From dust to life : the origin and evolution of our solar system : with a new afterword by the authors

The remarkable story of how our solar system came to be The birth and evolution of our solar system is a tantalizing mystery that may one day provide answers to the question of human origins. From Dust to Life tells the remarkable story of how the celestial objects that make up the solar system arose from common beginnings billions of years ago, and how scientists and philosophers have sought to unravel this mystery down through the centuries, piecing together the clues that enabled them to deduce the solar system's layout, its age, and the most likely way it formed. Drawing on the history of astronomy and the latest findings in astrophysics and the planetary sciences, John Chambers and Jacqueline Mitton offer the most up-to-date and authoritative treatment of the subject available. They examine how the evolving universe set the stage for the appearance of our Sun, and how the nebulous cloud of gas and dust that accompanied the young Sun eventually became the planets, comets, moons, and asteroids that exist today. They explore how each of the planets acquired its unique characteristics, why some are rocky and others gaseous, and why one planet in particular—our Earth—provided an almost perfect haven for the emergence of life. From Dust to Life is a must-read for anyone who desires to know more about how the solar system came to be. This enticing book takes readers to the very frontiers of modern research, engaging with the latest controversies and debates. It reveals how ongoing discoveries of far-distant extrasolar planets and planetary systems are transforming our understanding of our own solar system's astonishing history and its possible fate. Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- CONTENTS -- List of Illustrations -- Preface -- ONE Cosmic Archaeology -- A fascination with the past -- A solar system to explain -- Real worlds -- Winding back the clock -- Putting the pieces together -- TWO Discovering the Solar System -- Measuring the solar system -- From wandering gods to geometrical constructions -- The Sun takes center stage -- Laws and order -- Gravity rules -- The missing planet -- Asteroids enter the scene -- Rocks in space -- Uranus behaving badly -- Completing the inventory -- THREE An Evolving Solar System -- A changing world -- A nebulous idea begins to take shape -- The nebular hypothesis in trouble -- A chance encounter? -- Nebular theory resurrected -- FOUR The Question of Timing -- Reading the cosmic clock -- Early estimates: ingenious-but wrong -- Geology versus physics -- Radioactivity changes everything -- Hubble and the age of the universe -- How radioactive timers work -- Meteorites hold the key -- Dating the Sun -- The age of the universe revisited -- FIVE Meteorites -- A dramatic entrance -- Where do meteorites come from? -- Irons and stones -- Identifying the parents -- Lunar and Martian meteorites -- A rare and precious resource -- What meteorites can tell us -- SIX Cosmic Chemistry -- Element 43: first a puzzle then a clue -- An abundance of elements -- The first elements -- Cooking in the stellar furnace -- Building heavier elements -- Supernovae -- SEVEN A Star Is Born -- A child of the Milky Way -- Where stars are born -- First steps to a solar system -- The solar system's birth environment -- Essential ingredients -- EIGHT Nursery for Planets -- An excess of infrared -- Two kinds of disks -- Inside the solar nebula -- Getting the dust to stick -- The influence of gas -- How to build planetesimals -- The demise of the disk -- NINE Worlds of Rock and Metal Sisters but not twins -- The era of planetesimals -- Planetary embryos take over -- The final four -- Earth -- Mercury -- Venus -- Mars -- TEN the Making of the Moon -- The Moon today -- What the Moon is made of -- The Moon's orbit -- The fission theory -- The capture hypothesis -- The coaccretion hypothesis -- The giant impact hypothesis -- Encounter with Theia -- Earth, Moon, and tidal forces -- Late heavy bombardment -- ELEVEN Earth, Cradle of Life -- The Hadean era -- The tree of life -- The building blocks of life -- The rise of oxygen -- A favorable climate -- Snowball Earth -- Future habitability -- TWELVE Worlds of Gas and Ice -- Giants of the solar system -- Building giants by core accretion -- The disk instability model -- Spin and tilt -- Masters of many moons -- Formation of regular satellites -- The origin of irregular satellites -- Rings -- THIRTEEN What Happened to the Asteroid Belt? -- The asteroid belt today -- Ground down by collisions? -- Emptied by gravity? -- Asteroid families -- The missing mantle problem -- Asteroids revealed as worlds -- FOURTEEN The Outermost Solar System -- Where do comets come from? -- Centaurs -- Looking beyond Neptune -- The Kuiper belt -- Sedna -- The nature of trans-Neptunian objects -- Where have all the Plutos gone? -- The Nice model -- FIFTEEN Epilogue: Paradigms, Problems, and Predictions -- The paradigm: solar system evolution in a nutshell -- Unsolved puzzles -- Searching the solar system for answers -- Other planetary systems -- Future evolution of the solar system -- Afterword to the 2017 edition -- Glossary -- Sources and Further Reading -- Index The birth and evolution of our solar system is a tantalizing mystery that may one day provide answers to the question of human origins. This book tells the remarkable story of how the celestial objects that make up the solar system arose from common beginnings billions of years ago, and how scientists and philosophers have sought to unravel this mystery down through the centuries, piecing together the clues that enabled them to deduce the solar system's layout, its age, and the most likely way it formed. Drawing on the history of astronomy and the latest findings in astrophysics and the planetary sciences, the book offers the most up-to-date and authoritative treatment of the subject available. It examines how the evolving universe set the stage for the appearance of our Sun, and how the nebulous cloud of gas and dust that accompanied the young Sun eventually became the planets, comets, moons, and asteroids that exist today. It explores how each of the planets acquired its unique characteristics, why some are rocky and others gaseous, and why one planet in particular—our Earth—provided an almost perfect haven for the emergence of life. The book takes readers to the very frontiers of modern research, engaging with the latest controversies and debates. It reveals how ongoing discoveries of far-distant extrasolar planets and planetary systems are transforming our understanding of our own solar system's astonishing history and its possible fate. Contents List of Illustrations Tables Preface ONE. Cosmic Archaeology TWO. Discovering the Solar System THREE. An Evolving Solar System FOUR. The Question of Timing FIVE. Meteorites SIX. Cosmic Chemistry SEVEN. A Star Is Born EIGHT. Nursery for Planets NINE. Worlds of Rock and Metal TEN. the Making of the Moon ELEVEN. Earth, Cradle of Life TWELVE. Worlds of Gas and Ice THIRTEEN. What Happened to the Asteroid Belt? FOURTEEN. The Outermost Solar System FIFTEEN. Epilogue: Paradigms, Problems, and Predictions Afterword to the 2017 edition Glossary Sources and Further Reading Index