The story of unmanned space exploration, from Viking to today
Dreams of Other Worlds describes the unmanned space missions that have
opened new windows on distant worlds. Spanning four decades of dramatic
advances in astronomy and planetary science, this book tells the story
of eleven iconic exploratory missions and how they have fundamentally
transformed our scientific and cultural perspectives on the universe and
our place in it.
The journey begins with the Viking and Mars Exploration Rover missions
to Mars, which paint a startling picture of a planet at the cusp of
habitability. It then moves into the realm of the gas giants with the
Voyager probes and Cassini's ongoing exploration of the moons of Saturn.
The Stardust probe's dramatic round-trip encounter with a comet is
brought vividly to life, as are the SOHO and Hipparcos missions to study
the Sun and Milky Way. This stunningly illustrated book also explores
how our view of the universe has been brought into sharp focus by NASA's
great observatories--Spitzer, Chandra, and Hubble--and how the WMAP
mission has provided rare glimpses of the dawn of creation.
Dreams of Other Worlds reveals how these unmanned exploratory missions
have redefined what it means to be the temporary tenants of a small
planet in a vast cosmos.