Andrew Cohen - The Planets

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‘Absolutely beautiful’ BBC One Show‘Really impressive’ Eamonn Holmes, ITV This MorningA companion book to the critically acclaimed BBC series.The bestselling authors of Wonders of the Universe are back with another blockbuster, a groundbreaking exploration of our Solar System as it has never been seen before.Mercury, a lifeless victim of the Sun’s expanding power. Venus, once thought to be lush and fertile, now known to be trapped within a toxic and boiling atmosphere. Mars, the red planet, doomed by the loss of its atmosphere. Jupiter, twice the size of all the other planets combined, but insubstantial. Saturn, a stunning celestial beauty, the jewel of our Solar System. Uranus, the sideways planet and the first ice giant. Neptune, dark, cold and whipped by supersonic winds. Pluto, the dwarf planet, a frozen rock.Andrew Cohen and Professor Brian Cox take readers on a voyage of discovery, from the fiery heart of our Solar System, to its mysterious outer reaches. They touch on the latest discoveries that have expanded our knowledge of the planets, their moons and how they come to be, alongside recent stunning and mind-boggling NASA photography.

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ANDREW COHEN

WITH

PROFESSOR BRIAN COX

THE PLANETS

JEFF DAI SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY COPYRIGHT CONTENTS COVER TITLE PAGE - фото 1 JEFF DAI SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY COPYRIGHT CONTENTS COVER TITLE PAGE - фото 2

© JEFF DAI / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

COPYRIGHT CONTENTS COVER TITLE PAGE COPYRIGHT DEDICATION SOLAR SYSTEM AN INTRODUCTION © pg005 Shutterstock MERCURY + VENUS A MOMENT IN THE SUN © pg005 Shutterstock EARTH + MARS THE TWO SISTERS © pg005 Shutterstock JUPITER THE GODFATHER © pg005 Shutterstock SATURN THE CELESTIAL JEWEL © pg005 Shutterstock URANUS NEPTUNE PLUTO INTO THE DARKNESS INDEX ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR ABOUT THE BOOK ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

WilliamCollinsBooks.com

This eBook edition published by William Collins in 2019

Text © Brian Cox & Andrew Cohen 2019

Images © Individual copyright holders

Diagrams © HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

By arrangement with the BBC

The BBC logo is a trademark of the British Broadcasting Corporation and is used under licence

BBC logo © BBC 2014

Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen assert their moral right to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Jupiter cover image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

All other cover images: Shutterstock

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this eBook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Source ISBN: 9780007488841

Ebook Edition © April 2019 ISBN: 9780008313470

Version: 2019-05-17

TO ANNA – AMONGST THE VASTNESS OF THIS STORY HOW LUCKY AM I TO HAVE FOUND YOU.

ANDREW COHEN

CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE ANDREW COHEN WITH PROFESSOR BRIAN COX

COPYRIGHT

DEDICATION TO ANNA – AMONGST THE VASTNESS OF THIS STORY HOW LUCKY AM I TO HAVE FOUND YOU. ANDREW COHEN

SOLAR SYSTEM AN INTRODUCTION

AN INTRODUCTION AN INTRODUCTION

pg005 Shutterstock MERCURY VENUS No 1 A MOMENT IN THE SUN No 1 - фото 3

© pg005 Shutterstock

MERCURY + VENUS No 1

A MOMENT IN THE SUN No 1

pg005 Shutterstock EARTH MARS THE TWO SISTERS pg005 Shutterstock - фото 4

© pg005 Shutterstock

EARTH + MARS

THE TWO SISTERS

pg005 Shutterstock JUPITER THE GODFATHER pg005 Shutterstock SATURN - фото 5

© pg005 Shutterstock

JUPITER

THE GODFATHER

pg005 Shutterstock SATURN THE CELESTIAL JEWEL pg005 Shutterstock - фото 6

© pg005 Shutterstock

SATURN

THE CELESTIAL JEWEL

pg005 Shutterstock URANUS NEPTUNE PLUTO INTO THE DARKNESS INDEX - фото 7

© pg005 Shutterstock

URANUS NEPTUNE PLUTO

INTO THE DARKNESS

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE BOOK

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

AN INTRODUCTION

SOLAR SYSTEM

PROFESSOR BRIAN COX

Shutterstock WANDERING LIGHTS In the daytime our universe stretches only as - фото 8

© Shutterstock

WANDERING LIGHTS

In the daytime, our universe stretches only as far as the horizon. The Sun hides in plain sight because it is too bright for us to see it directly. Only rarely do we glimpse a watercolour moon. Unless we think hard, our intellects are confined to the surface of the Earth. After sunset, beyond cities, the Universe appears; a destination for the imagination, albeit separated by a seemingly unbridgeable gulf. This may be true for the stars, but it is not so for the planets. There are times when Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn dominate the sky; bright lights that shift position nightly against the fixed stars, commanding our attention even if we aren’t certain what we’re looking at. The distances are still vast by terrestrial standards, but despite appearances the gulf is certainly not unbridgeable, because we have visited all of these planets and taken our first steps into the outer reaches of the Solar System beyond. And yet the wandering lights in the dark still feel detached from human affairs, and the time and effort we’ve spent in visiting them might seem to be an indulgence. This assumption, however, is profoundly wrong.

The exploration of the planets is not an indulgence. If we want to know how we came to be here we need to understand the histories of the planet that gave birth to us and the system that gave birth to it. We are children of Earth and also children of the Solar System.

BABAK TAFRESHI SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY The Milky Way in the night sky over - фото 9

© BABAK TAFRESHI / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

The Milky Way in the night sky over Sliding Spring Observatory, New South Wales, Australia.

The Solar System is a system. The Sun and the eight major planets and countless billions of minor planets, moons, asteroids, comets and unclassified lumps of ice and rock were formed back in the mists of time and they continue to evolve as one. We rarely notice the dynamic, interconnected nature of our system, although asteroid strikes on our planet are not such a rare occurrence. The Chelyabinsk impact in February 2013 injured 1,500 people when a 12,000-tonne asteroid broke up as it entered the Earth’s atmosphere at 60 times the speed of sound, and the Tunguska airburst in Siberia in 1908 flattened 800 square miles of forest in an explosion comparable to that of the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever tested. The surface of the Moon bears testament to a record of violence and destruction from the skies that the Earth has also endured, but the relentless erasure of craters by weathering and our good fortune that no major impacts have occurred in recorded human history are the reason for our misplaced sense of isolation from the heavens.

Science History Images Alamy Stock Photo The Tunguska airburst of 1908 is - фото 10

© Science History Images / Alamy Stock Photo

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