Book Description
Volume 1 provides a broad overview of the chemistry of the solar system. It includes chapters on the origin of the elements and solar system abundances, the solar nebula and planet formation, meteorite classification, the major types of meteorites, important processes in early solar system history, geochemistry of the terrestrial planets, the giant planets and their satellite, comets, and the formation and early differentiation of the Earth. This volume is intended to be the first reference work one would consult to learn about the chemistry of the solar system.
Reprinted individual volume from the acclaimed Treatise on Geochemistry (10 Volume Set, ISBN 0-08-043751-6, published in 2003)
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Comets, Meteors, and Asteroids
Seymour Simon
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ASIN: 0688158439 |
Book Description
Whether they appear as distant specks in an astronomer's telescope or shoot brilliantly across the evening sky, comets, meteors, and asteroids have fascinated sky gazers throughout history. But where do these racing celestial bodies come from, and what can they teach us about our universe? Join Seymour Simon for a look at the fiery mystery and wild wonder of these luminous bodies of night.
Customer Reviews:
Helpful for lying on your back on a warm summer's night!.......2000-07-26
We're giving this book as a gift after having enjoyed it with our own family. We're amateur "stargazers", and our young friends enjoyed having this book as reference during visits with us. It's difficult to explain certain terms regarding the evening skies. This book helps to clarify, and does so beautifully!
Customer Reviews:
Educational Fun!.......2007-05-07
My kids really enjoy the Magic School Bus series, and this book was no exception. My 8 yo daughter wants to be an astronaut, and her mind hasn't changed since reading this! I recommend this to all parents with younger kids who want colorful illustrations and good information without being overwhelming or boring.
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Asteroids, Comets, and Meteorites: Cosmic Invaders of the Earth (The Living Earth)
Jon Erickson
Manufacturer: Facts on File
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ASIN: 0816050767 |
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- Wow!
- Devastating impact!
- Simulate asteroid and comet impacts on your PC
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Comet and Asteroid Impact Hazards on a Populated Earth: Computer Modeling
John S. Lewis
Manufacturer: Academic Press
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Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets: The Search for the Million Megaton Menace That Threatens Life on Earth
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Rain of Iron & Ice (Helix Books)
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Impact!: The Threat of Comets and Asteroids
ASIN: 0124467601 |
Book Description
Comet and Asteroid Impact Hazards explores the anticipated consequences of comet and asteroid impact. It presents the first computer simulations of the hazards of comet and asteroid bombardment of a populated Earth. Previous estimates of fatality and damage rates on the 100 to 10,000 year time scale are shown to be too low because they neglect rare, highly lethal outriders of the populations of bombarding objects, those with exceptional strength, unusually low entry velocity, and near-horizontal entry angles. This is the first realistic assessment of both the mean casualty rate and the expected statistical fluctuations in that rate. A breakdown of fatality and damage rates by impactor energy and compositional class suggests lessons for both asteroid search strategies and interdiction techniques.
This book is written so that anyone with college level experience in the physical sciences can understand it. It includes a disk that allows the reader to simulate impact catastrophes. It serves as a useful resource in various physical sciences courses such as astronomy, planetary science, and environmental science.
* Quantatively rigorous treatment of the state of impact hazard prediction, including stuctural blast damage, firestorm ignition, tsunami generation
* Realistic treatment of the impact on population, composition, and orbits
* Attention to economic and public policy issues of warning, interdiction, and asteroid and comet search strategies
* Comparison of simulation results to historical records
* Detailed and realistic Monte Carlo simulation software included
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Book but the Software presents a Hassle.......2000-11-21
The text is an excellent and scholarly treatment of the subject. Itis very detailed, quite factual, thoughtfully constructed and verythought provocating. It generates a lot of interest in the includedMonte Carlo impact/fatality model.
Unfortunately, the attached model program is very difficult to use. It is written in native GW-BASIC which can only be read by GW-Basic running under DOS (not a Windows shell). One needs to find a copy of GWBASIC and a DOS boot disk to convert HAZARD5.BAS to ASCII format. Once in ASCII it will run in the more common QBASIC in Windows. In short, it presents an unnecessary hassle. Indeed, there were no instructions to do the conversion and Michael Paine and his web site .... came to the rescue with detailed instructions and some refinements to the model.
