Solar System Books

This is one of the most useful books I have ever bought. This graduate level text explains everything you could ever want to know about dust in space in language that is easy to follow and using simplified mathematic situations. From the archaic conventions of observational astronomy to understanding how solid particles interact with light waves, to how particles form, in what environments we can observe them and how, this book provides a great introduction to the subject as a whole and offers suggested further reading. I would recommend this book to any graduate level scientist who wants to learn about space dust

This is a rather dense book about Mars and its place in the popular culture. A great deal of space is spent on Mars related movies.

This book shows that the claims of Percival Lowell regarding Mars as a dying planet still heavily influenced scientists about Mars even into the present day. Scientists wanted to believe in water and plant life on Mars even after scientific evidence showed that was extremely unlikely.

Despite its denseness, this is an important and insightful book about Mars.

This is the proceedings of the International Astronomical Union Colloquium held in Belgrade from August 31 to September 4, 2004. It includes all 60 papers; the scientists at the colloquium were from 21 different countries.

The book is divided into six parts. The first section is on extrasolar planetary systems. We've now seen enough of them (12 at the time one of the papers was written) which have at least two planets around main sequence stars so that we can look for a statistically significant number of mean-motion resonances. And there's a paper about formation and migration of extrasolar planets, even in binary systems. There's even one on the boundaries of the Galactic habitable zone. That's an interesting topic given that so many stars with planets in the habitable zone appear to be quite a bit older than the Sun, making "Fermi's paradox" (namely, if there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Galaxy, it should have visited us by now) even more serious.

The next section is on asteroid families and stability. There's more on resonances, and there's a couple of papers on non-gravitational perturbations, including the Yarkovsky effect (the self-acceleration of a body by its own thermal radiation) and the YORP effect (a torque arising from the Yarkovsky force).

I liked the third section best. It deals with asteroid orbit determination and impacts. It starts with a paper on virtual asteroids and virtual impactors, which uses statistical methods to decide which of a number of Near Earth Asteroids have a serious chance of impacting the Earth in a given year. And there are papers on asteroid observations, populations and collisions.

Section 4 is about comets and trans-Neptunian objects. It includes work on the shaping of the trans-Neptunian belt, much of it caused by the outward migration of Neptune (it is now considered very likely that Uranus and Neptune migrated outward substantially after their formation, while Jupiter migrated inward, in order to conserve angular momentum during scattering of nearby planetesimals).

The following section is on meteors, meteorites, and dust. We learn about the origin and evolution of meteorites and dust belts, drag caused by the solar wind, and much more. And the final section is on satellite and stellar systems. This includes a paper on population models for space debris.

I found this book to be very interesting. I recommend it to all those who enjoy planetary sciences.

I was exceptionally impressed with this work. I was taken with the very descriptive text on the inner workings of our planet, along with her spiritual aspects. What really got me was the description of the people and animals on the moon. It almost makes me believe that no one has ever really landed on the moon!! How could life on the moon have escaped them? It so happens that my sister gave me a new book, "Saturn" also by Jakob Lorber, and it's just as wonderful and descriptive as Earth & Moon. It leaves one to ponder why this information has been so long in coming.

Go to www.Amazon.com > Books > kivioja > Earth & Space Science For Everybody

This informative book is written in 'plain English' to be easy to read by everybody 'from 9 to 99', even if your expertise is not in the field of Earth Sciences.

Read about the Sun, Earth, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, meteorites, meteor showers, solar system, visible stars, Milky Way galaxy, other galaxies and the associated distances.

Read the book's back cover and its Introduction chapter at: www.trafford.com/07-0381

From www.lakivioja.com download free, carefully selected reputable Internet Links containing over 1,400 photos, detailed Earth-Science-Expert descriptions with spectacular photos by NASA, GPL, USGS, USNO, NOAA, ESA, SOHO, HUBBLE, CHANDRA, JAXA, NAOJ + others. Therefore, the book brings to its readers more, newer, better up-to-date photos and more current information than any printed book can have on its pages.

