Fascinating insights into the world of planets and their moons
The solar system is our home in space. All the planets and moons in it were formed together from a "protoplanetary disc", making them siblings, in a sense. But just like siblings, the planets also have very different characters and properties. We humans have only just begun to explore this fascinating diversity: from the enigmatic, dense and ancient Mercury to the greenhouse planet Venus, the red Mars and the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn with their numerous moons, to the mysterious ice planets Uranus and Neptune.
In recent years in particular, increasingly better telescopes and modern space probes have provided fascinating new insights into our home planetary system, many of them surprising and unexpected. This book takes you on a journey of discovery through our solar system and shows what we already know about Earth's planetary siblings – and which questions we still don't have answers to.
Table of contents:
- Born of fire and dust Time travel to the origin of the solar system
- Storm from the Sun
- The mystery of Mercury: uncovering the secrets of the innermost planet
- Venus: The Caprices of a Diva
- Secrets of the Moon (Excursus: Return to the Moon?)
- Mars Visiting the Red Planet
- On the way to the asteroid belt
- Jupiter: Gas giant with secrets
- Saturn, Lord of the Rings
- The mystery of Titan Saturn's moon under an orange veil
- Uranus and Neptune, the ice giants
- Pluto, the outsider of the solar system
The author Nadja Podbregar is a biologist and science journalist. Her main focus is on conveying knowledge in a clear and exciting way – especially to laypeople and beyond the boundaries of a single discipline.
The author Dieter Lohmann is a biologist and science journalist. The focus of his work is in the fields of earth and environmental sciences, but he also deals with renewable energies, life sciences and archaeology.