Wow!.......2000-09-14
Dr. Lewis makes a compelling case for the reappraisal of comet and asteroid impacts. This book is lucid, sharp, and, well, SCARY. I strongly recommend it to all readers curious about these potentially cataclysmic events; when you understand the energy involved in one of these impacts, and the effects on human populations it becomes clear that we are currently just as vulnerable as the dinosaurs were 65 million years ago. I also recommend Rain of Iron and Ice for the popular science audience. It is an equally compelling, and also entertaining, read. Worth every penny.
Devastating impact!.......2000-01-05
Of all the hazards facing Earth, impacts are the most dangerous. Their effects can be devastating over the entire surface of the planet.
I enjoyed the comparison of simulation results to historical records and the attention to economic and public policy issues of warning, interdiction, and asteroid & comet search strategies. David Egge's paintings (in the color section) are awesome.
Keep your eye on the sky!
Simulate asteroid and comet impacts on your PC.......1999-12-07
This book by Planetary Scientist John Lewis includes a diskette with a Monte Carlo program to run simulations of Earth impacts over time. The book is basically a handbook for the software with a wide range of physical information about NEOs, impacts and effects on the human population. An excellent resource covering physics, chemistry and environment. I can recommend it to anyone studying the possible influence of impacts on civilisation. Over thousands of years airburst events like Tunguska turn out to be important sources of fatalities and yet they leave little or no physical evidence so information about the danger is unlikely to be reliably passed from generation to generation.
Note that the program requires GW-BASIC to run To run the program in a higher version of BASIC such as Quick Basic you will need to convert it from binary to ASCII format from within GW-BASIC. To do this load the program in GW-BASIC (F3 path/filename.BAS) then save it with the ASCII option set (F4 path/new_filename.BAS , A ). This is all subject to the copyright conditions of course.
Book Description
Rain of Iron and Ice shows us the unmistakable evidence-from space-probe flybys of the planets to the scars on our own Earth-of cataclysmic comet and asteroid impacts. By comparing what we know about the earth's geology and paleontology with the ages of the other planets and moons in our solar system, Lewis makes the strongest case yet of the sudden, dramatic extinction's and assesses the risks to planet Earth.
Customer Reviews:
Don't worry about my review -- just read the book.......2002-06-10
This fine book is designed primarily with one goal in mind. Aimed at a popular audience, it is written to counteract the unfortunately widespread myth that no one has ever been killed, or will ever be killed, by a falling asteroid or meteor. John Lewis reworks this statement, reminding us that the way it should be phrased is as follows: "no one as ever been killed or hurt by a meteor or asteroid in the presence of a Western, 20th/21st century journalist or meteoriticist."
This book demonstrates, through statistics and anecdotes, that it is more than just a question of occasional asteroids like the one that killed the dinosaurs, or like the ones in the asteroid movies from the summer of 1999. There is an extremely wide range of asteroids, meteors, and other random space-rocks, of all different shapes, sizes, and compositions. The ones large enough to do fairly serious damage land all over the planet, and substantially more often than many of us tend to believe.
Chapter 14 alone is worth the price of the book. In it, Dr. Lewis shows us computer simulations of several likely asteroid strikes. Let me clarify that -- he presents the results of computer simulations of 10 randomly computer-generated "centuries" on Earth, and what the statistical likelihood of pretty awful asteroid collisions are in each century. Many of the simulations are pretty terrifying. The one that opens the chapter, taking place in the Phillipines, is one of the most horrifying things you'll ever read.
Another valuable part of the book is the table in chapter 13, which lists dozens of damaging asteroid or meteor strikes throughout recorded history, all over the world. Stories like this crop up throughout the book, they aren't just in chapter 13.
The intent of this book is to raise public awareness. It succeeds dramatically. Please buy a copy, and get copies for some of your friends. Two thumbs up.
The best book for the lay reader.......2002-03-11
This book is a natural five-star. It clearly and eloquently discusses the threat from asteroids and comets. The scenario of a SMALL asteroid falling in the Philippine Sea should be eye-opening to even the most jaded. Also especially worth reading are the chapters on Mercury and on computer created scenarios of falls over a century's time. The book maintains a steady pace throughout, and is a must for anyone interested in meteoritics.
It "Rocks".......2000-12-18
__________________
The need for radioastronomy to detect near Earth objects on the day-side is documented in this book. Amateur astronomers have a real opportunity to potentially save all life on Earth. Despite the efforts expended (mostly since 1994, after the impact of the fragments of Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter) the estimate is that 90 per cent of nearby asteroids are unknown. As David Morrison has warned, nothing can be told about the unknown majority, and the odds are that there will be no warning.
