- Preface
- Dive into the Extreme
- Part One: Surface and Interior
- Tallest Mountain—Olympus Mons
- Coldest Volcanoes—Cryovolcanoes
- A Truly “Grand” Canyon—Valles Marineris
- Movers and Shakers—Plate Tectonics
- Ooh! That’ll Leave a Mark—Extreme Impact Craters
- Part Two: Oceans & Water & Ice, Oh My!
- Deepest Ocean—Europa
- Best Surf Spot—Earth
- Biggest Ice Cubes—Saturn’s Icy Moons
- Jekyll and Hyde of the Solar System—Dirty, Icy Comets
- The Sky Is Falling!—Dry Ice Caps of Mars
- Part Three: Wild, Wild Weather
- Longest–Lived Storm—Jupiter’s Great Red Spot
- An Ill and Still Wind Bloweth—Hurricanes on Earth
- Wildly Wicked Winds of Neptune
- Best Vacuum Cleaner—Martian Dust Devils
- The Hardest Rain—Diamond Hail on Uranus and Neptune
- Part Four: Extreme Climates
- Biggest, Baddest Babies of Climate—El Niño and La Niña
- But It’s a Dry Heat—Runaway Greenhouse of Venus
- Dirtiest Climate Change—Global Dust Storms on Mars
- Most Bizarre Seasons—Uranus
- Snowballs in Hell—Mercury
- Part Five: Rings and Things
- Those Lovely Rings—Saturn
- Billions and Billions of Bodies—The Oort Cloud
- When Comets Attack—Shoemaker–Levy 9
- The Planet That Wasn’t—The Asteroid Belt
- Earth–Shattering Impact—Birth of Our Moon?
- Part Six: Electro Magneto Extremo
- Supertwisted Magnet—Our Sun
- Blowing a Bubble in Space—The Solar Wind
- Biggest Plasma Screen—Jupiter’s Magnetosphere
- Most Radical Electric Light Shows—Auroras on Earth and Jupiter
- Shocking Superbolts of Saturn
- Part Seven: Life
- Juuust Right!—Earth’s Abundant Life
- Death from Above—The K–T Extinction
- Life from Above—Alien Origins
- Little Green . . . Microbes?—Possible Life on Mars
- Life in the Dark—Earth & Europa?
- Part Eight: The Wack Pack
- Stinkiest Place—The Rotten Egg of Io
- Best Fuel Depot—Titan
- Problematic Planethood—Pluto
- Most Retro—Venus & Triton
- Most Misinterpreted “Artifact”—The Face on Mars
- One–Eyed Monster and the Hex of Saturn
- FrankenMoon—Miranda
- As Sure as Sunrise?—Hyperion’s Chaotic Rotation
- The Incredible Shrinking Planet—Mercury
- A Perfect Fit—Solar Eclipses on Earth
- Strangest Life–Form—Humans
- Part Nine: Sum of Extreme Parts
- Supreme Sun
- Giant Jupiter
- Sexy Saturn
- Extreme Earth
- Glossary
- Acronyms
- Selected Bibliography
- Photo Credits
- Acknowledgments
- Index
The 50 Most Extreme Places in Our Solar System
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Book Details
HARDCOVER
$27.95 • £19.95 • €25.20
ISBN 9780674049987
Publication: September 2010
304 pages
7 x 8 inches
225 color illustrations, 25 halftones
World, subsidiary rights restricted
Awards
- Honorable Mention, 2010 Association of American Publishers PROSE Award, Cosmology and Astronomy Category
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