The book describes a back-yard-size 3-D model of the entire known Universe, so that the 'Whole Shebang' can be visualized from its outside.

The advent of the space age in 1957 has led to a quantum leap in mankind's knowledge of the Earth and its neighbors in the Solar System. After writing the most comprehensive book about the geologic work of the Apollo astronauts on the Moon ("Exploring the Moon", David Harland has turned to the exploration of the Solar System, and more specifically, the place of the Earth within it. The acceptance by the scientific community in the 1960's of the idea of "plate tectonics" as the mechanism to explain the large-scale geological evolution of the Earth has led to interest in determining the evolutionary process of the other bodies in the Solar System to fill out the picture and to tie all of this to the development of the conditions necessary for the sustenance of life on Earth. All of this is covered in this book.
One of the most important features of this book is an historical survey of the growth of the body of knowledge of the other bodies in the Solar System, starting with the invention of the telescope in the 17th century, and how this has evolved with improvements in observational technology down to our own time.
The author then leads us to the important question regarding the possible uniqueness of life on Earth, and why, if it is unique, this should be the case, especially considering that Earth's neighbors, Mars and Venus are similar to Earth in many ways and yet have evolved in radically different directions which are inimical to the sustenance of life as we know it (of course, the discovery of living organisms in hydrothermal vents where there is no oxygen at the bottom of the ocean is forcing scientists to broaden their views of what life-friendly environments are really like). For example, only the Earth, among the four terrestrial planets has a large, natural satellite. Why is this? If the Moon didn't exist there would be no life on Earth because the presence of the Moon keeps the Earth's orbit stable and prevents the obliquity of the spin axis from changing. All this leads to a stable thermal environment, vital for life to exist. Similarly, it is now believed that the water present on Earth was brought to the planet from comets originating in the outer Solar System. Another important question is why the Earth has plate tectonics whereas Mars certainly doesn't and Venus probably doesn't. Thus, we see that in order to understand our own planet, it is vital to understand the process that work on all the others and to know what is happening even at the outermost reaches of the Solar System. This book surveys all these matters, giving the layman a comprehensive picture of the current state of knowledge.
The book has an extensive glossary, but I would primarily recommend it to someone who has at least some college-level background in physics, engineering or other physical science in order to fully appreciate it.

Great resource for curriculum unit on space, easy to read, great pictures.

This book presents a good discussion of the major elements of planetary science. The sections on the planets themselves (such as 'Mars: Geology') are introductory, as they have limited space. However, as the articles move to more narrow subjects (such as 'Impact Cratering'), they increase in depth. The articles are written by experts in their fields, and the language is kept a non-technical as is possible for a general work. This is a useful reference for those interested in planetary science, from the high school level and up. It is the reference that I reach for when confronted with a subject that I know little about. It should take the interested individual to an intermediate level of understanding of most topics in this field.

If you have little scientific training but you still want to know why the sun shines, why the winds blow, why the sea is green and what's going on in the bowels of the earth then this is the book for you. Along the way you'll get a complimentary introduction to relevant aspects of chemistry and physics if you need it. Just for fun, you'll also find out whether water really swirls down the drain in the opposite direction in the hemisphere that's not your own (it depends). The author, a naturalist who has written several other fine books, has taken on the Full Monty here: nothing less than how the world works. And she pulls it off. Energy is her leitmotif in every study but it leads her on a very comprehensive tour. Her many fine illustrations aid in the telling of the tale. The book is reminiscent of Howard Blum's masterful 1955 `Time's Arrow and Evolution.'

Venus Observed provides a unique look into the Magellan mission: a journalist's perspective.

Not being a scientist myself, it was easy to understand and comprehend not only the space craft, but also the data that was retrieved. Thanks to Henry S.F Cooper's superb writing, anybody can sit in mission control and understand what the mission planners wanted to achieve, the spacecraft's capabilities, the Venusian landscape, and the competing theories and discoveries of the mission's scientific team. You not only get the scientific stuff, but you also get the human drama as technicians try to keep the craft flying and scientists argue about data that (to them) doesn't make sense. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.