Download or read book Enceladus and the Icy Moons of Saturn written by Paul M. Schenk and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2018-11-27 with total page 535 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With active geysers coating its surface with dazzlingly bright ice crystals, Saturn’s large moon Enceladus is one of the most enigmatic worlds in our solar system. Underlying this activity are numerous further discoveries by the Cassini spacecraft, tantalizing us with evidence that Enceladus harbors a subsurface ocean of liquid water. Enceladus is thus newly realized as a forefront candidate among potentially habitable ocean worlds in our own solar system, although it is only one of a family of icy moons orbiting the giant ringed planet, each with its own story. As a new volume in the Space Science Series, Enceladus and the Icy Moons of Saturn brings together nearly eighty of the world’s top experts writing more than twenty chapters to set the foundation for what we currently understand, while building the framework for the highest-priority questions to be addressed through ongoing spacecraft exploration. Topics include the physics and processes driving the geologic and geophysical phenomena of icy worlds, including, but not limited to, ring-moon interactions, interior melting due to tidal heating, ejection and reaccretion of vapor and particulates, ice tectonics, and cryovolcanism. By contextualizing each topic within the profusion of puzzles beckoning from among Saturn’s many dozen moons, Enceladus and the Icy Moons of Saturn synthesizes planetary processes on a broad scale to inform and propel both seasoned researchers and students toward achieving new advances in the coming decade and beyond.

Download or read book A Curious Moon written by Rob Conery and published by . This book was released on 2020-12-13 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Starting an application is simple enough, whether you use migrations, a model-synchronizer or good old-fashioned hand-rolled SQL. A year from now, however, when your app has grown and you're trying to measure what's happened... the story can quickly change when data is overwhelming you and you need to make sense of what's been accumulating. Learning how PostgreSQL works is just one aspect of working with data. PostgreSQL is there to enable, enhance and extend what you do as a developer/DBA. And just like any tool in your toolbox, it can help you create crap, slice off some fingers, or help you be the superstar that you are.That's the perspective of A Curious Moon - data is the truth, data is your friend, data is your business. The tools you use (namely PostgreSQL) are simply there to safeguard your treasure and help you understand what it's telling you.But what does it mean to be "data-minded"? How do you even get started? These are good questions and ones I struggled with when outlining this book. I quickly realized that the only way you could truly understand the power and necessity of solid databsae design was to live the life of a new DBA... thrown into the fire like we all were at some point...Meet Dee Yan, our fictional intern at Red:4 Aerospace. She's just been handed the keys to a massive set of data, straight from Saturn, and she has to load it up, evaluate it and then analyze it for a critical project. She knows that PostgreSQL exists... but that's about it.Much more than a tutorial, this book has a narrative element to it a bit like The Martian, where you get to know Dee and the problems she faces as a new developer/DBA... and how she solves them.The truth is in the data...

Download or read book Alien Oceans written by Kevin Hand and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inside the epic quest to find life on the water-rich moons at the outer reaches of the solar system Where is the best place to find life beyond Earth? We often look to Mars as the most promising site in our solar system, but recent scientific missions have revealed that some of the most habitable real estate may actually lie farther away. Beneath the frozen crusts of several of the small, ice-covered moons of Jupiter and Saturn lurk vast oceans that may have existed for as long as Earth, and together may contain more than fifty times its total volume of liquid water. Could there be organisms living in their depths? Alien Oceans reveals the science behind the thrilling quest to find out. Kevin Peter Hand is one of today's leading NASA scientists, and his pioneering research has taken him on expeditions around the world. In this captivating account of scientific discovery, he brings together insights from planetary science, biology, and the adventures of scientists like himself to explain how we know that oceans exist within moons of the outer solar system, like Europa, Titan, and Enceladus. He shows how the exploration of Earth's oceans is informing our understanding of the potential habitability of these icy moons, and draws lessons from what we have learned about the origins of life on our own planet to consider how life could arise on these distant worlds. Alien Oceans describes what lies ahead in our search for life in our solar system and beyond, setting the stage for the transformative discoveries that may await us.

Download or read book Remote Compositional Analysis written by Janice L. Bishop and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-28 with total page 655 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comprehensive overview of the spectroscopic, mineralogical, and geochemical techniques used in planetary remote sensing.

