The Grand Tour: A Traveler's Guide to the Solar System

Quite a few astronomy books have a tendency to be either dry and boring or so technically advanced that they are beyond the grasp of the casual folks interested in space topics. NOT THIS ONE! The Grand Tour: A Traveler's Guide to The Solar System is a brilliantly fresh and exciting book full of engaging commentary and breath-taking photos, illustrations, and art. In every sense, it is a grand tour! It's entertainment and education wrapped into one power-package. For those interested in and / or beginning study in comparative planetology, this is an excellent primer, chock full of lots of foundation concepts. For those teaching solar system science, this is a must have resource! For librarians, this is a jewel for your collection! For artists and art-lovers who enjoy space themes, this book presents some fantastic material. For extremely advanced astro-folks, this book may not fully satisfy the hard-core science-minded, but hopefully, they can appreciate its value in generating excitement for space topics and exploration. I knew when I saw the book's cover I was in for a real treat--a holiday in the solar system, and I wasn't disappointed. A big fan of the Red Planet Mars, I was especially interested in the Tour's Mars commentary and images. I agree with the author's opening comments about the red planet: "Mars is unchallenged as the planet of intrigue. Rover's have crawled its surface, robotic arms have reached out and analyzed its minerals, and orbiters have sent back data from overhead--and Mars just continues to grow more fascinating and provocative, in terms of its possible similarities to Earth-like conditions" (84). I absolutely love the eerie, other-worldly space art view of Mars from its moon Deimos, page 85. The section called "Phobos and Deimos: Moonlets of Mars" is very impressive (pages 248-253). Other note worthy illustrations (I offer descriptive labels here for your information. In the book, the author comments on the images in well-placed captions) are the following: "Pluto eclipsing the Sun as viewed from Charon" page 3 / space art "Saturn seen from Rhea" page 34/ space art "Ribbon like Clouds" page 36 / Voyager photo "Magnificent View of Saturn by Cassini Spacecraft" page 37 / photo "Saturn's Rings as possibly viewed from its atmosphere" page 39 / space art "Titan illustrated--then and now" page 117 / space art This tour is well-worth the "ticket" price, and you don't even have to pack! :)

I prefer photographs (or images made from spacecraft) over paintings, and I bought this book to raise my kids' interest in space. Well, it was my prejudice. The book has loads of the newest images, including some from the Cassini-Huygens mission, and the paintings are great, in the sense that they are not fantasy, but "down-to-earth" renderings of wiews we could have if we were there. Much better than I expected. And it is not only the images. Great text, great reading.

This excellent coffee-table book is a fascinating exploration of the solar system. It is gratifying to see this book, now in its 3rd edition, revised regularly to reflect the many continuing new discoveries of the last 25 years. This survey, written for the layman, thoroughly covers all of the important worlds of our solar system. It also discusses our solar system's formation and what we know about extrasolar planets. Most books on the solar system introduce each planet in turn from Mercury outward to Pluto. This book starts with Jupiter and proceeds in descending order by size. This unusual approach emphasizes that these worlds vary as a continuum, encouraging comparison between small planets and large satellites, between satellites and asteroids, between asteroids and comets. Part I covers the 28 largest worlds in the solar system, from Jupiter to Ceres. Part II covers selected interesting worlds, such as Halley's Comet, asteroids Vesta, Eros, Hektor, and Chiron, and moons Amalthea, Mimas and Miranda. Part III discusses extrasolar planets. A glossary covers terms such as centaurs, differentiation, millibars, and retrograde. The illustrations and photography are especially worthwhile. Miller and Hartmann dramatically illustrate the wonder and majesty of space with a mix of actual photographs and artist's renditions. The book reflects the current indecision regarding Pluto. However, the authors opine that the solar system is most sensibly viewed as having eight planets, with Pluto the largest Kuiper Belt object and Ceres the largest asteroid. Two other newly-discovered trans-Neptunian objects receive a chapter: Sedna, possibly the first known Oort Cloud object, and 2004 DW (now called Orcus), the largest-known TNO at press time. Press time for this book was spring 2005. The book therefore includes a Huygens image of Titan taken in January, but just missed the uproar caused by the July discovery of 2003 UB313/"Xena". Surprisingly, there is no table listing the diameters, periods, and other vital statistics of the planets and moons. The only other drawback that comes to mind is that there is no chapter devoted to the Sun. On another plane, Miller and Hartmann use the solar system's diversity to emphasize our good fortune in having such a wonderful Earth, and remind us to take better care of our home. They also speculate about the possibility of past or present life on Mars, Europa, Titan, and extrasolar planets. They conclude by speaking of a Copernican revolution, away from Earth and humanity as the literal and figurative center of the universe, towards a humbler view of our place in the cosmos. The unorthodox presentation and the spectacular illustrations earn this book a place in any library on astronomy.

Written in the style of a traveller's guide book, the authors take you on an interplanetary cruise describing each body in detail. The book runs from the largest (the Sun) to the smallest objects (comets and tiny asteroids) in the solar system. The illustrations are either photos from spacecraft that have visited the various planets and moons, or are hypothetical paintings based on what the surfaces may look like. One particularly striking painting is of the surface of Pluto, with the sun as a mere bright speck in the sky.I'd recommend this book to anyone with a passing interest in astronomy or the planets, it's a great read and never gets obtusely technical. Ron Miller and William K. Hartmann are without a doubt the finest planetary artists around today.

An excellent book with stunning original hand-painted art. This book discusses the worlds of our solar system rather than the planets. Each body, no matter what pigeon hole or classification it has been placed into in the past, is treated as a unique world with its own landscape, sky, weather, and character. Planets, moons, asteroids, comets, etc. are organized by size rather than type, yielding some very surprising revelations.