Drifting on Alien Winds – Exploring the Skies and Weather of Other Worlds by Michael Carroll; Springer Science + Business Media, LLC, New York: $39.95 (Hardcover); 2011.
From the creative and artistic mind of Michael Carroll comes an original and fact-filled look at atmospheres of other worlds – and how scientists and engineers are taking on the challenge of riding through alien skies.
The reader will find this distinctive book a marvelous and fun read – and handsomely illustrated, some of which come from Carroll himself. The three-part book is divided into: “Starting Here and Getting There”; “The Forecast: Clearing with Scattered Ammonia Showers by Morning”; and “Future Explorers” – a look at balloons, blimps, aircraft and other cool contraptions that can turn a new page in exploring distant worlds.
This volume provides excellent tutorials on the science of planetary atmospheres and weather patterns of other planets and moons in our Solar System and how we learn about them. You’ll find comfort and gain added respect for our own atmosphere here on Earth, contrasted to other worlds.
One of the many attributes of this book is to remind the reader of past efforts – so often forgotten given the rush of robotic space missions that have peppered history books over the decades.
There’s the Soviet-French-built VEGA 1 balloon, the first to sail on the alien winds of Venus. Then there’s the Galileo probe that parachuted into the atmosphere of Jupiter in 1995. Also detailed in the book is the European Huygens probe that made landfall on Saturn’s moon Titan in early 2005.
Thanks to the author’s words and distinctive artistry, the reader is provided an enthralling review of inventive and scientifically feasible ideas for voyaging through far-off skies.
As for the future: “Form follows function,” Carroll writes, “so designs of any advanced vessels will be driven by the environments for which they are designed” – be it steamy Venus or super-cold atmospheres of the outer planets.
In the book’s closing words, Carroll advises that the number of surprises and the inspiration gained from the planets and moons around us “will undoubtedly rise as we explore the skies of distant worlds and drift on their alien winds.”
For more information on the book, go to:
By Leonard David