Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes

What makes this book impressive is the quality of the photographs. The emphasis is clearly on the photographs, not on the text. The book contains a great amount of extremely detailed photographs of the solar system. Many of them I've never seen before in any book or on internet. In selecting the photographs, the author did not aim at covering all objects of the solar system. For example, of Saturnus only the rings are shown, albeit very extensively. Uranus (including its moons Ariel and Miranda) is shown by only five photographs. Neptunus and its moon Triton is covered by eleven photographs. Pluto is not represented at all, because detailed photographs are not available. The most extensive chapters cover Mars and Jupiter. With Mars the emphasis is on photographs that are taken by the many orbiting spacecraft that visited this planet (Viking Orbiter, Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey). A few nice photographs of the tiny moons Phobos and Deimos and two photographs taken on the surface of Mars are also included. The chapter about Jupiter contains very nice photographs of Jupiter itself and the four Galilean moons. Especially Europa and Io are very extensively represented. Venus is shown by a multitude of very detailed radar scans of Magellan. Mercury is shown by photographs made in the 1974 and 1975 by Mariner 10. The photographs of our own moon are older still, from the various Lunar Orbiters in the years '60. The sun is represented by a set of quite recently taken and very impressive photographs. There is even a chapter about asteroids, with some photographs of Eros (taken by NEAR), Gaspra and Ida, with its satellite Dactyl. The text in this book is relatively sparse. It is partly informative (covering aspects of the represented solar objects or space probes) or philosophical in nature. The text is generally quite readable. Finally a personal note. Many photographs in this book are pure art. All praise be then to the artist who made it all, our Creator!

Mostly, the best images you've ever seen of our solar system companions. I love astronomy books but I've never seen 95% of these large-format images. The detail is astounding. Some would make wonderful artwork if printed for wall display. I never knew what most of the planets looked like at such exquisite detail. Though there aren't too many Earth images, the ones included are just breathtakingly sharp, detailed and, true to life like you never saw before. In a word, in a class by itself. The best of the best.

Astronomy and planetary exploration have produced many spectacular pictures, often gathered together in large-format books. Beyond may be the best of them all. Benson has done more than select the most interesting images from the past forty years of solar system exploration, many of them already familiar to space buffs. He has processed those images to produce jaw-dropping pictures, some rising to the level of art. In a few cases, he has combined images to form panoramas spread out over four unfolding pages. The book begins with the Earth and its Moon, then moves to the Sun and the other planets from Mercury out to Neptune. Some of the most impressive images show moons transiting across the faces of Mars and Jupiter. The book includes a foreword by Arthur C. Clarke. Highly recommended.

We are used to big glossy books of pretty pictures of celestial objects. This book is more than that, though. Sure, the book is beautifully produced and the pictures are pretty (and yes, they are of celestial objects) but when you look through the pages each planet (major and minor) becomes a world--a real place you could visit. The dunefields and erosional badlands of Mars are especially compelling, along with the odd and unfamiliar grooved terrain of the moons of the outer planets.