Download or read book Europa written by Robert T. Pappalardo and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2017-12-15 with total page 780 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few worlds are as tantalizing and enigmatic as Europa, whose complex icy surface intimates the presence of an ocean below. Europa beckons for our understanding and future exploration, enticing us with the possibilities of a water-rich environment and the potential for life beyond Earth. This volume in the Space Science Series, with more than 80 contributing authors, reveals the discovery and current understanding of Europa’s icy shell, subsurface ocean, presumably active interior, and myriad inherent interactions within the Jupiter environment. Europa is the foundation upon which the coming decades of scientific advancement and exploration of this world will be built, making it indispensable for researchers, students, and all who hold a passion for exploration.

Download or read book Moons of the Solar System written by James A. Hall III and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-09-19 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book captures the complex world of planetary moons, which are more diverse than Earth's sole satellite might lead you to believe. New missions continue to find more of these planetary satellites, making an up to date guide more necessary than ever. Why do Mercury and Venus have no moons at all? Earth's Moon, of course, is covered in the book with highly detailed maps. Then we move outward to the moons of Mars, then on to many of the more notable asteroid moons, and finally to a list of less-notable ones. All the major moons of the gas giant planets are covered in great detail, while the lesser-known satellites of these worlds are also touched on. Readers will learn of the remarkable trans-Neptunian Objects – Pluto, Eris, Sedna, Quaoar –including many of those that have been given scant attention in the literature. More than just objects to read about, the planets' satellites provide us with important information about the history of the solar system. Projects to help us learn more about the moons are included throughout the book. Most amateur astronomers can name some of the more prominent moons in the solar system, but few are intimately familiar with the full variety that exists in our backyard: 146 and counting. As our understanding of the many bodies in our solar system broadens, this is an invaluable tour of our expanding knowledge of the moons both near and far.

Download or read book The Enceladus Mission written by Brandon Q. Morris and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Titan Unveiled written by Ralph Lorenz and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For twenty-five years following the Voyager mission, scientists speculated about Saturn's largest moon, a mysterious orb clouded in orange haze. Finally, in 2005, the Cassini-Huygens probe successfully parachuted down through Titan's atmosphere, all the while transmitting images and data. In the early 1980s, when the two Voyager spacecraft skimmed past Titan, Saturn's largest moon, they transmitted back enticing images of a mysterious world concealed in a seemingly impenetrable orange haze. Titan Unveiled is one of the first general interest books to reveal the startling new discoveries that have been made since the arrival of the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan. Ralph Lorenz and Jacqueline Mitton take readers behind the scenes of this mission. Launched in 1997, Cassini entered orbit around Saturn in summer 2004. Its formidable payload included the Huygens probe, which successfully parachuted down through Titan's atmosphere in early 2005, all the while transmitting images and data--and scientists were startled by what they saw. One of those researchers was Lorenz, who gives an insider's account of the scientific community's first close encounter with an alien landscape of liquid methane seas and turbulent orange skies. Amid the challenges and frayed nerves, new discoveries are made, including methane monsoons, equatorial sand seas, and Titan's polar hood. Lorenz and Mitton describe Titan as a world strikingly like Earth and tell how Titan may hold clues to the origins of life on our own planet and possibly to its presence on others. Generously illustrated with many stunning images, Titan Unveiled is essential reading for anyone interested in space exploration, planetary science, or astronomy. A new afterword brings readers up to date on Cassini's ongoing exploration of Titan, describing the many new discoveries made since 2006.

Download or read book Cassini at Saturn written by David M. Harland and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-03-08 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Brings the story of the Cassini-Huygens mission and their joint exploration of the Saturnian system right up to date. *Combines a review of previous knowledge of Saturn, its rings and moons, including Titan, with new spacecraft results in one handy volume. *Provides the latest and most spectacular images, which will never have appeared before in book form. *Gives a context to enable the reader to more easily appreciate the stream of discoveries that will be made by the Cassini-Huygens mission. *Tells the exciting story of the Huygens spacecraft’s journey to the surface of Titan.

Download or read book Saturn in the 21st Century written by Kevin H. Baines and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed overview of Saturn's formation, evolution and structure written by eminent planetary scientists involved in the Cassini Orbiter mission.

