Exploring Our Solar System

Five billion years ago, a starship passing through our region of space would not have slowed down for a second look. There was nothing to see. No Earth, no sun, no solar system. Nothing but a huge tenuous cloud of gas.

Now, as the result of billions of years of evolution, and centuries of scientific research, we can chart our way through the solar system . . . with Sally Ride as our navigator. Starting from the sun and working outward, Sally Ride and Tam O’Shaughnessy take readers on a tour of the nine planets and explain the formation, current conditions, and possibility of life on each.

Filled with crisp, full-color photographs and lucid prose, this comprehensive volume untangles the complexities of space and allows readers to feel like masters of the universe.

Sally Ride became America’s first woman astronaut in 1983, and is now a professor of physics. Tam O’Shaughnessy is a professor of school psychology. Dr. Ride and Dr. O’Shaughnessy have been friends since childhood and have collaborated on three previous science books for children.