The Planets

This popular-science survey of the solar system moves from the inner planets to the ice giants and Pluto. It describes Mercury's airless, Sun-scorched surface; Venus's dense, toxic atmosphere and runaway heat; Mars's lost air, ice, and dry valleys; Jupiter's mass, storms, and moons; Saturn's rings and the chemistry of its satellites; Uranus, tipped on its side; Neptune's winds; and the distant dwarf planet Pluto. Drawing on spacecraft measurements, the authors explain how the planets formed from the solar nebula, how collisions and migration shaped their orbits, and how atmospheres and magnetic fields differ. The book is an explanatory tour of the planets as physical worlds, not a history of astronomers and not a star atlas.

Bound in black paper printed and blocked with a wrap-around colour picture of Saturn. Black slipcase printed with a wrap-around colour picture of the sun.