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From Dust to Life: The Origin and Evolution of Our Solar System
The remarkable story of how our solar system came to be
The birth and evolution of our solar system is a tantalizing mystery that may one day provide answers to the question of human origins. This book tells the remarkable story of how the celestial objects that make up the solar system arose from common beginnings billions of years ago, and how scientists and philosophers have sought to unravel this mystery down through the centuries, piecing together the clues that enabled them to deduce the solar system's layout, its age, and the most likely way it formed.
Drawing on the history of astronomy and the latest findings in astrophysics and the planetary sciences, John Chambers and Jacqueline Mitton offer the most up-to-date and authoritative treatment of the subject available. They examine how the evolving universe set the stage for the appearance of our Sun, and how the nebulous cloud of gas and dust that accompanied the young Sun eventually became the planets, comets, moons, and asteroids that exist today. They explore how each of the planets acquired its unique characteristics, why some are rocky and others gaseous, and why one planet in particular―our Earth―provided an almost perfect haven for the emergence of life.
From Dust to Life is a must-read for anyone who desires to know more about how the solar system came to be. This enticing book takes readers to the very frontiers of modern research, engaging with the latest controversies and debates. It reveals how ongoing discoveries of far-distant extrasolar planets and planetary systems are transforming our understanding of our own solar system's astonishing history and its possible fate.
The birth and evolution of our solar system is a tantalizing mystery that may one day provide answers to the question of human origins. This book tells the remarkable story of how the celestial objects that make up the solar system arose from common beginnings billions of years ago, and how scientists and philosophers have sought to unravel this mystery down through the centuries, piecing together the clues that enabled them to deduce the solar system's layout, its age, and the most likely way it formed.
Drawing on the history of astronomy and the latest findings in astrophysics and the planetary sciences, John Chambers and Jacqueline Mitton offer the most up-to-date and authoritative treatment of the subject available. They examine how the evolving universe set the stage for the appearance of our Sun, and how the nebulous cloud of gas and dust that accompanied the young Sun eventually became the planets, comets, moons, and asteroids that exist today. They explore how each of the planets acquired its unique characteristics, why some are rocky and others gaseous, and why one planet in particular―our Earth―provided an almost perfect haven for the emergence of life.
From Dust to Life is a must-read for anyone who desires to know more about how the solar system came to be. This enticing book takes readers to the very frontiers of modern research, engaging with the latest controversies and debates. It reveals how ongoing discoveries of far-distant extrasolar planets and planetary systems are transforming our understanding of our own solar system's astonishing history and its possible fate.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
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June 1, 2021
An introductory chapter reviews the early history of understanding the solar system.
Ideas of the formation of the solar system where constrained by religious thought. When the Church's power declined following the French Revolution, Laplace published a theory (1796) whereby a gas cloud that flattened into a disk as it cooled, expelling rings that became the planets. Kant had published a similar idea 40 years earlier. In 1905, the American geology professor Thomas Chamberlin and astronomer Forest Moulton proposed that another star passing very close to the sun had drawn off gas and particles, termed planetesimals, which subsequently merged gravitationally to form the planets. Problems with the physics lead to a loss in interest of their theory until the Russian physicist Viktor Safronov developed a more complete model that explained the formation of the planetesimals.
While measurement of the earth's age was originally done by extrapolating geological processes, the key came with the understanding of radioactivity. The measurement of primordial rocks from meteorites now provides the best estimate as 4.48 billion years. The sun's age is calculated by determining the hydrogen / helium ratio of the sun as revealed by the rate at which oscillations pass through the sun and comparing that to known conditions at the time of its formation. The difference provides the amount of hydrogen converted to helium, showing the sun formed 4.6 billion years ago. The age of the universe can be calculated as 13.75 billion years since the Big Bang, from the cosmic microwave background radiation.
Meteorites come in two basic types. While a few percent are iron with nickel and small amounts of other heavier elements. Most are stony and made up of tiny round beads known as chondrules, this type being termed chondrites. While most meteorites result from the breakup of asteroids, some are created when asteroids hit larger bodies such as the Earth and Mars. Scientists have travelled to Antarctica every year for the past thirty years and are typically able to find a thousand meteorites, with new types still being discovered. Meteorites are samples of the universe from its early history, providing key information on the formation of the solar system.
