The Grand Tour: A Traveler's Guide to the Solar System - Softcover

Hartmann, William K.; Miller, Ron

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0761135472 ISBN 13: 9780761135470

Publisher: Workman Publishing Company, 2005

Synopsis

Hurricanes so enormous that the earth itself could be lost in one; a volcano larger than the state of Missouri and higher than Everest; a planet with a billion moons; a planet that rotates on its side; worlds made of solid ice; a world where it rains gasoline. These are not inventions of fantasy or science fiction, but are places that really exist-in our own solar system.

Now with 190,000 copies in print, here is a spectacular Grand Tour of the solar system featuring a unique blend of science and art-photographs along with dazzling full-color paintings, drawings, and maps based on years of astronomer William Hartmann's research, personal observation, and interviews with colleagues.

In text and diagrams, too, The Grand Tour explains how the strange and uncanny worlds on the journeys came to be, and what it would be like to actually set foot upon them today. The book includes an atlas of the planets and their satellites, and of the Earth's moon.

Complete with a selection of previously unpublished photographs taken by the Apollo astronauts, and by the Mariner, Viking, and Pioneer planetary probes, The Grand Tour is unique and breathtaking, majestic and eerie, and wonderful, taking the reader to more, and to the beyond. Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, Quality Paperback Book Club, and Newbridge Book Club.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

A DAZZLING JOURNEY

The trunks are packed, your passport's in order. But instead of sailing to Le Havre for a Cook's tour of the Continent, you're embarking on a voyage through the solar system. That is the wonder of THE GRAND TOUR.

Originally published in 1981 and now completely updated by the scientific findings of the past decade, the revised edition of THE GRAND TOUR includes 10 new chapters, 52 new and/or revised paintings, 24 new photographs, and new drawings and maps. Through its unique marriage of art and fact, the book transports readers to unimaginable places-worlds of pure ice and utter night, of volcanic tumult and swirling acid clouds, of deep cut canyons and startingly beautiful vistas. From the vast reaches of Jupiter to tiny frozen Rhea, orbiting like a snowball around Saturn, it takes us on a journey of astonishing proportions.

Astronomer William K. Hartmann is internationally known as a planetary scientist, painter, and writer. Ron Miller, a former director of the Albert Einstein Spacearium at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C., is widely known for his astronomical and science-fiction paintings. Their other collaborations include Out of the Cradle, Cycles of Fire, and The History of Earth.

About the Author:

William K. Hartmann is the author, most recently, of A Traveler’s Guide to Mars and co-author of Out of the Cradle. He is an internationally known scientist, writer, and painter, and winner of the first Carl Sagan Medal from the American Astronomical Society. He has an asteroid—#3341—named after him. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.

About this edition

• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0761135472
• ISBN 13: 9780761135470
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 304