We rate four of the latest astronomy titles
Exploration at the Edge of the Solar System
Dale P Cruikshank, William Sheehan University of Arizona Press £46.50 HB
On 14 July 2015, NASA’s New Horizons space probe flew past Pluto, sending home the first detailed images of this distant world. It arrived 88 seconds earlier than expected after a journey of over nine years, during which Pluto lost its status as a planet.
This book tells the inside story of the mission and more. Cruikshank has been a member of the New Horizons team since the mission was first planned and Sheehan is a leading astronomical historian.
The story begins in the 18th century when the known Solar System ended at Saturn. The discovery of ice giant Uranus by Sir William Herschel in 1781 changed all that. Subsequent observations showed Uranus’s orbit was being perturbed and so the search began for a planet beyond it.
That French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier beat Englishman John Couch Adams to locating Neptune is well known, but this detective story is told in fascinating detail; a quality that runs throughout the book’s telling of historic events.
Brought to life too is the colourful career of Percival Lowell, whose obsession with Mars – and deep pockets – provided the observatory and equipment that made Pluto’s discovery by former farm boy Clyde Tombaugh possible in 1930. Readers are taken through the advances made in our knowledge of the outer Solar System during the Space Age, including the discovery of methane ice on Pluto, its biggest moon Charon in 1978 and then the presence of an atmosphere in 1988. Finally we come to New Horizons itself. Those jaw-dropping images of Pluto and Charon, quite unlike anything seen before, are described clearly yet in a non-technical way. But the mission is not yet over, as the spacecraft is now making its way to visit a new target within the Kuiper Belt. Discovering Pluto is a beautiful book that will delight anyone interested in the Solar System. It skilfully blends historical tales of discovery with the excitement of modern science. And it shows that the dwarf planet Pluto is no less intriguing, however you label it.