Download or read book The Cosmic Zoo written by Dirk Schulze-Makuch and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-11-18 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are humans a galactic oddity, or will complex life with human abilities develop on planets with environments that remain habitable for long enough? In a clear, jargon-free style, two leading researchers in the burgeoning field of astrobiology critically examine the major evolutionary steps that led us from the distant origins of life to the technologically advanced species we are today. Are the key events that took life from simple cells to astronauts unique occurrences that would be unlikely to occur on other planets? By focusing on what life does - it's functional abilities - rather than specific biochemistry or anatomy, the authors provide plausible answers to this question. Systematically exploring the various pathways that led to the complex biosphere we experience on planet Earth, they show that most of the steps along that path are likely to occur on any world hosting life, with only two exceptions: One is the origin of life itself – if this is a highly improbable event, then we live in a rather “empty universe”. However, if this isn’t the case, we inevitably live in a universe containing a myriad of planets hosting complex as well as microbial life - a “cosmic zoo”. The other unknown is the rise of technologically advanced beings, as exemplified on Earth by humans. Only one technological species has emerged in the roughly 4 billion years life has existed on Earth, and we don’t know of any other technological species elsewhere. If technological intelligence is a rare, almost unique feature of Earth's history, then there can be no visitors to the cosmic zoo other than ourselves. Schulze-Makuch and Bains take the reader through the history of life on Earth, laying out a consistent and straightforward framework for understanding why we should think that advanced, complex life exists on planets other than Earth. They provide a unique perspective on the question that puzzled the human species for centuries: are we alone?

Download or read book Saturn from Cassini Huygens written by Michele Dougherty and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-09-30 with total page 799 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is one of two volumes meant to capture, to the extent practical, the scienti?c legacy of the Cassini-Huygens prime mission, a landmark in the history of planetary exploration. As the most ambitious and interdisciplinary planetary exploration mission ?own to date, it has extended our knowledge of the Saturn system to levels of detail at least an order of magnitude beyond that gained from all previous missions to Saturn. Nestled in the brilliant light of the new and deep understanding of the Saturn planetary system is the shiny nugget that is the spectacularly successful collaboration of individuals, - ganizations and governments in the achievement of Cassini-Huygens. In some ways the pa- nershipsformedandlessonslearnedmaybethemost enduringlegacyofCassini-Huygens.The broad, international coalition that is Cassini-Huygens is now conducting the Cassini Equinox Mission and planning the Cassini Solstice Mission, and in a major expansion of those fruitful efforts, has extended the collaboration to the study of new ?agship missions to both Jupiter and Saturn. Such ventures have and will continue to enrich us all, and evoke a very optimistic vision of the future of international collaboration in planetary exploration. The two volumes in the series Saturn from Cassini-Huygens and Titan from Cassini- Huygens are the direct products of the efforts of over 200 authors and co-authors. Though each book has a different set of three editors, the group of six editors for the two volumes has worked together through every step of the process to ensure that these two volumes are a set.

Download or read book The Ringed Planet Second Edition written by Joshua Colwell and published by Morgan & Claypool Publishers. This book was released on 2019-11-22 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On September 15, 2017, the Cassini spacecraft sent its final transmission to the Earth as it entered the atmosphere of Saturn, ending its historic 13 year mission at the ringed planet. This book is a beautifully illustrated journey of discovery through the Saturn system. Cassini's instruments have revealed never seen before details, including the only extraterrestrial lakes known in the solar system, and have provided unprecedented views of the rings, moons, and the planet itself. Results from Cassini's dramatic Grand Finale of ring-grazing and planet-skimming orbits are included in this expanded and updated second edition. Saturn is the jewel of the solar system. The Cassini spacecraft has been exploring the ringed planet and its moons and rings since 2004 and has helped us solve many of its mysteries while generating a wealth of new questions. Cassini has observed the bizarre mountains of Iapetus, the geysers of Enceladus, the lakes of Titan, and the dynamic and evolving rings. Along the way, this book explores and explains the fundamental processes that shape not just the Saturn system, but planets and moons in general. Written for the general audience with an emphasis on the fundamental physics of planetary systems, The Ringed Planet is a fascinating exploration of the Saturn system that places Saturn in the context of the solar system as a whole. Cassini's instruments have revealed Enceladus and Titan to have subsurface oceans of liquid water. Its cameras have returned stunning images of rings in turmoil, a tumbling moon, the only extraterrestrial lakes known in the solar system, a hexagon of clouds, some of the highest mountains in the solar system and much more. More than a journey of discovery at Saturn, The Ringed Planet is also an introduction to how planetary systems work.

