Planetary Astronomy: From Ancient Times to the Third Millennium

By Ronald A. Schorn

For thousands of years the visible planets of our solar system have captivated experts and the general public alike. With a history more ancient than that of any other of the physical sciences and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0890967873
• ISBN13: 9780890967874
• Release Date: November 1998
• Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.0" x 1.3" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Planetary Astronomy 101

This book provides an excellent overview of the evolution of human knowledge about the Solar System from the first observations in recorded history to the latter 1990s. Its emphasis is on communicating a basic understanding of planetary astronomy rather than focusing on scientific details. This makes the book an outstanding introduction to a complex and fascinating subject. The general public rather than astronomers and space scientists are the primary audience for this work, but conceivably specialists in the field could read this book with profit. Jurgen Rahe, NASA's late director of Solar System exploration, sponsored this work as a formal effort to provide general readers with a reliable, well-written overview of planetary astronomy. He succeeded in that objective as author Ron Schorn has published a fine entree to comprehending the breadth of the subject.Of course, planetary astronomy is generally categorized as consisting of the outer planets and inner planets of the Solar System. Schorn begins with a discussion of the nighttime sky and what one may view there. While he discusses the possibilities for origins of the universe, and the galaxies on view every night, his focus is on what planets one might view with the naked eye, relatively simple telescopes, and then more complex instruments. At that point he journeys back in time to the earliest observations by the ancients and how they constructed their understanding of the universe based on astronomical observations. He then quickly moves forward to the twentieth century when understandings of planetary astronomy changed rapidly in response to ground and airborne observatories and especially space probes sent to the various planets of the Solar System.Schorn discusses at some length the many spacecraft that have been sent to the inner planets by the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as European and Japanese consortia, traveling to Mercury, Venus, and particularly Mars. This book explains well the story of such missions as the Mariner series that journeyed to these planets, the two Viking spacecraft that landed on Mars in 1976, and plans for future explorations of the red planet. Some spacecraft have been sent, but far fewer, to the outer planets. Visits to the gas giants of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, and the small distant rock known as Pluto have been largely the province of the United States' efforts. NASA, for example, sent Pioneer 10 and 11 on a "windshield" tour of Jupiter and Saturn in the 1970s; following soon thereafter with Voyagers 1 and 2 that flew past the gas giants beginning in the latter 1970s through the 1980s. This activity, Schorn asserts, represents a golden age for Solar System exploration.Schorn is at his best in discussing the decline of planetary astronomy in the early twentieth century--as astronomers led by Edwin Hubble focused their attention on galaxies beyond the Milky Way rather than on the Solar System--and its recovery in the 1960s as NASA

Fascinating book by a knowledgeable insider!

This is a fascinating history of the field of planetary astronomy written by an insider. Dr. Schorn was once head of planetary astronomy for Nasa. As such, he's known most of major figures of the field from the last half of the 20th century. What distinguishes this book is it's very literary style. Dr. Schorn not only knows the field, he writes of it in an engrossing style that the layman can understand. If you have any curiousity about how study of the planets has grown, then languished for decades, only to re-emerge during the space age, then this book is for you.

Well written history!

This book is a good read for anyone who has a limited knowledge of astronomy, especially from a historical perspective. I would have rated it five stars, however I would have like to have seen a little more discussion about celestial mechanics (the movement, alignment, and rotation of the planets) along with illustrations. I found it somewhat cumbersome to intereperet some of the early models of the universe without charts or other illustrations. Overall though a very well written book.

one of the best books I read last year

This book is surprisingly well written and very engrossing. The author never gets ahead of himself--each new nugget of knowledge about the heavens above is evaluated using the science of the day, not with a modern bias. Consequently, you never feel that ancient astronomers were somehow stupid for missing things that are so "obvious" to us, such as the heliocentric model of the solar system or the nature of comets. The very first chapter is an especially good gem--it puts you in the shoes of someone two thousand years ago and asks "what could you logically deduce from looking at the heavens above?" Utterly captivating and a must-read.

Thoughful history of the evolution of planetary astronomy.

This book is a must as a historical reference. It offers a fresh insightful look at Planetary astronomy as it happened. Schorn has a way of keeping you on the edge of your seat at the turning points of discovery (i.e. Newton... sunlight through a prism... but spectroscopy wasn't to be discovered for another 2 centuries...), minutes, purpose and impact of the US/USSR space race...