For millenia humans have considered Mars the most fascinating planet in our solar system. We’ve watched this Earth-like world first with the naked eye, then using telescopes, and, most recently, through robotic orbiters and landers and rovers on the surface. Historian William Sheehan and astronomer and planetary scientist Jim Bell combine their talents to tell a unique story of what we’ve learned by studying Mars through evolving technologies. What the eye sees as a mysterious red dot wandering through the sky becomes a blurry mirage of apparent seas, continents, and canals as viewed through Earth-based telescopes. Beginning with the Mariner and Viking missions of the 1960s and 1970s, space-based instruments and monitoring systems have flooded scientists with data on Mars’s meteorology and geology, and have even sought evidence of possible existence of life-forms on or beneath the surface. This knowledge has transformed our perception of the Red Planet and has provided clues for better understanding our own blue world. Discovering Mars vividly conveys the way our understanding of this other planet has grown from earliest times to the present. The story is epic in scope—an Iliad or Odyssey for our time, at least so far largely without the folly, greed, lust, and tragedy of those ancient stories. Instead, the narrative of our quest for the Red Planet has showcased some of our species’ most hopeful attributes: curiosity, cooperation, exploration, and the restless drive to understand our place in the larger universe. Sheehan and Bell have written an ambitious first draft of that narrative even as the latest chapters continue to be added both by researchers on Earth and our robotic emissaries on and around Mars, including the latest: the Perseverance rover and its Ingenuity helicopter drone, which set down in Mars’s Jezero Crater in February 2021.

Featuring incredible photos and new information about the latest research into Mars, this updated edition of Discovering Mars covers everything about the great red planet, from past to present. Topics include myths and facts about life on Mars, a his

A leading historian of astronomy and a leading planetary scientist who works at the forefront of space exploration provide a comprehensive history of the solar system's most alluring planet beyond Earth. William Sheehan and Jim Bell chronicle how ancient watchers of the skies attended to Mars's red color and baffling movements, how three and a half centuries of telescopic observations added vistas and controversies around possible seas and continents and canals, and how the current era of exploration by flyby, orbiter, lander, and rover spacecraft have conjured for us the reality of a world of towering shield volcanoes, vast canyons, ancient dry riverbeds--and even possible evidence of past life. A unique collaboration between two authors on the forefront of Mars explorations, past and future, Discovering Mars provides an ambitious, detailed, and evocative account of humanity's enduring fascination with the Red Planet.

The story of Pluto and its largest moon, from discovery through the New Horizons flyby--Provided by publisher.

Presents the harsh landscape of the Red Planet through 3-D and color images from the robotic explorers Spirit and Opportunity; provides a close-up look a the Martian rocks, craters, valleys, and other geologic configurations.

Mars Geological Enigmas: From the Late Noachian Epoch to the Present Day presents outstanding questions on the geology of Mars and divergent viewpoints based on varying interpretations and analyses. The result is a robust and comprehensive discussion that provides opportunities for planetary scientists to develop their own opinions and ways forward. Each theme opens with an introduction that includes background on the topic and lays out questions to be addressed. Alternate perspectives are covered for each topic, including methods, observations, analyses, and in-depth discussion of the conclusions. Chapters within each theme reference each other to facilitate comparison and deeper understanding of divergent opinions. - Offers a transchronological view of the geological history of Mars, addressing thematic questions from a broad temporal perspective - Discusses outstanding questions on Mars from diverging perspectives - Includes key questions and answers, as well as a look ahead to which puzzles remain to be solved

Utilizes a travel guide format to bring together recent scientific discoveries about Mars, describing such features as its dry riverbeds, huge volcano, possible ancient sea floor, and impact craters.

The next frontier in space exploration is Mars, the red planet--and human habitation of Mars isn't much farther off. Now the National Geographic Channel goes years fast-forward with "Mars," a six-part series documenting and dramatizing the next 25 years as humans land on and learn to live on Mars. This companion book to the series explores the science behind the mission and the challenges awaiting those brave individuals. Filled with vivid photographs taken on Earth, in space, and on Mars; arresting maps; and commentary from the world's top planetary scientists, this fascinating book will take you millions of miles away--and decades into the future--to our next home in the solar system.