A few minutes after the formation of the universe, the subatomic particles coalesced into hydrogen, helium and lithium. The temperatures and pressures are high enough in red giant stars to allow helium nuclei to fuse together and form carbon. High neutron flux creates unstable atoms that decay into higher atomic number elements in a succession of reactions. The fusion of higher elements provides less energy and eventually the star runs out of energy and collapses. In some cases the collapse results in a last dramatic rise in fusion which blows the star apart in a supernova.
Stars form in the Milky Way galaxy at a rate of about one solar mass each year. The nurseries are molecular clouds. One such cloud in the Orion cluster has four stars called the Trapezium which have cleared a portal into the cloud, allowing scientists to examine it internally. In these clouds, clumps form and grow as gravitational attraction becomes significant. Temperatures rise until deuterium fusion starts. Material falling into the protostar increases its mass, but about ten percent is ejected in jets, taking much of the star's rotational energy with it. At about 100,000 years much of the surrounding envelope has fallen into the star, but a dark, dusty disk remains - it is termed a protoplanetary disk or proplyd. After a few million years, the disk is absorbed and temperatures become high enough for hydrogen fusion to start.
Aggregation of the dust in the sun's protoplanetary disk to form "planetesimals" is aided by the gases and gravity. Toward the center materials were very hot. Further out a "snowline" existed beyond which water ices would form. The rocky planets formed within the snowline while the gas giants formed beyond it. Protoplanetary disks last less than ten million years.
Large planetesimals moved in circular orbits and tended to collide and merge, while small planetesimals developed inclined elongated orbits and encounters with other objects resulted in fragmentation. Over time, each region of the solar nebula was dominated by a single large planetesimal or embryo. These embryos fed on material in their region for about a million years. Embryos perturbed each other into elliptical, inclined orbits which led to occasional violent collisions. Water makes up 0.02 percent of the Earth. The water was probably acquired in collisions with planetesimals formed beyond the snowline but brought into the Earths vicinity on elongated orbits.
The giant impact theory for the formation of the Moon is now the most favoured among scientists. Near the end of Earth's growth, a Mars-sized object came from somewhere between the orbits of Earth and Venus and struck Earth. Much of the object, named Theia, merged with Earth but part of it's mantle sheared off, was disintegrated by the tidal forces and formed a disk around Earth which eventually coalesced into the Moon. Studies of the Moon's craters show that most were formed in a "late heavy bombardment" about half a billion years after it's formation.
After the giant impact, the CO2 atmosphere led to the formation of carbonate rock and the continents. The author reviews the formation of life on earth. The Proterzoic era is marked by the evolution of the cyanobacteria which caused the rise of oxygen in the atmosphere and the evolution of organisms that could make use of it. The carbon-silicon cycle provides a self-regulating mechanism that keeps the earth's climate relatively stable. On a few occasions, a reduction in greenhouse gases has lead to short lived (less than 10 million years) "snowball earth" situations, which have ended through increased volcanic activity. The power of the sun was 30 percent less in the early history of the earth and yet there was liquid water: the "faint sun hypothesis" suggests a greater concentration of greenhouse gases at that time.
The outer planets are made up mostly of hydrogen and helium with rocky cores. The gravitational forces in Jupiter and Saturn are large enough that the gases are liquids with hydrogen exhibiting metallic properties. The outer planets have extensive systems of satellites, Jupiter and Saturn having over 60 each. All four outer planets have ring systems. Those of Saturn are the most spectacular as they are largely pure water ice making them appear bright.
The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is much less dense that most people realize. While it contains hundreds of thousands of asteroids, the spacing is typically thousands of kilometers. A spacecraft could travel within the belt for a million years without bumping into anything larger than a pebble. The mass of the belt is only 0.0005 Earth masses. Originally the solar nebula probably contained several Earth masses between Mars and Jupiter. The mechanism whereby the material was removed is not known, although several ideas have been advanced. Many meteorites exist in families that move together as they are the result of the breakup of a larger asteroid.
Many objects have been found beyond Neptune and are generally termed trans-Neptunian objects (TNO's). Many of these occupy a region between 30 and 50 AU from the Sun, forming the Kuiper Belt. It is thought that the Kuiper Belt once contained 300 times what is present today. The Nice model (after the city of Nice, France) hypothesizes that long after the outer planets were formed, Jupiter and Saturn developed an unstable resonance which led to their orbits becoming extended and elliptical. They thus entered the belt beyond Neptune and scattered the planetesimals, resulting in the old impact craters on the Moon and inner planets. Gravitational interactions have subsequently restored them to nearly circular orbits.