At least four large impacts occurred during the 20th century, the best known being the Tunguska object in 1908. I was a bit startled to learn of the small 1919 impact on Lake Michigan (p 159) having never heard anything about this from elderly folklore-prone relatives.
Perhaps most useful is Lewis' discussion of the various myths about our safety from such impacts.
See also "Night Comes to the Cretaceous" by James Lawrence Powell.
Excellent, and scary.......2000-11-02
Dr. Lewis is an acknowledged expert on the topic of impacts, and it shows. His writing is clear and vivid; his descriptions of impact events are some of the best (and most chilling) I have read. There is a wealth of detail about potentially hazardous asteroids and comets, yet he never talks above the reader's head. As a professional astronomer myself and one who has talked about this subject many times, I highly recommend this book.
Kaboom! (But you'd never hear it coming...).......2000-09-14
This is a truly great science book: it combines accuracy and completeness with readability. It's even entertaining, though scary as hell. The newspaper excerpts are a great touch, and the computer simulations are CHILLING. Serious readers should also read Dr Lewis' book on computer modelling of high-energy impacts. Apocalypse overdue???
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Could an Asteroid Hit the Earth?: Asteroids, Comets, Meteors, And More (Stargazers' Guides)
Rosalind Mist
Manufacturer: Heinemann
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Comets, Meteors, and Asteroids
ASIN: 1403477167 |
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Observing Comets, Asteroids, Meteors, and the Zodiacal Light (Practical Astronomy Handbooks)
Stephen J. Edberg , and
David H. Levy
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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ASIN: 0521420032 |
Book Description
If you are an amateur astronomer, and comets, asteroids, meteors, and the zodiacal light are your quarry, then this is the book for you. Comet observers can learn how to make visual estimates of brightness and size, and how to make photographic studies of cometary heads and tails. Asteroid hunters will find a "life list" of objects and guidelines on how to search for them and then how to photograph or electronically image them. Practical photographic and electronic methods for studying meteors and meteor showers are provided. Visual and photographic techniques show you how to examine the often elusive zodiacal light. The more adventurous are provided with advanced techniques on how to make successful astrometric, spectroscopic and electronic observations. David Levy is the author of The Sky: A User's Guide (CUP, 1991). Both authors have had asteroids named after them.
Amazon.com
Scientists have not yet discovered a smoking gun in the unsolved mystery of dinosaur extinction, but they have one heck of a candidate in something called the Chicxulub Crater. Roughly 65 million years ago, a 10-kilometer-wide object slammed into the Yucatan. Thanks to erosion, the evidence of this cataclysmic event has remained invisible until now. Gerrit Verschuur thinks this ancient crash landing led to mass death, and he's worried about it happening again. His intriguing book provides a history of terrestrial impacts, tells of current efforts to identify near-earth objects, and reveals a new and growing area of scientific endeavor.
Book Description
Most scientists now agree that some sixty-five million years ago, an immense comet slammed into the Yucatan, detonating a blast twenty million times more powerful than the largest hydrogen bomb, punching a hole ten miles deep in the earth. Trillions of tons of rock were vaporized and launched into the atmosphere. For a thousand miles in all directions, vegetation burst into flames. There were tremendous blast waves, searing winds, showers of molten matter from the sky, earthquakes, and a terrible darkness that cut out sunlight for a year, enveloping the planet in freezing cold. Thousands of species of plants and animals were obliterated, including the dinosaurs, some of which may have become extinct in a matter of hours. In Impact, Gerrit L. Verschuur offers an eye-opening look at such catastrophic collisions with our planet. Perhaps more important, he paints an unsettling portrait of the possibility of new collisions with earth, exploring potential threats to our planet and describing what scientists are doing right now to prepare for this awful possibility. Every day something from space hits our planet, Verschuur reveals. In fact, about 10,000 tons of space debris fall to earth every year, mostly in meteoric form. The author recounts spectacular recent sightings, such as over Allende, Mexico, in 1969, when a fireball showered the region with four tons of fragments, and the twenty-six pound meteor that went through the trunk of a red Chevy Malibu in Peekskill, New York, in 1992 (the meteor was subsequently sold for $69,000 and the car itself fetched $10,000). But meteors are not the greatest threat to life on earth, the author points out. The major threats are asteroids and comets. The reader discovers that astronomers have located some 350 NEAs ("Near Earth Asteroids"), objects whose orbits cross the orbit of the earth, the largest of which are 1627 Ivar (6 kilometers wide) and 1580 Betula (8 kilometers). Indeed, we learn that in 1989, a bus-sized asteroid called Asclepius missed our