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Cosmic Catastrophes

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The scientist authors of this interesting book discuss a variety of topics dealing with sudden, often destructive, cosmic events. Since the 1800s geologists felt that the earth and the cosmos followed a concept of uniformitarianism, i.e. that cosmic and geologic evolution had proceeded at a gradual, steady state. The main catastrophists were religious people who viewed Noah's flood as an absolute reality. In recent years scientists have come to accept the significant effect that meteorite impacts have had on the earth, moons, and our other terrestrial planets. This is not to say that the authors accept any of the theories of creationists or writers like Velikovsky. They do not (some time is spent debunking these theories). Instead they explore how various heavenly bodies - asteroids, comets, and meteors - have caused abrupt changes on earth and elsewhere.

Interesting tales are also told of several of the moons in our solar system. Uranus's moon Miranda looks like it was once torn to pieces by an impact, and then reformed as a patchwork quilt of rock formations going in all different directions. There is a chapter on chaos in which we explore Saturn's fascinating little moon Hyperion. This moon seems to have a mind of its own, ignoring all the laws by changing its rotation speed and spin axis for no apparent reason. And, it never repeats an orbital performance twice!

The most recent theory of the origin of the earth's moon is presented. There is a section on supernovae, - don't worry our sun will never become one- and there is a discussion of the atmospheres of Venus and Mars, and what they teach us about the greenhouse effect. Will global warming be our downfall? What are the chances of another large meteor striking the earth and causing another mass extinction? The authors' conclusions seem well reasoned.

This book covers a variety of topics in Astronomy, and does so at greater depth than you would usually find in a college Astronomy text. It is also one of those ideal books for the non-scientist: highly informative yet easily accessible and entertaining.