The authors close by examining some of the unsolved puzzles of astronomy, including how dust grains aggregate to the point that gravity will hold them together, and how fully formed planets interact with their protoplanetary disk.
Ideas of the formation of the solar system where constrained by religious thought. When the Church's power declined following the French Revolution, Laplace published a theory (1796) whereby a gas cloud that flattened into a disk as it cooled, expelling rings that became the planets. Kant had published a similar idea 40 years earlier. In 1905, the American geology professor Thomas Chamberlin and astronomer Forest Moulton proposed that another star passing very close to the sun had drawn off gas and particles, termed planetesimals, which subsequently merged gravitationally to form the planets. Problems with the physics lead to a loss in interest of their theory until the Russian physicist Viktor Safronov developed a more complete model that explained the formation of the planetesimals.
While measurement of the earth's age was originally done by extrapolating geological processes, the key came with the understanding of radioactivity. The measurement of primordial rocks from meteorites now provides the best estimate as 4.48 billion years. The sun's age is calculated by determining the hydrogen / helium ratio of the sun as revealed by the rate at which oscillations pass through the sun and comparing that to known conditions at the time of its formation. The difference provides the amount of hydrogen converted to helium, showing the sun formed 4.6 billion years ago. The age of the universe can be calculated as 13.75 billion years since the Big Bang, from the cosmic microwave background radiation.
Meteorites come in two basic types. While a few percent are iron with nickel and small amounts of other heavier elements. Most are stony and made up of tiny round beads known as chondrules, this type being termed chondrites. While most meteorites result from the breakup of asteroids, some are created when asteroids hit larger bodies such as the Earth and Mars. Scientists have travelled to Antarctica every year for the past thirty years and are typically able to find a thousand meteorites, with new types still being discovered. Meteorites are samples of the universe from its early history, providing key information on the formation of the solar system.
A few minutes after the formation of the universe, the subatomic particles coalesced into hydrogen, helium and lithium. The temperatures and pressures are high enough in red giant stars to allow helium nuclei to fuse together and form carbon. High neutron flux creates unstable atoms that decay into higher atomic number elements in a succession of reactions. The fusion of higher elements provides less energy and eventually the star runs out of energy and collapses. In some cases the collapse results in a last dramatic rise in fusion which blows the star apart in a supernova.
Stars form in the Milky Way galaxy at a rate of about one solar mass each year. The nurseries are molecular clouds. One such cloud in the Orion cluster has four stars called the Trapezium which have cleared a portal into the cloud, allowing scientists to examine it internally. In these clouds, clumps form and grow as gravitational attraction becomes significant. Temperatures rise until deuterium fusion starts. Material falling into the protostar increases its mass, but about ten percent is ejected in jets, taking much of the star's rotational energy with it. At about 100,000 years much of the surrounding envelope has fallen into the star, but a dark, dusty disk remains - it is termed a protoplanetary disk or proplyd. After a few million years, the disk is absorbed and temperatures become high enough for hydrogen fusion to start.
Aggregation of the dust in the sun's protoplanetary disk to form "planetesimals" is aided by the gases and gravity. Toward the center materials were very hot. Further out a "snowline" existed beyond which water ices would form. The rocky planets formed within the snowline while the gas giants formed beyond it. Protoplanetary disks last less than ten million years.
Large planetesimals moved in circular orbits and tended to collide and merge, while small planetesimals developed inclined elongated orbits and encounters with other objects resulted in fragmentation. Over time, each region of the solar nebula was dominated by a single large planetesimal or embryo. These embryos fed on material in their region for about a million years. Embryos perturbed each other into elliptical, inclined orbits which led to occasional violent collisions. Water makes up 0.02 percent of the Earth. The water was probably acquired in collisions with planetesimals formed beyond the snowline but brought into the Earths vicinity on elongated orbits.
The giant impact theory for the formation of the Moon is now the most favoured among scientists. Near the end of Earth's growth, a Mars-sized object came from somewhere between the orbits of Earth and Venus and struck Earth. Much of the object, named Theia, merged with Earth but part of it's mantle sheared off, was disintegrated by the tidal forces and formed a disk around Earth which eventually coalesced into the Moon. Studies of the Moon's craters show that most were formed in a "late heavy bombardment" about half a billion years after it's formation.
