The 50 Most Extreme Places In Our Solar System by David Baker and Todd Ratcliff; The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Massachusetts; $27.95 (Hardcover); 2010.
Readers of all backgrounds will love this book. The volume is beautifully produced, loaded with color images and illustrations, and is a wellspring of information – written in a lively, hip style.
Up front, Baker and Ratcliff admit that they selected 50 things that they thought were really cool, that is, scientifically interesting. Divided into nine parts, you’ll find everything from the tallest mountain and coldest volcanoes, all the way to rings and things and just right places for life.
This book explores extreme regions on Earth and beyond – giant turbulent storms, explosive volcanoes, and the possibility of life surviving in harsh conditions.
What stands out is how much robotic space exploration has rewritten our understanding of our Solar System, including Earth itself.
It’s difficult to pick any favorite part of this book – it all ties together in wonderful fashion. The book includes a very helpful glossary of terms and acronyms.
By combining their talents, the authors offer a fascinating collage of places that are unique, curious, and out of the ordinary. David Baker is the Chairman of the Physics Department at Austin College. Todd Ratcliff is a planetary geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
As the authors suggest, once you’ve finished diving through the pages: “You may never look at our Solar System in the same way again.” They have succeeded in that ambition…and then some.
By the way, you can vote for your top extreme places at a companion website:
For more information on this book, go to:
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?recid=30067
By Leonard David