Quest for Comets [Paperback]

David H. Levy (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0380725266 | ISBN-13: 978-0380725267 | Publication Date: September 1, 1995

With their bright tails and otherworldly beauty, comets have fascinated mankind for centuries. They have heralded doom, they may have helped create life on Earth, and they may have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. In The Quest for Comets, one of the discoverers of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 writes an exhilarating, eloquent history of comet hunting and hunters, comet collisions, and more.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Levy is a young astronomer's Michael Jordan: he discovers comets where professional astronomers have looked before and found nothing. His 20-odd discoveries are sufficient authority to support this general survey of current theory and comet history. The headliner comet is his 1988 discovery, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, a decaying body due to enter the atmosphere of Jupiter sometime in midsummer 1994. The putative result will be impact explosions on Jupiter, perhaps visible as a flash in earth's night sky. Certainly the "crash" of Shoemaker-Levy 9 will create a media frenzy, and Levy here attends to the Armaggeddon questions this event will raise in popular science headlines, in layperson's language, including the comet catastrophe theories. He has created a highly readable version of a planetarium comet program, with comet watchers' astronomy tips thrown in at the end. Levy is entitled to tell the story of Shoemaker-Levy 9, if not the larger role of comet astrophysics, and in any case his successes as an amateur will launch a thousand younger readers' careers in astronomy. Photos. First serial to Science magazine; author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (September 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380725266
• ISBN-13: 978-0380725267
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,929,962 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Intriguing Narrative Account, March 25, 2008

By 

Zadius Sky (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: THE QUEST FOR COMETS An Explosive Trail of Beauty and Danger (Paperback)

"The Quest for Comets" is a personal journey of the author, David H. Levy, in the search of comets and an understanding of the cosmic impacts. He brought forth the experiences and the wonders of the comet hunts as well of how he met Carolyn and Eugene Shoemaker. This book is an account of the author's life from his early interests in comets up to his co-discovery of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 that eventually collided with Jupiter on July 16, 1994. With his own personal journey, he mixed in with the history of previous astronomers and historical sightings of comets as well comet impacts.

With roughly 265 pages and twenty chapters (including epilogue and afterword sections), this book is an intriguing narrative account and easy to read. Personally, I like the author's writing style and his approach to an understanding of comets.

This is certainly the book to be added to a study of comets.