Dreams of Other Worlds

The Amazing Story of Unmanned Space Exploration - Revised and Updated Edition

Chris Impey, Holly Henry (Autoren)

Buch | Softcover

464 Seiten

2016 | Revised and Updated Edition
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-16922-4 (ISBN)

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Dreams of Other Worlds describes the unmanned space missions that have opened new windows on distant worlds. Spanning four decades of dramatic advances in astronomy and planetary science, this book tells the story of eleven iconic exploratory missions and how they have fundamentally transformed our scientific and cultural perspectives on the universe and our place in it. The journey begins with the Viking and Mars Exploration Rover missions to Mars, which paint a startling picture of a planet at the cusp of habitability. It then moves into the realm of the gas giants with the Voyager probes and Cassini's ongoing exploration of the moons of Saturn. The Stardust probe's dramatic round-trip encounter with a comet is brought vividly to life, as are the SOHO and Hipparcos missions to study the Sun and Milky Way. This stunningly illustrated book also explores how our view of the universe has been brought into sharp focus by NASA's great observatories--Spitzer, Chandra, and Hubble--and how the WMAP mission has provided rare glimpses of the dawn of creation.
Dreams of Other Worlds reveals how these unmanned exploratory missions have redefined what it means to be the temporary tenants of a small planet in a vast cosmos.

Chris Impey is University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona. His books include The Living Cosmos, How It Ends, and How It Began. Holly Henry is professor of English at California State University, San Bernardino. She is the author of Virginia Woolf and the Discourse of Science: The Aesthetics of Astronomy.

1 Introduction 1 2 Viking: Discovering the Red Planet 13 3 MER: The Little Rovers That Could 40 4 Voyager: Grand Tour of the Solar System 74 5 Cassini: Bright Rings and Icy Worlds 111 6 Stardust: Catching a Comet by the Tail 137 7 SOHO: Living with a Restless Star 161 8 Hipparcos: Mapping the Milky Way 186 9 Spitzer: Unveiling the Cool Cosmos 211 10 Chandra: Exploring the Violent Cosmos 242 11 HST: The Universe in Sharp Focus 270 12 WMAP: Mapping the Infant Universe 302 13 Conclusion: New Horizons, New Worlds 327 Notes 343 Selected Bibliography 405 Index 417

Erscheinungsdatum	21.04.2016
Zusatzinfo	16 color illus. 68 halftones. 10 line illus.
Verlagsort	New Jersey
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 235 mm
Gewicht	765 g
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik ► Weltraum / Astronomie
ISBN-10	0-691-16922-5 / 0691169225
ISBN-13	978-0-691-16922-4 / 9780691169224
Zustand	Neuware