After the giant impact, the CO2 atmosphere led to the formation of carbonate rock and the continents. The author reviews the formation of life on earth. The Proterzoic era is marked by the evolution of the cyanobacteria which caused the rise of oxygen in the atmosphere and the evolution of organisms that could make use of it. The carbon-silicon cycle provides a self-regulating mechanism that keeps the earth's climate relatively stable. On a few occasions, a reduction in greenhouse gases has lead to short lived (less than 10 million years) "snowball earth" situations, which have ended through increased volcanic activity. The power of the sun was 30 percent less in the early history of the earth and yet there was liquid water: the "faint sun hypothesis" suggests a greater concentration of greenhouse gases at that time.
The outer planets are made up mostly of hydrogen and helium with rocky cores. The gravitational forces in Jupiter and Saturn are large enough that the gases are liquids with hydrogen exhibiting metallic properties. The outer planets have extensive systems of satellites, Jupiter and Saturn having over 60 each. All four outer planets have ring systems. Those of Saturn are the most spectacular as they are largely pure water ice making them appear bright.
The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is much less dense that most people realize. While it contains hundreds of thousands of asteroids, the spacing is typically thousands of kilometers. A spacecraft could travel within the belt for a million years without bumping into anything larger than a pebble. The mass of the belt is only 0.0005 Earth masses. Originally the solar nebula probably contained several Earth masses between Mars and Jupiter. The mechanism whereby the material was removed is not known, although several ideas have been advanced. Many meteorites exist in families that move together as they are the result of the breakup of a larger asteroid.
Many objects have been found beyond Neptune and are generally termed trans-Neptunian objects (TNO's). Many of these occupy a region between 30 and 50 AU from the Sun, forming the Kuiper Belt. It is thought that the Kuiper Belt once contained 300 times what is present today. The Nice model (after the city of Nice, France) hypothesizes that long after the outer planets were formed, Jupiter and Saturn developed an unstable resonance which led to their orbits becoming extended and elliptical. They thus entered the belt beyond Neptune and scattered the planetesimals, resulting in the old impact craters on the Moon and inner planets. Gravitational interactions have subsequently restored them to nearly circular orbits.
The authors close by examining some of the unsolved puzzles of astronomy, including how dust grains aggregate to the point that gravity will hold them together, and how fully formed planets interact with their protoplanetary disk.
October 18, 2014
This is a comprehensive account of the history of the solar system. I really like how multiple theories are presented and their strengths and weaknesses are discussed. I wish this book included notes instead of just a short list of sources and further reading, particularly because it would be nice to know the dates of the articles used as sources.
January 1, 2020
Kiedy i jak powstał nasz świat; co zdeterminowało aktualny wygląd Układu Słonecznego (US)? Ciekawym takich pytań, proponuję podróż w czasie, by prześledzić ostatnie 4,5 mld lat ewolucji niewielkiego obszaru jednego z ramion spiralnych niczym nie wyróżniającej się galaktyki. To opowieść o budowaniu się z pyłu, dostępnego po wybuchu dawnej supernowej, kawałek po kawałku świata błękitnej kropki i jej 'koleżanek' korzystających z dobrodziejstw powstałego w centrum Słońca.
Na polskim rynku wydawniczym ukazuje się niedużo książek z nauk ścisłych, które pokazując aktualny front badań, trzymają się bardziej naukowego języka, przy czym nie są czystymi podręcznikami akademickimi. Do takich książek należy zaliczyć pracę „Od pyłu do życia. Pochodzenie i ewolucja Układu Słonecznego” dwóch autorów – astrofizyka planetarnego Johna Chambersa i pisarki specjalizującej się w astronomii Jacqueline Mitton.
Książka podzielona jest logicznie na kilkanaście rozdziałów. Początkowe buduję podstawy pojęciowe, przybliżają techniki stosowane w astrofizyce planetarnej. Trochę jest o datowaniu radioizotopami i metodach analizy procesów zachodzących wewnątrz gwiazd. Dodatkowo pada kilka formalnych sformułowań, do których podczas dalszej analizy ewolucji podsystemów US autorzy się odwołują. W szczególności są to rezonanse orbitalne, moment pędu w układach dynamicznych, sposoby ogrzewania i chłodzenia materii. Na szczęście wszystko podane na tyle prosto, choć wciąż bez utraty ścisłości, że powinien sobie poradzić z nimi początkujący czytelnik. No i nie pada ani jeden wzór (choć poczytywanie tego jako bezwzględny plus byłoby jednak nieporozumieniem). W środkowej części publikacji, autorzy opisali krótko charakterystyki każdej planety. Skupili się na cechach wspólnych, pokazali różnice, by na tej podstawie wyciągać wnioski o historii ich powstania. Poznajemy 'planetarne embriony', 'strefę karmienia' i inne zjawiska, które formowały światy planetarne.