Blast off into outer space and explore the mysteries of the red planet with Discovering Mars. Did you know that Mars is twice the size of Earth’s moon? Or that it is home to the Valles Marineris—the largest canyon in our solar system? Blast off and explore the surface of the fourth planet from the Sun with Discovering Mars. This book is a complete scientific guide to Mars, including information on geography, atmosphere, unique landscape features, and more. Discover Mars’s moons Phobos and Deimos, learn all about unique polar spiders, and investigate past, present, and future life on Mars. Incredible illustrations and NASA imagery of Mars’s surface, craters, and volcanoes bring outer space right to your fingertips and let you explore the red planet like never before. Learn all about past missions to Mars, and take a sneak peek into future projects from NASA and beyond. An avid traveler, Alexandra Lefort has lived in France, Scotland, Switzerland, and the U.S., and has now made her home in Vancouver, B.C. Passionate about exploration, she completed a PhD in planetary sciences at the University of Bern, Switzerland, focusing her academic research on the investigations of Martian water, with a particular interest for the question of habitability and extraterrestrial life. This interest in the origin and development of life also translates into artistic representation of terrestrial lifeforms and environments. A self-taught artist, her favorite media are photography, with a portfolio which includes wildlife portraits, macro photography, landscapes, and traditional drawing and painting, including graphite, pastels, acrylics, and digital art. She has designed several coins for the Royal Canadian Mint and has collaborated with paleoartist Julius Csotonyi on realistic depictions of prehistoric wildlife, including a mural for the 2015-2018 exhibit “Ice Age Bison Discovery: Our Frozen Past and Thawing Future” at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, and collaborative paintings in The paleoart of Julius Csotonyi, Why Did T. rex Have Short Arms?: And Other Questions about Dinosaurs, and Discovering Sharks.

“Sarah Stewart Johnson interweaves her own coming-of-age story as a planetary scientist with a vivid history of the exploration of Mars in this celebration of human curiosity, passion, and perseverance.”—Alan Lightman, author of Einstein’s Dreams WINNER OF THE PHI BETA KAPPA AWARD FOR SCIENCE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Times (UK) • Library Journal “Lovely . . . Johnson’s prose swirls with lyrical wonder, as varied and multihued as the apricot deserts, butterscotch skies and blue sunsets of Mars.”—Anthony Doerr, The New York Times Book Review Mars was once similar to Earth, but today there are no rivers, no lakes, no oceans. Coated in red dust, the terrain is bewilderingly empty. And yet multiple spacecraft are circling Mars, sweeping over Terra Sabaea, Syrtis Major, the dunes of Elysium, and Mare Sirenum—on the brink, perhaps, of a staggering find, one that would inspire humankind as much as any discovery in the history of modern science. In this beautifully observed, deeply personal book, Georgetown scientist Sarah Stewart Johnson tells the story of how she and other researchers have scoured Mars for signs of life, transforming the planet from a distant point of light into a world of its own. Johnson’s fascination with Mars began as a child in Kentucky, turning over rocks with her father and looking at planets in the night sky. She now conducts fieldwork in some of Earth’s most hostile environments, such as the Dry Valleys of Antarctica and the salt flats of Western Australia, developing methods for detecting life on other worlds. Here, with poetic precision, she interlaces her own personal journey—as a female scientist and a mother—with tales of other seekers, from Percival Lowell, who was convinced that a utopian society existed on Mars, to Audouin Dollfus, who tried to carry out astronomical observations from a stratospheric balloon. In the process, she shows how the story of Mars is also a story about Earth: This other world has been our mirror, our foil, a telltale reflection of our own anxieties and yearnings. Empathetic and evocative, The Sirens of Mars offers an unlikely natural history of a place where no human has ever set foot, while providing a vivid portrait of our quest to defy our isolation in the cosmos.