planet by 650,000 kilometers (a mere six hours), and that in 1994 a sixty-foot object passed within 180,000 kilometers, half the distance to the moon. Comets, of course, are even more deadly. Verschuur provides a gripping description of the small comet that exploded in the atmosphere above the Tunguska River valley in Siberia, in 1908, in a blinding flash visible for several thousand miles (every tree within sixty miles of ground zero was flattened). He discusses Comet Swift-Tuttle--"the most dangerous object in the solar system"--a comet far larger than the one that killed off the dinosaurs, due to pass through earth's orbit in the year 2126. And he recounts the collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter in 1994, as some twenty cometary fragments struck the giant planet over the course of several days, casting titanic plumes out into space (when Fragment G hit, it outshone the planet on the infrared band, and left a dark area at the impact site larger than the Great Red Spot). In addition, the author describes the efforts of Spacewatch and other groups to locate NEAs, and evaluates the idea that comet and asteroid impacts have been an underrated factor in the evolution of life on earth. Astronomer Herbert Howe observed in 1897: "While there are not definite data to reason from, it is believed that an encounter with the nucleus of one of the largest comets is not to be desired." As Verschuur shows in Impact, we now have substantial data with which to support Howe's tongue-in-cheek remark. Whether discussing monumental tsunamis or the innumerable comets in the Solar System, this book will enthrall anyone curious about outer space, remarkable natural phenomenon, or the future of the planet earth.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating.......2006-04-06
I picked up this book on a whim, and found myself fascinated by the science. Its about the threat of comets and asteroids and the potential of collision with earth. If you are concerned, you should be, especially if the projectile is large and lands in the sea- deadly Tsunamis and tidal waves could be the result....look what happened to the dinosaurs! LOL, actually, the threat of being hit by a much smaller rock is far greater, Earth is hit every year by many small objects which most people never see or are noticed, (except by science-types).
This book covers historical, ancient, and modern perspective towards the stellar apparitions. While parts are a little dry, it's a good read for science geeks, or those interested in learning about asteroids and meteors. I found the author's occasional witty commentary funny, and the historical notes fascinating. An excellent, read all-around. 4 stars.
The definitive book on impact hazards.......2002-07-09
The chance of Earth being struck by a large asteroid or comet is neither more nor less now than it has ever been. If nothing else, this book will bring out that fact. So for all the folks who want to believe in the magical or the preposterous, such as Nostradamus, Velikovsky, and other fantasy spinners, go elsewhere
If, however, you are a person who accepts things scientific, this is your book. Professsor Verschuur is an excellent, lucid, organized writer who does not waste the reader's time with forays into the specculative or ludicrous. Instead he forthrightly presents the overview of, and the detail behind, the genuine, if remote, danger that human society will receive heavy damage, if not outright destruction, from a large impact event. He accurately points out that the remoteness of this eventuality is offset by the magnitude of destruction that will occur if a large impact happens.
I have studied impact phenomena for some years, and this book is the most-fact-filled, well organized book of its genre. It is not only an excellent starting volume for a study of this branch of science, but is a good wake-up call for organizing attempts to meet the danger. The Professor does not patronize his reader, but neither does he presume a level of knowledge beyond the ken of the average well-informed adult.
I recommend the book very highly and would urge anyone interested in this topic to make it a priority purchase. It is the book by which all similar texts should be measured.
A thoughtful, useful compilation of known facts.......2002-01-16
This book really helps make a lot of things clear about comets and asteroids. I think some people might be turned off, or made suspicious, by the somewhat lurid cover, but please don't be among those people. The book is highly lucid, extremely intelligent, and absolutely terrifying.
Dr. Verschuur is a well-respected astronomer, and clearly one of the reasons that he is so highly respected, is his facility for communicating complex information in an understandable way. In this book, he carefully walks the reader through logically presented discussions of the dinosaur-killing asteroid; the tsunamis (huge ocean waves) that would result from an asteroid landing in the sea; the history of the way scientists have thought about the threat of asteroids; and the statistical likelihood that you or I will be slain by an errant asteroid (about 1 in 20,000, which is approximately the same as the chance of dying in a plane crash). While, admittedly, current efforts to prevent plane crashes are stepped up from the norm, doesn't it seem as though we should be taking vastly greater precautions to detect near-Earth asteroids which could destroy civilization???