Najcenniejszą lekcją z lektury, szczególnie dla czytelnika dalekiego od codzienności pracy współczesnego naukowca, jest chyba opis sposobu prowadzenia badań. Dziś niemal nie da się uprawiać nauk inaczej niż interdyscyplinarnie, co w przypadku badania historii US oznacza łączenie licznych specjalności – geologię, hydrologię, heliofizykę, termodynamikę, astro-biologię, fizykę atmosfery, badania numeryczne czy mineralogię. Takie podejście oznacza nieuchronnie brak ostateczności pewnych ustaleń. Mitton i Chambers wielokrotnie w publikacji dają do zrozumienia co jest faktem, a co hipotezą. Choć pada sporo sformułowań w stylu ‘nie wiemy’, ‘domyślamy się’, to jednak całość pokazuje ogrom pracy, który również dzięki coraz bardziej dokładnym analizom innych układów planetarnych, pozwala zbudować obraz w miarę jednorodny. Analiza hipotez powstania Księżyca czy modele ewolucji pasa asteroid, to rozdziały pokazujące jak prowadzi się badania, łącząc teorię z obserwacjami. Autorzy prowadzą niemal detektywistyczną analizę problemów, które wciąż czekają na rozwiązanie. Niewiele w istocie wiemy o pochodzeniu pierścieni Saturna (str. 299), czy o formowaniu się planetozymali (str. 188-190) - obiektów o rozmiarach powyżej metra, które z czasem musiały zbudować grawitacyjną spójność. Bez tego elementu, nie rozumiemy, jak z drobin pyłu, dostępnych w pierwotnym dysku protoplanetarnym, doszło do uformowania Ziemi i innych planet.
Nakreślony obraz menażerii obiektów i zjawisk, pokazując front badań, uświadamia stopień skomplikowania, zniuansowania i niejednoznaczności. W tej całej złożonej układance zjawisk, autorzy odnaleźli się świetnie z popularnym przekazem. Ich język jest przystępny, a dołączony słowniczek pojęć pomaga dodatkowo w śledzeniu wywodu. Rozważania historyczne stanowią narrację służącą wyłącznie wykazaniu bądź przyczyn błędnego myślenia (jak w przypadku modelu mgławicowego Kanta-Laplace’a), bądź wynikania przyczyna-skutek w spójnym wnioskowaniu prowadzącym do aktualnego stanu badań.
Być może "Od pyłu do życia" czytelnikom, którzy oczekują wartkiej akcji, formy pobudzającej do emocjonalnego odbioru treści, wyda się nieciekawa. Nie ma w niej fajerwerków tej natury. Jest za to solidna dawka wiedzy, która tłumaczy formowanie się naszego najbliższego kosmicznego otoczenia. Trochę szkoda, że liczne zdjęcia są wyłącznie czarno-białe, ale to na szczęście jedyny minus. Pierwsze wydanie angielskie książki, to rok 2013. Polskie tłumaczenie oparto na przejrzanym drugim wydaniu z 2017, zawierającym zaktualizowany dodatek. Ponadto tłumacze w przypisach uaktualnili stan badań (głównie związany z sondami międzyplanetarnymi) do połowy 2018 roku. To duży plus.
Polecam książkę każdemu zainteresowanemu pytaniami i odpowiedziami o pochodzenie Słońca, Ziemi, Księżyca, innych planet, meteorytów, komet i asteroid.
BARDZO DOBRE - 8/10
Na polskim rynku wydawniczym ukazuje się niedużo książek z nauk ścisłych, które pokazując aktualny front badań, trzymają się bardziej naukowego języka, przy czym nie są czystymi podręcznikami akademickimi. Do takich książek należy zaliczyć pracę „Od pyłu do życia. Pochodzenie i ewolucja Układu Słonecznego” dwóch autorów – astrofizyka planetarnego Johna Chambersa i pisarki specjalizującej się w astronomii Jacqueline Mitton.
