Customer Reviews

Titan Unveiled: Saturn's Mysterious Moon Explored

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Do you want to know what it's like to be on the front lines of a planetary mission? If you do, then this book is for you! Authors Ralph Lorenz and Jacqueline Mitton, have written an outstanding book that describes the most recent episodes in the unfolding story of the exploration of Saturn's largest moon, Titan.

Lorenz and Mitton, begin by describing the dropping in of the Huygens probe on the surface of Titan. Then, they examine the state of knowledge about Titan at the time when Cassini and Huygens arrived in the Saturn system. Next, the authors discuss the arrival of Cassini in the Saturn system on July 1, 2004 after a very long trek from earth. They continue by focusing on the last speculations the science teams had about Titan, getting to work on the first results from Cassini's initial approach and the Titan flyby. In addition, the authors also discuss the probe's decent onto Titan on January 14, 2005.
They also describe the Cassini flyby events in chronological order. Finally, the authors discuss the 16th flyby of Titan that took place on July 22, 2006; as well as, present and future mission objectives.

The authors of this most excellent book give prominence to two investigations: First, the surface of Titan and its interaction with the atmosphere have been the most mysterious; and second, the Huygens probe and the RADAR instrument on the Cassini orbiter. More importantly, the authors believe that the atmosphere and the surface of Titan in particular, will interest general readers the most.

The human exploration of distant worlds is a very thrilling subject. Remote/robotic exploration is almost as exciting and can certainly stir human emotions and imagination. This book is about such an event - the exploration of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, through the Cassini mission. By any standard, this is certainly a most amazing accomplishment. The book's first author was, and apparently continues to be, an active scientific participant in this project. Unfortunately, I found that the book falls a bit short of generating in the reader the expected thrills of such an achievement and of the resulting discoveries. The writing style is certainly quite authoritative, generally clear, mostly accessible, occasionally engaging but often a bit dry. There are several detailed descriptions of some of the technical issues that needed to be resolved, as well as of what was being observed on Titan and how these observations were/are being interpreted. I felt that these often dry, frequently lengthy and detailed accounts were at the cost of recounting a continuous gripping story filled with the excitement of discovery and the potentially unpredictable human elements. But on a technical/scientific basis, this book is indeed quite excellent. Consequently, this is a book that would likely be thoroughly enjoyed by serious planetary science buffs. It could also be used as useful reading material in a planetary science course. However, general readers who are looking for an exciting story may be a bit disappointed.

Saturn's moon Titan is surely one of the most fascinating bodies in the solar system, with a thick atmosphere, Earth-like topography, and complex chemistry that has inspired speculation about primitive life. Starting in late 2004, Titan received a special visit from the Cassini orbiter, which explored the Saturnian system, and the special detachable Huygens probe that was sent to the moon's surface. That mission and the resulting new discoveries are the focus of this book. But the interested layperson is going to have to wait until the last couple of chapters to really learn about all the wondrous new discoveries that have been found on Titan. Alas, much of the rest of the book is a disappointing example of science writing. When scientists decide to inform the general public of their discoveries, they have to remember that not everyone in the public will be as fascinated as they are by the esoteric details of programming, planning, or data analysis.

Introductions to the Cassini/Huygens mission and its related political and budgetary issues are presented with a very poor sense of narrative flow, and will probably be rewarding for a very limited audience of engineering enthusiasts. The text often devolves into the unnecessarily erudite technical specifications of problems like how fast the probe spun upon entry and how many spare models had to be cleaned with what types of hoses during the construction phase. Much of the text is padded with snippets of the author's professional diary ("Ralph's Log"), which are sometimes illuminating but are usually distracting tangents into not-so-useful personal interests.

Also, the publisher gets the thumbs-down as most of the photographs (notwithstanding a short collection of color plates) are flat black-and-white reproductions in which the reader can barely see the fascinating discoveries mentioned so breathlessly in the text. Granted, so far this is probably the definitive guide to all of the wondrous recent discoveries on Titan. But such a fascinating world deserves a more dramatic and romantic treatment than it receives here. [~doomsdayer520~]

I first came across this book in a review in American Scientist magazine. As the review stated, and as I found to be true when I read the book, it is easy to read because it's well written. Although the first author, Ralph Lorenz, has written technical books on his own, he teamed up with a science writer for this one, and the result is a smooth read. From this book, you will learn about two related topics: what Saturn's moon Titan is like, and what it was like to be part of the team that found that out. I recommend this book for anyone interested in astronomy and space. (Standard disclaimer: my opinions are my own, not necessarily those of my employer.)

Ralph Lorenz and Jacqueline Mitton take the reader into the inner sanctum of real planetary exploration, sharing with the Cassini-Huygens mission scientists the excitement, anxiety and sometimes anguish of one of the most ambitious and successful planetary missions ever conducted. It is a fascinating read, for the science and for the mission engineering, written in a very approachable and engaging style which makes complex concepts accessible to the uninitiated and more than meaty enough for those already experienced in these subjects. Most highly recommended.

This book is simply outstanding. Every section provides detailed background in a very engaging way, and the log excerpts are downright entertaining. Truly one of my favorites.

There is no shortage on science in this book, let that be the first remark on it. In every way, the authors have tried to be as meticulous (and perhaps even tedious) as they could be. But still it left me a little dissapointed. The writing is dry and at places unremarkable. It lingers on technical details that are perhaps exciting for students and engineers, but for laymen and casual readers of popular science it can be a struggle to keep attention (for those who have trouble falling asleep, I can recommend reading it in bed).
For people that dedicate large parts of their careers to undiscover a satelite, that is so elusive and mysterious to the human eye, one would hope that some of the passion that would go into that work also would poor trough the written lines of the book. Instead of that, somehow the long years, the countless studies and experiments, long nights of observing and programming have found their way though. That may be accurate and truthfull, it is also very dull at times,...well at least to me. What doesn't help either is that the bulk of images in the book are very unclear. What could be, or rather should be spectacular photographs of Titan and its neigbors are mere black and white thumbnails without any detail or explanatory capacity.

Perhaps the most remarkable chapter is the last one, where the authors speculate on how a future mission would look like. Most captivating perhaps a balloon that floats in Titans atmosphere as a platform for certain instruments. And even there they find time to go into detail about which sort of instruments and experiments could be undertaken in a very lengthy manner. But at least it gives some room to some imagination and makes investigation of Titan an exiting enterprise afterall.

The lack of more imaginative writing, is even more obvious on those places where the writers make attempts on humor. After so many pages of meandering on programming and scheduling Cassini's instruments, it fails to make a punch.

Having said all this, I do want to emphasize, that it is not badly written book. This moon of Saturn is an enigmatic place and this book does a good job of at least partialy lifting the veil it is shrouded in, where our knowledge is solid enough to make claims about its caracteristics. I just wanted it to be more lively presented.