![]() On out further from the Sun we find Uranus and Neptune. There’s nowhere to stand, but they’re so massive that, if you got too close, their gravity would crush you quick. They don’t seem to even have surfaces as such. The story carries out away from the Sun, where we find the gas-giant planets: Jupiter and Saturn. Our discoveries in planetary science offer us a planet-sized lesson in the importance of the greenhouse effect, how our planet became habitable, and how the biochemistry of life changed the chemistry of the atmosphere and sea. These processes have conspired to produce radically different surface temperatures on Mars and Venus. The unique chemical composition of the rocks, craters, and sands of the other worlds in the solar system has caused these extraterrestrial environments to have chemistries that are literally other worldly. The text and pictures here will help you understand why. The rocky and metallic compositions of Mars, Venus, and Mercury are very much like Earth’s, but the environments of these other worlds are completely different. In here, these essential distinctions are spelled out – or counted up. While we’re appreciating the visible differences of the traditional planets, what you might call their qualitative differences, this book helps us take it all in by the numbers, the planets’ (and exoplanets’) quantitative differences, and beyond that, the differences between our own Sun and the uncountable stars above, visible and invisible. It’s another thing to think that 1300 Earths would fit inside a sphere the size of Jupiter, and over a million Earths would fit inside the volume of the Sun. ![]() It’s one thing to consider Earth as a pretty big place, especially if you tried to walk around it. This cosmic perspective induces all of us to compare Earth to our neighbouring worlds out there. Otherwise, we’ll go extinct, like 90% of the species that gave it a go on Earth before we showed up. By understanding the changes here over recent millennia, we can see that, if we’re going to continue to thrive, we must preserve our environment. From the icy blackness of space, our spacecraft, built by our best scientists and engineers, make further observations that relentlessly show us Earth is like no other place in the solar system, and remains the only place we can live and thrive. They learned where to live and how to survive. From the comfortable surface of Earth, our deep-thinking ancestors observed our planet and its relationship, their relationship, to the night sky and the Sun. While you are going about your business every day, thinking about what’s happening on Earth right now, this book will help you think about a much grander timeline as well. An utterly amazing idea that fills me with reverence every time I think on it. You and I are at least one way that the cosmos knows itself. And from the stardust and drifting gas, the extraordinary diversity of living things, including animals like you and me, emerged. They drive home the jaw-dropping idea that you and I, and everything we can observe around us, are made of the dust and gas blasted spaceward by exploding ancient Suns. Unique to these pages are wonderful comparisons of Earth with the other worlds of our solar system and even those exoplanets orbiting other stars. ![]() Simply put, the remarkable sequence of cosmic accidents required to enable us to be here on this planet and publish books like this one is astonishing. Lonely Planet’s The Universe gives us more perspective, often breathtaking, more insight, often deep – and more unusual facts, often ones you can’t find anywhere else, regarding the profound happenstance of our existence. © SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO Welcome to the Universe Bill Nye A star being distorted by its close passage to a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy.
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