Książka podzielona jest logicznie na kilkanaście rozdziałów. Początkowe buduję podstawy pojęciowe, przybliżają techniki stosowane w astrofizyce planetarnej. Trochę jest o datowaniu radioizotopami i metodach analizy procesów zachodzących wewnątrz gwiazd. Dodatkowo pada kilka formalnych sformułowań, do których podczas dalszej analizy ewolucji podsystemów US autorzy się odwołują. W szczególności są to rezonanse orbitalne, moment pędu w układach dynamicznych, sposoby ogrzewania i chłodzenia materii. Na szczęście wszystko podane na tyle prosto, choć wciąż bez utraty ścisłości, że powinien sobie poradzić z nimi początkujący czytelnik. No i nie pada ani jeden wzór (choć poczytywanie tego jako bezwzględny plus byłoby jednak nieporozumieniem). W środkowej części publikacji, autorzy opisali krótko charakterystyki każdej planety. Skupili się na cechach wspólnych, pokazali różnice, by na tej podstawie wyciągać wnioski o historii ich powstania. Poznajemy 'planetarne embriony', 'strefę karmienia' i inne zjawiska, które formowały światy planetarne.
Najcenniejszą lekcją z lektury, szczególnie dla czytelnika dalekiego od codzienności pracy współczesnego naukowca, jest chyba opis sposobu prowadzenia badań. Dziś niemal nie da się uprawiać nauk inaczej niż interdyscyplinarnie, co w przypadku badania historii US oznacza łączenie licznych specjalności – geologię, hydrologię, heliofizykę, termodynamikę, astro-biologię, fizykę atmosfery, badania numeryczne czy mineralogię. Takie podejście oznacza nieuchronnie brak ostateczności pewnych ustaleń. Mitton i Chambers wielokrotnie w publikacji dają do zrozumienia co jest faktem, a co hipotezą. Choć pada sporo sformułowań w stylu ‘nie wiemy’, ‘domyślamy się’, to jednak całość pokazuje ogrom pracy, który również dzięki coraz bardziej dokładnym analizom innych układów planetarnych, pozwala zbudować obraz w miarę jednorodny. Analiza hipotez powstania Księżyca czy modele ewolucji pasa asteroid, to rozdziały pokazujące jak prowadzi się badania, łącząc teorię z obserwacjami. Autorzy prowadzą niemal detektywistyczną analizę problemów, które wciąż czekają na rozwiązanie. Niewiele w istocie wiemy o pochodzeniu pierścieni Saturna (str. 299), czy o formowaniu się planetozymali (str. 188-190) - obiektów o rozmiarach powyżej metra, które z czasem musiały zbudować grawitacyjną spójność. Bez tego elementu, nie rozumiemy, jak z drobin pyłu, dostępnych w pierwotnym dysku protoplanetarnym, doszło do uformowania Ziemi i innych planet.
Nakreślony obraz menażerii obiektów i zjawisk, pokazując front badań, uświadamia stopień skomplikowania, zniuansowania i niejednoznaczności. W tej całej złożonej układance zjawisk, autorzy odnaleźli się świetnie z popularnym przekazem. Ich język jest przystępny, a dołączony słowniczek pojęć pomaga dodatkowo w śledzeniu wywodu. Rozważania historyczne stanowią narrację służącą wyłącznie wykazaniu bądź przyczyn błędnego myślenia (jak w przypadku modelu mgławicowego Kanta-Laplace’a), bądź wynikania przyczyna-skutek w spójnym wnioskowaniu prowadzącym do aktualnego stanu badań.
Być może "Od pyłu do życia" czytelnikom, którzy oczekują wartkiej akcji, formy pobudzającej do emocjonalnego odbioru treści, wyda się nieciekawa. Nie ma w niej fajerwerków tej natury. Jest za to solidna dawka wiedzy, która tłumaczy formowanie się naszego najbliższego kosmicznego otoczenia. Trochę szkoda, że liczne zdjęcia są wyłącznie czarno-białe, ale to na szczęście jedyny minus. Pierwsze wydanie angielskie książki, to rok 2013. Polskie tłumaczenie oparto na przejrzanym drugim wydaniu z 2017, zawierającym zaktualizowany dodatek. Ponadto tłumacze w przypisach uaktualnili stan badań (głównie związany z sondami międzyplanetarnymi) do połowy 2018 roku. To duży plus.
