Bound to the Sun: The Story of Planets, Moons, and Comets

by Rudolf Kippenhahn

An engaging, popular account of the solar system from the first stirrings of astronomy through Voyager II, by the distinguished scientist and science writer Kippenhahn, director of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Munich. Translated from the German and accompanied by numerous illustrations, including an eight-page color insert. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

282 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm fortunate in that my paternal grandmother had a cottage inherited from her parents and grand-parents across Lake Michigan from Chicago and that I was able to spend the summers of my childhood there. Despite the glow from the city fifty-five miles across the horizon, the night sky there in unincorporated Lake Charter Township was pretty dark and the view open to the west, north and south. Consequently, I became pretty familiar with the night skies of summer, enough to be able to navigate by the stars.

Now, living exclusively in the city, my observations are confined to the planets, our moon and the brightest stars, punctuated by the occasional meteor and auroral displays. Lately, it's been Jupiter, Mars and Saturn, occasionally accompanied by the Moon, in the southern night skies, a display that got me to start thinking of such things as the plane of the ecliptic, the phases of the Moon and the visual characteristics of the planets--a thought process that reminded me of just how ignorant I am of planetary science and, thus, the reading of this book.