Teach Yourself Planets

Description: 'Teach Yourself Planets' is a comprehensive guide to the Sun's family of planets and their moons, illustrating their surface features and explaining the processes that have shaped them. Extensively illustrated, this book describes the nature and origin of the solar system; looks at the internal structure, surface features and weather patterns of each planet and its major satellites; discusses the possibilities of finding life on other planetary bodies; covers asteroids and the icy bodies beyond Pluto; and explains how to see the planets in the sky. Author Biography: David A Rothery teaches geology and planetary science at the Open University, where he has been Director of Teaching for the Department of Earth Sciences since 1999. He began his research career at the Open University in 1978 when he mapped a large tract of ocean-floor rocks now exposed in the Oman mountains in Arabia. Since then, he has performed fieldwork in many parts of the globe, including North, Central and South America, Australia, Hawaii and Sicily. He has also helped to characterise the landing site for the Beagle 2 lander which is due to land on Mars at the end of 2003. His current specialisms are active volcanoes and geological processes on other planets.