Polecam książkę każdemu zainteresowanemu pytaniami i odpowiedziami o pochodzenie Słońca, Ziemi, Księżyca, innych planet, meteorytów, komet i asteroid.
BARDZO DOBRE - 8/10
January 15, 2024
Although this is aimed at the general reader, at times I found it too technical or scientific to follow. On the most part, though, it’s easy enough to grasp.
This will appeal to people like me who are interested in astronomy and the history of the solar system. It’s not ideal for someone already knowledgeable on the subject wanting to learn more.
One thing I realised by the end of the book is that in many respects it’s out of date regarding new findings. The author refers to several excursions into space that will bring back new learning on various dates, all of which have passed. This 2013 publication covers all knowledge and theories up to 2012, so I’ll try something more recent next time I read about this fascinating subject.
This will appeal to people like me who are interested in astronomy and the history of the solar system. It’s not ideal for someone already knowledgeable on the subject wanting to learn more.
One thing I realised by the end of the book is that in many respects it’s out of date regarding new findings. The author refers to several excursions into space that will bring back new learning on various dates, all of which have passed. This 2013 publication covers all knowledge and theories up to 2012, so I’ll try something more recent next time I read about this fascinating subject.
December 6, 2023
This book explores the history of the solar system and how scientists have gradually uncovered it. However, the story of the solar system continues, as the Sun and its companions will keep evolving for billions of years. The book concludes by looking far into the future to speculate on what might happen to Earth and its neighbors.
November 4, 2021
MPA ratings: G
December 20, 2025
I’m reading at least one thousand books of history in chronological order, going from the big bang through human civilization to the end of the world, and this is book #7 in that series. It's the second in a little series of three books I'm reading about the history and constitution of the solar system, before I zoom in some more on Earth itself.
Chambers and Mitton do a phenomenal job of explaining complex scientific theories and processes in a completely understandable manner. They begin by laying out some groundwork and tracing through the history of mankind’s examination of space and the planets, with things like the rise of heliocentrism and the discovery of the outer planets and moons not known to ancient civilizations. Then once we have a good mental map of what the solar system looks like and how we learned about it, they dive into its history, going all the way back to the big bang and the light elements that were just floating around space. They move through the formation of stars and the heavy elements, then our own solar nebula as the sun and its satellites formed.
By and large they progress from the sun outward, but this is really a chronological, not a spatial, account. And this is where it gets really fascinating, because scientists kept asking “why” to a series of facts that I’d never thought to question since I first learned about the solar system back when I was small and Pluto was still a planet. So, why are Mercury and Mars so much smaller than the Earth and Venus? Why is the moon so large—and close—relative to the size of Earth when no other moons are anything like that? Where did the moon come from anyway? (That one’s a really great story, as they go through the various theories over time to the generally accepted theory today that a planet—Theia—crashed into the Earth and tore it apart, the debris gradually coalescing into the moon.) How does gravity accumulate particles into objects bigger than a meter? Why are the gas and ice giants so big? Why do some planets have rings?
And on and on, with detailed attention paid not just to the planets but to particles of dust (!), asteroids, comets, moons, and dwarf planets like poor old Pluto—although they really do describe the ways in which Pluto is so weird: it’s not just its small size that makes it a not a planet (the moon would qualify as a planet, they say, if it orbited the sun instead of the Earth), but the fact its orbit is at a wonky angle and it doesn’t obey the rules of planetary orbits—which are at distinct intervals—when it crosses Neptune’s orbit every few hundred years. There’s just a treasure trove of information here. It’s nice to know not just where our pale blue dot of a planet is, but how it and its neighbors got here in the first place.
The previous title in my series of 1,000 history books—going chronologically from dinosaurs to pyramids to knights to spaceships, with lots of other stuff in there too—is Richard Corfield's Lives of the Planets: A Natural History of the Solar System, and the next one is A History of the Solar System by Claudio Vita-Finzi. You can also start at the beginning with Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time or see the complete list here.
Chambers and Mitton do a phenomenal job of explaining complex scientific theories and processes in a completely understandable manner. They begin by laying out some groundwork and tracing through the history of mankind’s examination of space and the planets, with things like the rise of heliocentrism and the discovery of the outer planets and moons not known to ancient civilizations. Then once we have a good mental map of what the solar system looks like and how we learned about it, they dive into its history, going all the way back to the big bang and the light elements that were just floating around space. They move through the formation of stars and the heavy elements, then our own solar nebula as the sun and its satellites formed.
