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Beyond Pluto: The Final Frontier in Space (True Books: Space)

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For many years Pluto was considered to be our ninth planet, but with advanced technology astronomers have deemed it to be a dwarf planet. The region around this planet is called the "Kuiper Belt." If we were able to fly a spaceship in this area, we'd most likely have to watch out for flying objects made of rock and ice. They are call "Kuiper Belt Objects," or KBOs for short. One of the reasons astronomers changed their minds about Pluto being a full-fledged planet was because it was similar to the KBOs. They finally cast a vote, based on three specific conditions, that Pluto was out. There are two KBOs, Eris and Sedna, that are even larger than Pluto. Sounds a bit far out, doesn't it?

This is a "True Book." There are two sentences in the beginning of the book, but only one is true. You'll have to read right along to find the true one, but this book is so interesting that won't be a problem. Perhaps you've wondered what lies on the far reaches of our solar system. The space probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are 102 and 82 "times as far from the sun as Earth is," respectively. In addition to those mysterious KBOs, you will also learn about comets, the Oort Cloud, the existence of other solar systems and other planets like Gliese (581c and 581d).

This is one of the more fascinating in the planet series by Elaine Landau. This book, as are the others, is very comprehensive, well written and will entrance the budding astronomer or wanna be astronaut. There are numerous full color illustrations and photographs, informative sidebars, fun facts scattered throughout the book, a brief timeline, statistics, important words, an index and additional recommended book and web site resources. Did you know that a "comet's tail can be more than 6 million miles long?!" If not, you might want to read this book and learn about a few things you didn't know!