Asteroids
A History
Seiten
2001
Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press (Verlag)
978-1-56098-982-0 (ISBN)
Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press (Verlag)
978-1-56098-982-0 (ISBN)
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This history of asteroids explains how ideas about asteroids have evolved and provides insights into the evolution of scientific ideas. The author covers all aspects of asteroid investigation, such as the discovery of Shoemaker-Levy 9, a comet that crashed into Jupiter in 1994.
Asteroids suggest images of a catastrophic impact with Earth, triggering infernos, tidal waves, famine, and death - but these scenarios have obscured the larger story of how asteroids have been discovered and studied. During the past two centuries, the quest for knowledge about asteroids has involved eminent scientists and amateur astronomers, patient research and sudden intuition, advanced technology and the simplest of telescopes, newspaper headlines and Cold War secrets. Today, researchers have named and identified the mineral composition of these objects. They range in size from 33 feet to 580 miles wide and most are found in a belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Covering all aspects of asteroid investigation, Curtis Peebles shows how ideas about the orbiting boulders have evolved. He describes how such phenomena as the Moon's craters and dinosaur extinction were gradually, and by some scientists grudgingly, accepted as the results of asteroid impacts.
He tells how a band of icy asteroids rimming the solar system, first proposed as a theory in the 1940s, was ignored for more than forty years until renewed interest and technological breakthroughs confirmed the existence of the Kuiper Belt. Peebles also chronicles the discovery of Shoemaker-Levy 9, a comet with twenty-two nuclei that crashed into Jupiter in 1994, releasing many times the energy of the world's nuclear arsenal. Showing how asteroid research is increasingly collaborative, the book provides insights into the evolution of scientific ideas and the ebb and flow of scientific debate.
Asteroids suggest images of a catastrophic impact with Earth, triggering infernos, tidal waves, famine, and death - but these scenarios have obscured the larger story of how asteroids have been discovered and studied. During the past two centuries, the quest for knowledge about asteroids has involved eminent scientists and amateur astronomers, patient research and sudden intuition, advanced technology and the simplest of telescopes, newspaper headlines and Cold War secrets. Today, researchers have named and identified the mineral composition of these objects. They range in size from 33 feet to 580 miles wide and most are found in a belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Covering all aspects of asteroid investigation, Curtis Peebles shows how ideas about the orbiting boulders have evolved. He describes how such phenomena as the Moon's craters and dinosaur extinction were gradually, and by some scientists grudgingly, accepted as the results of asteroid impacts.
He tells how a band of icy asteroids rimming the solar system, first proposed as a theory in the 1940s, was ignored for more than forty years until renewed interest and technological breakthroughs confirmed the existence of the Kuiper Belt. Peebles also chronicles the discovery of Shoemaker-Levy 9, a comet with twenty-two nuclei that crashed into Jupiter in 1994, releasing many times the energy of the world's nuclear arsenal. Showing how asteroid research is increasingly collaborative, the book provides insights into the evolution of scientific ideas and the ebb and flow of scientific debate.
Curtis Peebles has published ten books and more than forty articles. He is the author of Watch the Skies: A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth (1994) and coauthor of Flying Without Wings (1999), both published by the Smithsonian Institution Press.
Chapter 1 1. Discovery of the Asteroids Chapter 2 2. Vermin of the Skies Chapter 3 3. The Modern Era Chapter 4 4. Apollos, Amors, Atens, and Close Calls: The Near-Earth Asteroids Chapter 5 5. Far Frontiers: From the Trojans to the Kuiper Belt Chapter 6 6. Asteroid Space Missions Chapter 7 7. The Name's the Thing! Chapter 8 8. 3043 San Diego: The Unwanted Honor Chapter 9 9. Impact Chapter 10 10. Shoemaker-Levy 9 Chapter 11 11. Planetary Defense Chapter 12 12. The Third Century of Asteroid Studies
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 17.7.2001 |
|---|---|
| Verlagsort | Washington |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 151 x 227 mm |
| Gewicht | 397 g |
| Themenwelt | Naturwissenschaften ► Physik / Astronomie ► Astronomie / Astrophysik |
| ISBN-10 | 1-56098-982-3 / 1560989823 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-56098-982-0 / 9781560989820 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
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