shaded
relief map. The Olympus Mons scene is perhaps one of the most
famous depicted in the early 1970s. The book discusses the
possibility of water on Mars from inferences of historic flood
activity. There is a scientific hypothesis and presentation of
how some local Martian bacteria use hydrogen to reduce sulphates.
The USGS Viking pictures depict imagery of Valles Marineris.
Overall, this acquisition is worth the price charged for a wide
constituency of academicians and scientists everywhere.

I highly recommend Oliver Morton's Mapping Mars. Not only does it frame the debate about the likelihood of life on Mars, but also does a great job of explaning our changing understanding of the planet.

It also conveys a sense of Mars as a real place, and discusses how the meaning of Mars changes depending on our sense of whether or not we think there is life there.

Finally, it asks a crucial question: what do we mean by "nature" and how tied up is that notion with "life"?

And it has cool pictures.

First of all, if you have the slightest interest in the geology of Mars, or in maps, or in planetary science (and, if not, why are you here?) you *need* to read this book.

"This is a splendid book and a major achievement in the study of Mars.... A number of authors might fairly claim to have written the best Mars novel, but this is the best factual book on Mars that money can buy."
-- New Scientist, Google for online review

"When the investigator, having under consideration a fact or group of facts whose origin or cause is unknown, seeks to discover their origin, his first step is to make a guess." --GK Gilbert, Science 3(53), 1896 (which codified the method of multiple working hypotheses). Gilbert, of course, was "one of the happy generation of American geologists who...took their impressive beards and intellects to every corner of the American West."

Tidbits: Gene Shoemaker's first map of Meteor Crater, in 1957, was done for the old AEC, as part of a truly crackbrained scheme to manufacture plutonium by detonating uranium-wrapped A-bombs underground. Which, thank heavens, never got very far. Gene didn't like the idea, either, but who's to turn down funding?

No map of exotic lands is complete without exotic names, and the map of Mars is well-stocked: Noctis Labyrinthus, the Labyrinth of Night. Tithonium Chasma, Albe Patera --a volcano that occupies an area about equal to that of India --Claritas Fossae, Utopia Planita... Olympus Mons! Formerly Nix Olympica, the Snows of Olympus --and the highest mountain known to humanity. Mauna Kea, Earth's biggest volcano, would fit comfortably inside Olympus' summit caldera. OM contains some 3.5 million cubic km of rock--or the area of Texas, if excavated 8 km deep. This is one *humongous* mountain. And Vastitas Borealis, the northern lowlands, is arguably the flattest place in the solar system.

I like the respectful attention Morton pays to science fiction about Mars -- which echoes the attention and affection paid to SF writers by working planetary scientists. Of course, sometimes these are the same people, as with UofA planetologist, novelist (Mars Underground, recommended), photographer, artist and all-around Renaissance man Bill Hartmann (who we really should invite as an AGS guest speaker); and Geoffrey Landis, a NASA space scientist and parttime novelist (Mars Crossing, recommended) who helped to develop the Mars Pathfinder.

About the only place that Mapping Mars fails us is in the illustrations. The publisher made a valiant effort, but an octavo-format book just doesn't have the page size for drama. Fortunately, you can Google for suitably-impressive maps and photos of Mars.

Happy reading! -- Pete Tillman
Consulting Geologist, Tucson & Santa Fe (USA)

When I first saw this book I was fascinated, but I held off till it came out in paperback. Mapping Mars is a very different book than Hartmann's Traveler's Guide. Morton is concerned with helping us understand the process we have gone through in the understanding of the face of Mars. As such, he interviewed many key players in the space-age study of Mars and paints his portrait of Mars through their work.

Mapping Mars is concerned more with the "big picture" of Mars than the Traveler's Guide. As such its illustrations are more concerned with showing the evolution of our maps and our mental images of Mars. Part of that "big picture" is our cultural view of Mars through our science fiction, art and exploration plans. He spends quite a bit of time on these topics - but does not sacrifice the science content.

The book reads like a series of personal vignettes of the people involved in the illumination of Mars - people like Hartmann, Michael Carr, Michael Malin and Bob Zubrin.

Mapping Mars reads well and draws the reader into the personal and scientific journey of understanding Mars.

Highly recommended.