Customer Reviews

JUPITER 1E (Smithsonian Library of the Solar System)

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This book is a useful overview of what we know about Jupiter. Anyone interested in Jupiter will find it readable. And some of the information will appeal to specialists as well.

An introduction gives a short history of observations of the planet, including the robotic missions of Pioneer and Voyager. After that, there is a chapter on Jupiter's atmosphere and another on the famous Red Spot. Beebe then tells about the problems in modeling the interior of the rapidly rotating Jupiter. And we find out more about modeling of the upper atmosphere.

I was intrigued by the part about spectrographic measurements of the hydrogen and helium in Jupiter's atmosphere. You see, spectrographic analysis gave a mass ratio of 21% to 22% of Helium in the Jovian atmosphere. But Beebe tells us that the Galileo Probe in situ observation was more like 25% Helium. That is actually important. It turns out that a very straightforward calculation of Big Bang nucleosynthesis predicts a minimum of 23% to 24% primordial Helium in the universe. The percentage of Helium in Jupiter ought to be a little higher than the primordial one. So it could be that the Big Bang calculation of 23% to 24% is indeed right on the money. On top of that, as Beebe points out, the Probe results could confirm that there is enough mixing in the upper Jovian atmosphere to prevent much Helium from separating out and falling to lower elevations.

Beebe continues with a description of Jupiter's satellites and ring. By the way, I would like to point out that many more satellites of Jupiter have been discovered since her book was written. Those discovered in 2000 include Kalyke, Harpalyke, Isonoe, Taygete, Themisto, Praxidike, and Magaclite. Those discovered in 2001 include Aitne, Hermippe, Eurydome, Thyone, Autonoe, and Euanthe. Several more were discovered in each of those two years. By early 2004, a total of 63 satellites of Jupiter had been found.

The author then briefly describes the Jovian magnetosphere. And she concludes by discussing the Shoemaker-Levy comet collisions with Jupiter and the results from the Galileo Probe.

I recommend this book.

Once upon a time, in the days before we lost our sense of humor, book review columns in the science fiction magazines were decorated with illustration logos by Edd Cartier, Ed Emshwiller, George Schelling, John Schoenherr, and others. The decorations tended to be comical in nature, featuring aliens, spacemen, spaceships, comets, planets... and books. The books were hardbacks or leatherbacks, and they often sported titles like _Short Stories From Venus_, _Great Martian Essays_, _Plutonian Philosophers_, and _Jovian Love Poems_. Perhaps the memory of these great lost books was in the back of my mind when I set upon myself the task of updating my knowledge of planets in the solar system.

Reta Beebe's _Jupiter: The Giant Planet_, 2nd. ed. (1997) invites comparison with David Harry Grinspoon's _Venus Revealed: A New Look Below the Clouds of Our Mysterious Twin Planet_ (1997). Both books are handsomely bound, both have a generous number of charts and plates, both are well-written, and both bristle with a lot of up-to-date information.

But the organization is different. Grinspoon arranges his material in a chronological order. Beebe gives a historical overview in chapter one. Thereafter, things are organized largely according to place: Jupiter's Atmosphere and Interior, Satellites and Rings, the Magnetosphere, and a Conclusion (dealing with the Shoemaker- Levy/9 Collisions and the Galileo Probe and Orbiter). It's an organization that makes sense. Jupiter is _big_, virtually a solar system unto itself. The reader doesn't want to know when discoveries were made so much as where to find them. Thus you can quickly find the proper sections for answering your questions about the Great Red Spot, the interior of the planet, the volcanoes on Io, or the Magnetic field of Jupiter. Let us take a quick look at them.

The Great Red Spot is a massive hurricane that has been brewing on Jupiter "without interruption over a period of at least 150 years" (36). How do we know this? Because astronomers, many of them amateurs, kept daily records of Jupiter's appearance ever since the late nineteenth century. These records were later assembled by various astronomical societies. Unlike the Great Dark Spot on Neptune, which changes shape in the course of a day, Jupiter's Red Spot stays fairly constant in its shape.

While we know more about Jupiter's interior than we did at one time, I was a bit frustrated to learn that there is still a lot that we do not know. And much of what we learn must be from indirect observation. It is mostly gas-- hydrogen and helium. But it probably has a solid rocky core. We do not know exactly how big or massive it is. If we did, it would probably give us some clue as to how the solar system was formed. A relatively light core would indicate a nebular formation; a relatively heavy core might indicate a protoplanet formation.

Beebe writes that "the jovian ensemble of known satellites consists of four groups, each composed of four satellites" (100). This was true at the time of publication. But since that time, an awesome number of new satellites have been discovered. (I have lost track of exactly how many.) Still, we are probably most interested in the Galilean satellites and possibly Amalthea.

This book is so full of errors and mistakes that it ends up being more of a waste of time than anything else. In addition, the writing style is amateurish - almost to the point of being funny. You get the impression that the author was simply transcribing Sky&Telescope rather than thinking through what she was actually trying to say.