Asteroids : relics of ancient time /
Shepard, Michael K.,1962-author.
Where do asteroids come from and what are they made of? What clues do they hold about the evolution of the Solar System? Scientists have catalogued hundreds of thousands of asteroids, and many are thought to contain water and amino acids, the building blocks of life. Michael Shepard tells the fascinating story of their discovery, and what they can tell us about the history of our own planet. He describes how we find and study asteroids, what they look like through the eyes of powerful telescopes and spacecraft, and plans for future sample return missions. This timely book interweaves accessible scientific explanations with historical background and personal narrative, providing an engaging read for anyone curious about asteroids and what they may mean for our future - both as threats and opportunities.
Where do asteroids come from and what are they made of? What clues do they hold about the evolution of the Solar System? Scientists have catalogued hundreds of thousands of asteroids, and many are thought to contain water and amino acids, the building blocks of life. Michael Shepard tells the fascinating story of their discovery, and what they can tell us about the history of our own planet. He describes how we find and study asteroids, what they look like through the eyes of powerful telescopes and spacecraft, and plans for future sample return missions. This timely book interweaves accessible scientific explanations with historical background and personal narrative, providing an engaging read for anyone curious about asteroids and what they may mean for our future - both as threats and opportunities.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 319-340) and index.
Train Station Six -- Kepler, Bode, and the gap -- The gap widens -- Piazzi plugs the gap -- Discovery of Eros and the near-Earth asteroids -- The return of Achilles and the Trojans -- The tutor of Achilles -- The underworld -- Pluto: Asteroid? Planet? Some of both? -- El Bizarro? No, Elst-Pizarro -- Naming -- Sacred ground -- The tool box -- Cameras -- The resolution wall -- Measuring brightness: The magnitude scale -- Phase angle effects -- Glowing cinders -- WISE mission -- Going to class -- Dividing the flock: C's and S's -- Learning the alphabet -- The spread -- The ice field, Antarctica -- Pallas -- Chladni: Intuition and luck -- Howard finds nickel -- From Earth, Moon, or space? -- Petrographic microscope -- Rain of fire -- Eyes that see -- Ears that hear -- Murchison, Australia -- Life? -- Haviland, Kansas -- Falls and finds -- Rocks: In general -- The meteorite family tree -- Parent bodies -- Types of chondrites -- Grading the class
Achondrites -- SNCs aka snicks -- Pieces of the Moon -- Stones within stones: Breccias and xenoliths -- Space weathering -- The power of Q -- Making connections -- The awakening -- Chelyabinsk, Russia -- Craters, volcanoes, and the problem of big meteorites -- Showdown at Coon Butte -- Barringer -- Mountains fall from the sky -- Fractals and power laws -- Tunguska, Russia -- The boundary -- Chicxulub, Mexico -- In the hood -- The age of things -- Dating by decay -- The rules of dating -- Patterson dates the first meteorites...and the Earth -- The fingerprint detection kit -- Exposed -- Clusters -- A great cataclysm -- The oldest things -- Xenon and stellar stowaways -- The best guess: What really happened -- False dawn -- Ellipses and orbits -- Professor Kirkwood's gaps -- Secular resonance -- Highway in the sky -- Light versus gravity -- Yarkovsky -- Professor Hirayama's time machine -- Dust to dust -- The truth about Veritas
Arecibo Radar Observatory -- In the path of shadows -- Adaptive optics -- Lightcurves -- Shapes from lightcurves -- The observatories -- Radar love -- A continuous wave -- Radar eyes -- Shapes from radar -- Twins! -- YORP! -- A Poor Man's Mission -- A NEAR abort -- Galileo visits Gaspra and Ida -- Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) -- NEAR sees 253 Mathilde -- Rosetta flies by Steins and Lutetia -- Deep Impact: A hit and run on Comet Tempel I -- The Muses Sea -- Dawn at Vesta -- Dawn departs for Ceres -- Future missions -- Apophis -- Who is on watch? -- How we search -- Search magnitude limits -- The nerve centers -- Warning the public -- What are the odds? -- Damage report -- Future searches -- Dodging the bullet -- Catch and release -- A new gold rush?.
Description based on print version record.
Asteroids
Astronomy
Asteroids.
Astronomy.
Asteroids.
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