By and large they progress from the sun outward, but this is really a chronological, not a spatial, account. And this is where it gets really fascinating, because scientists kept asking “why” to a series of facts that I’d never thought to question since I first learned about the solar system back when I was small and Pluto was still a planet. So, why are Mercury and Mars so much smaller than the Earth and Venus? Why is the moon so large—and close—relative to the size of Earth when no other moons are anything like that? Where did the moon come from anyway? (That one’s a really great story, as they go through the various theories over time to the generally accepted theory today that a planet—Theia—crashed into the Earth and tore it apart, the debris gradually coalescing into the moon.) How does gravity accumulate particles into objects bigger than a meter? Why are the gas and ice giants so big? Why do some planets have rings?
And on and on, with detailed attention paid not just to the planets but to particles of dust (!), asteroids, comets, moons, and dwarf planets like poor old Pluto—although they really do describe the ways in which Pluto is so weird: it’s not just its small size that makes it a not a planet (the moon would qualify as a planet, they say, if it orbited the sun instead of the Earth), but the fact its orbit is at a wonky angle and it doesn’t obey the rules of planetary orbits—which are at distinct intervals—when it crosses Neptune’s orbit every few hundred years. There’s just a treasure trove of information here. It’s nice to know not just where our pale blue dot of a planet is, but how it and its neighbors got here in the first place.
The previous title in my series of 1,000 history books—going chronologically from dinosaurs to pyramids to knights to spaceships, with lots of other stuff in there too—is Richard Corfield's Lives of the Planets: A Natural History of the Solar System, and the next one is A History of the Solar System by Claudio Vita-Finzi. You can also start at the beginning with Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time or see the complete list here.
June 25, 2015
This was a great book to catch me up on the latest discoveries, research, and theories about the origin of the entire solar system from the Sun to the Oort Cloud. I first started reading about the solar system almost 60 years ago, so it is amazing to me how much has been learned just in my lifetime. I mean, I remember reading that there were canals on Mars possibly made by intelligent life!
The book was written at just the right level of assumed knowledge of the reader. That is, they assume that the reader has had some scientific education so that they don't have to explain the basics of how gravity works, orbital mechanics, etc. It's not a "primer," but is a good way to learn the latest scientific thinking.
One thing that I noted that has helped them get this far, in addition to advances in land and space-based telescopes and other direct methods of observation, is the advance in modern computing power. A lot of theories have been advanced to explain various things about the solar system, and with computers they are now able to run simulations that help to prove or disprove many of them.
This is all a very complex subject, and again I appreciate how this book makes it all so understandable.
The book was written at just the right level of assumed knowledge of the reader. That is, they assume that the reader has had some scientific education so that they don't have to explain the basics of how gravity works, orbital mechanics, etc. It's not a "primer," but is a good way to learn the latest scientific thinking.
One thing that I noted that has helped them get this far, in addition to advances in land and space-based telescopes and other direct methods of observation, is the advance in modern computing power. A lot of theories have been advanced to explain various things about the solar system, and with computers they are now able to run simulations that help to prove or disprove many of them.
This is all a very complex subject, and again I appreciate how this book makes it all so understandable.
May 11, 2014
For the most part, this was an interesting read. It pretty much covers anything you would want to know about the solar system. And today, with the continuing discovery of so many exoplanets, its interesting to see how we think solar systems are formed.
I may revisit this book at a later time; I think I wasn't quite in the right mindset when I started it. Parts of it couldn't hold my attention, and then other parts were very interesting. Right now I'm going to say that's my fault and not the authors.
It's a book I will be keeping on my bookshelf, and I would recommend if you have an interest in the formation of the solar system.
I may revisit this book at a later time; I think I wasn't quite in the right mindset when I started it. Parts of it couldn't hold my attention, and then other parts were very interesting. Right now I'm going to say that's my fault and not the authors.
It's a book I will be keeping on my bookshelf, and I would recommend if you have an interest in the formation of the solar system.
June 3, 2014
For anyone who wants an up-to-date account of what we know -- and still don't know -- about our own solar system's origin and evolution, this is the book. I learned a lot from reading this excellent book.
February 24, 2014
Good stuff. Comprehensible but not dumbed down nor too much fluff.
September 27, 2015
An interesting read for those who can't stop staring at the planets when they appear in the night sky. it can get a little too cerebral at times, but overall very interesting and informative.
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May 5, 2014523.2 C4448 2014
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