num_pages: 230
description: Rings is an account of exploration and scientific discovery. This story of all three known sets of planetary rings emphasizes the events of the past five years, during which scientists have learned more about this fascinating and beautiful astronomical phenomenon than was ever known before. They have found ring systems encircling Uranus and Jupiter and thousands of dazzling and often mysterious ringlets within the three traditionally accepted rings of Saturn.Rings opens with Elliot's first-person account of the discovery of the Uranus rings, including excerpts from a tape that was running as the crew aboard the airborne observatory slowly realized that they were seeing something real that had never been seen before. Subsequent chapters provide a quick history of our understanding of rings through the early part of this century, describe the development of occultation methods for exploring relatively small-scale planetary phenomena, tackle the theoretical question of how narrow rings can exist in stable form, follow the spacecraft discoveries of Jupiter's system and the wonders of Saturn, briefly summarize current ring theory, and look to the future of ring research, including the Voyager 2 encounter with Uranus in 1986.The authors are well qualified to tell this story. James Elliot played the leading role in discovering the Uranian rings in 1977, the first planetary ring system to be found since Galileo observed Saturn's rings in 1610. Richard Kerr covered the Jovian and Saturnian discoveries for Science magazine. In their work they have both been struck by the fact that the progress of science often follows serendipitous rather than strictly logical paths, and their book offers a good antidote to the usual textbook narratives of scientific work.Copies of the tape that recorded the discovery of the Uranian rings are available from The MIT Press.
language: English
title: Rings: Discoveries from Galileo to Voyager
titlecomplete: Rings: Discoveries from Galileo to Voyager
ratings_count: 2
publisher: Mit Pr