The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet

Author: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393073343
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206

Book Description
The New York Times bestseller: "You gotta read this. It is the most exciting book about Pluto you will ever read in your life." —Jon Stewart When the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History reclassified Pluto as an icy comet, the New York Times proclaimed on page one, "Pluto Not a Planet? Only in New York." Immediately, the public, professionals, and press were choosing sides over Pluto's planethood. Pluto is entrenched in our cultural and emotional view of the cosmos, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, award-winning author and director of the Rose Center, is on a quest to discover why. He stood at the heart of the controversy over Pluto's demotion, and consequently Plutophiles have freely shared their opinions with him, including endless hate mail from third-graders. With his inimitable wit, Tyson delivers a minihistory of planets, describes the oversized characters of the people who study them, and recounts how America's favorite planet was ousted from the cosmic hub.

The Pluto System After New Horizons

Author: S. Alan Stern
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816540942
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 684

Book Description
Once perceived as distant, cold, dark, and seemingly unknowable, Pluto had long been marked as the farthest and most unreachable frontier for solar system exploration. The Pluto System After New Horizons is the benchmark research compendium for synthesizing our understanding of the Pluto system. This volume reviews the work of researchers who have spent the last five years assimilating the data returned from New Horizons and the first full scientific synthesis of this fascinating system.

Discovering Pluto

Author: Dale P. Cruikshank
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816534314
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 502

Book Description
The story of Pluto and its largest moon, from discovery through the New Horizons flyby--Provided by publisher.

Chasing New Horizons

Author: Alan Stern
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 125009898X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Book Description
Called "spellbinding" (Scientific American) and "thrilling...a future classic of popular science" (PW), the up close, inside story of the greatest space exploration project of our time, New Horizons’ mission to Pluto, as shared with David Grinspoon by mission leader Alan Stern and other key players. On July 14, 2015, something amazing happened. More than 3 billion miles from Earth, a small NASA spacecraft called New Horizons screamed past Pluto at more than 32,000 miles per hour, focusing its instruments on the long mysterious icy worlds of the Pluto system, and then, just as quickly, continued on its journey out into the beyond. Nothing like this has occurred in a generation—a raw exploration of new worlds unparalleled since NASA’s Voyager missions to Uranus and Neptune—and nothing quite like it is planned to happen ever again. The photos that New Horizons sent back to Earth graced the front pages of newspapers on all 7 continents, and NASA’s website for the mission received more than 2 billion hits in the days surrounding the flyby. At a time when so many think that our most historic achievements are in the past, the most distant planetary exploration ever attempted not only succeeded in 2015 but made history and captured the world’s imagination. How did this happen? Chasing New Horizons is the story of the men and women behind this amazing mission: of their decades-long commitment and persistence; of the political fights within and outside of NASA; of the sheer human ingenuity it took to design, build, and fly the mission; and of the plans for New Horizons’ next encounter, 1 billion miles past Pluto in 2019. Told from the insider’s perspective of mission leader Dr. Alan Stern and others on New Horizons, and including two stunning 16-page full-color inserts of images, Chasing New Horizons is a riveting account of scientific discovery, and of how much we humans can achieve when people focused on a dream work together toward their incredible goal.

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming

Author: Mike Brown
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0385531109
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
The solar system most of us grew up with included nine planets, with Mercury closest to the sun and Pluto at the outer edge. Then, in 2005, astronomer Mike Brown made the discovery of a lifetime: a tenth planet, Eris, slightly bigger than Pluto. But instead of adding one more planet to our solar system, Brown’s find ignited a firestorm of controversy that culminated in the demotion of Pluto from real planet to the newly coined category of “dwarf” planet. Suddenly Brown was receiving hate mail from schoolchildren and being bombarded by TV reporters—all because of the discovery he had spent years searching for and a lifetime dreaming about. A heartfelt and personal journey filled with both humor and drama, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming is the book for anyone, young or old, who has ever imagined exploring the universe—and who among us hasn’t?

Death By Black Hole

Author: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393062243
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Book Description
A collection of essays on the cosmos, written by an American Museum of Natural History astrophysicist, includes "Holy Wars," "Ends of the World," and "Hollywood Nights."

Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier

Author: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393082911
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 488

Book Description
“A compelling appeal, at just the right time, for continuing to look up.”—Air & Space America’s space program is at a turning point. After decades of global primacy, NASA has ended the space-shuttle program, cutting off its access to space. No astronauts will be launched in an American craft, from American soil, until the 2020s, and NASA may soon find itself eclipsed by other countries’ space programs. With his signature wit and thought-provoking insights, Neil deGrasse Tyson—one of our foremost thinkers on all things space—illuminates the past, present, and future of space exploration and brilliantly reminds us why NASA matters now as much as ever. As Tyson reveals, exploring the space frontier can profoundly enrich many aspects of our daily lives, from education systems and the economy to national security and morale. For America to maintain its status as a global leader and a technological innovator, he explains, we must regain our enthusiasm and curiosity about what lies beyond our world. Provocative, humorous, and wonderfully readable, Space Chronicles represents the best of Tyson’s recent commentary, including a must-read prologue on NASA and partisan politics. Reflecting on topics that range from scientific literacy to space-travel missteps, Tyson gives us an urgent, clear-eyed, and ultimately inspiring vision for the future.

Pluto's Secret

Author: Margaret Weitekamp
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1613124961
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 44

Book Description
People, children especially, have been baffled, bewildered, and even outraged by the fact that Pluto is no longer called a planet. Through whimsical artwork and an entertaining dialogue format, Pluto’s Secret explains the true story of this distant world. Providing a history of the small, icy world from its discovery and naming to its recent reclassification, this book presents a fascinating look at how scientists organize and classify our solar system as they gain new insights into how it works and what types of things exist within it. The book includes a glossary and bibliography. Praise for Pluto's Secret "Pairing a lighthearted narrative in a hand-lettered†“style typeface with informally drawn cartoon illustrations, this lively tale of astronomical revelations begins with the search for Planet X.†? —Kirkus Reviews "This picture book offers a fresh, positive perspective on Pluto, showing that its change of status is not a demotion but a correction." —Booklist "Light-hearted imagining of a gregarious Pluto.†? —Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books "Fun reading... The book provides a factual history of our faraway 'dwarf,' and on its companion icy worlds, and on the discovery of Kuiper-like bands around other stars." —School Library Journal Award New York Public Library’s annual Children’s Books list: 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing 2013

The Georgian Star

Author: Michael D. Lemonick
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393065749
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Book Description
"In 1781, William Herschel won international fame for discovering Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun. In documenting a new planet - something no one had done since the dawn of civilization - he expanded our perception that we are part of something much greater than the immediately visible solar system." "Herschel remains most famous for this discovery, but, as The Georgian Star makes vividly clear, he accomplished much more. After a successful career as a professional musician, he turned his attention to astronomy in his mid-thirties. With his sister Caroline as a partner, he pioneered techniques that are still used by astronomers today. The Herschels were the first to map the night sky, listing and categorizing every object they could see. To do so, they built a massive, forty-foot-tall telescope under the patronage of King George III. They were also the first to propose that the visible stars surrounding our little planet are only a fraction of those that make up a continually evolving universe. William's restless intelligence led further still, to the discovery of infrared radiation - invisible radiation that has a wavelength longer than microwaves but shorter than that of visible light. Caroline assembled an exhaustive catalog of nebulae, the beautiful, cloudy assemblages of dust and stellar light." "Erudite and accessible, The Georgian Star is a lively portrait of the pair who invented modern astronomy."--BOOK JACKET.

The Sky Is Not the Limit

Author: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1616141204
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 203

Book Description
From the author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry and the host of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, a memoir about growing up and a young man's budding scientific curiosity. This is the absorbing story of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s lifelong fascination with the night sky, a restless wonder that began some thirty years ago on the roof of his Bronx apartment building and eventually led him to become the director of the Hayden Planetarium. A unique chronicle of a young man who at one time was both nerd and jock, Tyson’s memoir could well inspire other similarly curious youngsters to pursue their dreams. Like many athletic kids he played baseball, won medals in track and swimming, and was captain of his high school wrestling team. But at the same time he was setting up a telescope on winter nights, taking an advanced astronomy course at the Hayden Planetarium, and spending a summer vacation at an astronomy camp in the Mojave Desert. Eventually, his scientific curiosity prevailed, and he went on to graduate in physics from Harvard and to earn a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Columbia. There followed postdoctoral research at Princeton. In 1996, he became the director of the Hayden Planetarium, where some twenty-five years earlier he had been awed by the spectacular vista in the sky theater. Tyson pays tribute to the key teachers and mentors who recognized his precocious interests and abilities, and helped him succeed. He intersperses personal reminiscences with thoughts on scientific literacy, careful science vs. media hype, the possibility that a meteor could someday hit the Earth, dealing with society’s racial stereotypes, what science can and cannot say about the existence of God, and many other interesting insights about science, society, and the nature of the universe. Now available in paperback with a new preface and other additions, this engaging memoir will enlighten and inspire an appreciation of astronomy and the wonders of our universe.