Dr. Vershuur's account of this threat is very level-headed, and perceptively written. He asks why so many of us have trouble psychologically, conceptualizing the reality of this threat. He also deals, cautiously, with the possibility that ancient legends from around the world may actually tell of asteroid strikes in pre-historic times. This is brave of him to even mention this kind of thing, because it verges on speculation. Scientists are not in the business of irresponsible speculation, after all -- their business is science! They risk grave professional consequences, if they even attempt to discuss such issues. But Dr. Verschuur is very good about alerting the reader to the controversial nature of efforts to extract scientific meaning from the ore of myth. Anyway, he touches on the topic, and it is sometimes interestingly plausible, to my mind at least.
Probably the best thing about this book, is that it helps to alleviate the almost religious terror that the prospect of such collisions produce in most of us. Think of the movie "Armageddon." What a calm, objective, dispassionately conceived title for a movie -- NOT! That movie makes us think about asteroid strikes as a highly infrequent, totally overwhelming event that only Bruce Willis would be able to handle (ha ha). Dr. Verschuur's book, on the other hand, helps us to see that the Earth gets hit CONSTANTLY by asteroids, and it's just a question of understanding the frequency with which we get nailed by the bigger ones.
We learn here that, for example, the Earth gets hit by an asteroid large enough to disrupt a global civilization approximately once every 5,000 years. That's APPROXIMATELY. It can vary by thousands of years. This is just the statistical likelihood, averaged out over millions of years by analyzing the age of craters on Earth, nearby planets, and the moon. We learn that an asteroid with a diameter of 500 meters would probably destroy civilization, and that one that was over 1,000 meters would result in the death of virtually the entire world population of humans. For perspective, the one that finally killed the dinosaurs was about 10,000 meters across. Asteroids that big are rare -- but some are even bigger.
Most asteroids are not quite this threatening, but none are benign. Dr. Vershuur's book really helps us to understand things that more people should be thinking about. My only problem with this book is that I wish it included an appendix of ideas that people should try to implement, as precautionary measures. One example that IS included is the importance of giving money to the (very few) institutions that watch the skies. However, I would like to see a book like this also mention promoting educational initiatives that encourage highly localized electrical power generation options, such as wind energy, in case our global economy is suddenly obliterated. Most importantly, I wish there were a section stressing the importance of learning to grow FOOD in hydroponic, protected, indoor environments, so people would have renewable food supplies if a sudden winter, lasting for years, were brought on by all the dust an asteroid strike would throw up into the sky. No country on Earth has more than a few months of food stored up at any given time. If a major asteroid strike provoked a "nuclear winter" type of scenario, virtually everyone who survived would starve, without precautionary measures.
Still, basically this book is simply fantastic. Definitely two thumbs up.
Excellent review of the very real threat of impact.......1998-07-30
No writer out there does a better job of explaining science to the interested non-scientist than Verschuur. Impact! is a well-researched and beautifully-written book. It came out before all the Hollywood hype so it never made it to the best-seller list, but if you're interested in this subject, don't miss this one! Learn the truth behind the "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact" movies from a world-renowned expert. Astronomy has recently lost two of its most eloquent ambassadors to the non-scientific world - Carl Sagan and Gene Shoemaker. Verschuur could easily fill their shoes. If you like Impact!, try Verschuur's other books - "Hidden Attraction" and "The Invisible Universe Revealed." They're great!
Stolen works of Immanuel Velikovsky and then trashes him.......1998-07-13
This author has stolen the foundational idea of this book from the great scientist Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky who wrote the best seller "Worlds in Collision" in 1950. Then this author, Verschuur, trashes Velikovsky. Verschuur states hackneyed cliches about Velikovsky that were part of the most disgusting scientific blackballing in history. Verschuur does not address all of the overwhelming evidence that NASA has devoped over the last 40 years which were all anticipated by Velikovsky. What about the 900 degree surface temperature of Venus, or radio signals from Jupiter, or thick dust on the moon (remember the footprints of our astronauts?), or the scores of other discoveries all of which Velikovsky clearly anticipated and Verschuur ignores while promoting his own daffy theory. As an objective writer, Verschuur is a failure, and as an observer of alternative science he is lame.
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