The Cambridge Guide to the Solar System

With full color images, this classic reference is brought up-to-date, and will appeal to anyone with an interest in planetary science.

Kenneth R. Lang (Author)

9780521198578, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 March 2011

502 pages, 200 b/w illus. 225 colour illus. 62 tables
28.4 x 22.9 x 3.5 cm, 1.97 kg

'… very browseable … for those wishing for a well documented guide to our present knowledge of the Solar system this is very good value … Recommended …'. Astronomy Now

Richly illustrated with full-color images, this book is a comprehensive, up-to-date description of the planets, their moons, and recent exoplanet discoveries. This second edition of a now classic reference is brought up to date with fascinating new discoveries from 12 recent Solar System missions. Examples include water on the Moon, volcanism on Mercury's previously unseen half, vast buried glaciers on Mars, geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus, lakes of hydrocarbons on Titan, encounter with asteroid Itokawa, and sample return from comet Wild 2. The book is further enhanced by hundreds of striking new images of the planets and moons. Written at an introductory level appropriate for undergraduate and high-school students, it provides fresh insights that appeal to anyone with an interest in planetary science. A website hosted by the author contains all the images in the book with an overview of their importance. A link to this can be found at www.cambridge.org/solarsystem.

Part I. Changing Views and Fundamental Concepts: 1. Evolving perspectives: a historical prologue
2. The new, close-up view from space
3. The invisible buffer zone with space: atmospheres, magnetospheres and the solar wind
Part II. The Inner System – Rocky Worlds: 4. Third rock from the Sun: restless Earth
5. The Moon: stepping stone to the planets
6. Mercury: a dense battered world
7. Venus: the veiled planet
8. Mars: the red planet
Part III. The Giant Planets, Their Satellites and Their Rings – Worlds of Liquid, Ice and Gas: 9. Jupiter: a giant primitive planet
10. Saturn: lord of the rings
11. Uranus and Neptune
Part IV. Remnants of Creation – Small Worlds in the Solar System: 12. Asteroids and meteorites
13. Colliding worlds
14. Comets
15. Beyond Neptune
Part V. Origin of the Solar System and Extrasolar Planets: 16. Brave new worlds
Index.

Subject Areas: Solar system: the Sun & planets [PGS], Astronomy, space & time [PG]