Beyond
Subtitle: visions of the interplanetary probes
By: Michael Benson ; foreword by Arthur C. Clarke ; afterword by Lawrence Weschler
Publisher: H.N. Abrams
Published: 2003
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 319
ISBN-13: 9780810945319
Subjects: Space photography; Space probes; Exploration
Description: "Since the 1960s the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been sending unmanned satellites to explore the planets, moons, and sun. These probes have amassed a stunning visual record of other worlds, revealing not one but scores of new frontiers, from rust-red Mars to the ethereal rings of Saturn."

"Author Michael Benson has spent years compiling and digitally processing the best of these images. In Beyond this "deskbound cosmic pilgrim" (Atlantic Monthly) has pulled together the most spectacular of them into one volume that presents these photographs for the first time as art. The resulting book consists of two parts: the first is a spectacular visual tour of the solar system, with views ever bit as compelling as the work of the great landscape photographers on earth; the second is a series of essays that explain the story behind these photographs: the history of the probes' journeys, how they work, and why they were built. This book shows us how modern science has revealed the astonishing beauty and mystery of the solar system and its awe-inspiring worlds far beyond any places human beings have ever directly observed."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: Foreword : Tomorrow's explorers / Arthur C. Clarke; title: Earth-Moon system; title: Venus; title: Sun; title: Mercury; title: Mars; title: Asteroids; title: Jupiter system; title: Saturn; title: Uranus; title: Neptune; title: Space in time; title: Trajectories; title: About the photographs; title: Afterword : Why is the human on earth? / Lawrence Weschler.