Download or read book Visual Lunar and Planetary Astronomy written by Paul G. Abel and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-08-21 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the advent of CCDs and webcams, the focus of amateur astronomy has to some extent shifted from science to art. Visual work in astronomy has a rich history. Today, imaging is now more prominent. However there is still much for the visual amateur astronomer to do, and visual work is still a valid component of amateur astronomy. Paul Abel has been addressing this issue by promoting visual astronomy wherever possible – at talks to astronomical societies, in articles for popular science magazines, and on BBC TV’s The Sky at Night. Visual Lunar and Planetary Astronomy is a comprehensive modern treatment of visual lunar and planetary astronomy, showing that even in the age of space telescopes and interplanetary probes it is still possible to contribute scientifically with no more than a moderately-priced commercially made astronomical telescope. It is believed that imaging and photography is somehow more objective and more accurate than the eye, and this has led to a peculiar “crisis of faith” in the human visual system and its amazing processing power. But by analyzing observations from the past, we can see how accurate visual astronomy really is! Measuring the rotational period of Mars and making accurate lunar charts for American astronauts were all done by eye. The book includes sections on how the human visual system works, how to view an object through an eyepiece, and how to record observations and keep a scientific notebook. The book also looks at how to make an astronomical, rather than an artistic, drawing. Finally, everything here will also be of interest to those imagers who wish to make their images more scientifically applicable by combining the methods and practices of visual astronomy with imaging.

Download or read book Forging the Future of Space Science written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-03-08 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From September 2007 to June 2008 the Space Studies Board conducted an international public seminar series, with each monthly talk highlighting a different topic in space and Earth science. The principal lectures from the series are compiled in Forging the Future of Space Science. The topics of these events covered the full spectrum of space and Earth science research, from global climate change, to the cosmic origins of life, to the exploration of the Moon and Mars, to the scientific research required to support human spaceflight. The prevailing messages throughout the seminar series as demonstrated by the lectures in this book are how much we have accomplished over the past 50 years, how profound are our discoveries, how much contributions from the space program affect our daily lives, and yet how much remains to be done. The age of discovery in space and Earth science is just beginning. Opportunities abound that will forever alter our destiny.

Download or read book Origins of Life written by Douglas Whittet and published by Morgan & Claypool Publishers. This book was released on 2017-12-07 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Origins of Life: A Cosmic Perspective presents an overview of the concepts, methods, and theories of astrobiology and origins of life research while presenting a summary of the latest findings. The book provides insight into the environments and processes that gave birth to life on our planet, which naturally informs our assessment of the probability that has arisen (or will arise) elsewhere. In addition, the book encourages readers to go beyond basic concepts, to explore topics in greater depth, and to engage in lively discussions. The text is intended to be suitable for mid- and upper-level undergraduates and beginning graduate students and more generally as an introduction and overview for researchers and general readers seeking to follow current developments in this interdisciplinary field. Readers are assumed to have a basic grounding in the relevant sciences, but prior specialized knowledge is not required. Each chapter concludes with a list of questions and discussion topics as well as suggestions for further reading. Some questions can be answered with reference to material in the text, but others require further reading and some have no known answers. The intention is to encourage readers to go beyond basic concepts, to explore topics in greater depth, and, in a classroom setting, to engage in lively discussions with class members.

Download or read book Oxygen in the Solar System written by Glenn J. MacPherson and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2018-12-17 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 68 of Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry reviews Oxygen in the Solar System, an element that is so critically important in so many ways to planetary science. The book is based on three open workshops: Oxygen in the Terrestrial Planets, held in Santa Fe, NM July 20-23, 2004; Oxygen in Asteroids and Meteorites, held in Flagstaff, AZ June 2-3, 2005; and Oxygen in Earliest Solar System Materials and Processes (and including the outer planets and comets), held in Gatlinburg, TN September 19-22, 2005. As a consequence of the cross-cutting approach, the final book spans a wide range of fields relating to oxygen, from the stellar nucleosynthesis of oxygen, to its occurrence in the interstellar medium, to the oxidation and isotopic record preserved in 4.56 Ga grains formed at the Solar System's birth, to its abundance and speciation in planets large and small, to its role in the petrologic and physical evolution of the terrestrial planets. Contents: Introduction Oxygen isotopes in the early Solar System - A historical perspective Abundance, notation, and fractionation of light stable isotopes Nucleosynthesis and chemical evolution of oxygen Oxygen in the interstellar medium Oxygen in the Sun Redox conditions in the solar nebula: observational, experimental, and theoretical constraints Oxygen isotopes of chondritic components Mass-independent oxygen isotope variation in the solar nebula Oxygen and other volatiles in the giant planets and their satellites Oxygen in comets and interplanetary dust particles Oxygen and asteroids Oxygen isotopes in asteroidal materials Oxygen isotopic composition and chemical correlations in meteorites and the terrestrial planets Record of low-temperature alteration in asteroids The oxygen cycle of the terrestrial planets: insights into the processing and history of oxygen in surface environments Redox conditions on small bodies, the Moon and Mars Terrestrial oxygen isotope variations and their implications for planetary lithospheres Basalts as probes of planetary interior redox state Rheological consequences of redox state