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A Traveler's Guide to Mars revitalizes the Red Planet, leaving readers with the urge to don a spacesuit and take a long trip. With the look and heft of a guide to someplace you might actually go, the book presents Mars as a place of canyons and volcanoes, mesas, and barren plains, not that dissimilar from parts of Earth. Author William K. Hartmann, who participated in the Mars Global Surveyor mission, uses all the photos and data collected by scientists in decades of research to give a thorough, yet not boring, overview of the planet. The most exciting stuff is about water--whether it ever flowed on Mars, where it went, why it's hard to find. Beyond that, there are the rocks, dust, and weather to talk about, and Mars has lots of all three. Sidebars, maps, and chronologies help keep the regions and geology of Mars organized. Hartmann never forgets he's writing for the lay reader, and his style is personable and clear. When answering claims of NASA cover-ups, ancient civilizations, and hidden structures on Mars, he calmly lays out the facts and pictures, urging readers to simply examine the evidence. Hartmann offers a tourist's-eye view of one of our most intriguing planetary neighbors and does more to polish NASA's tarnished image than a thousand press releases.
--Therese Littleton
From Publishers Weekly
An award-winning science communicator and a participating scientist in the U.S. Mars Global Surveyor mission, Harris (Mars Underground) melds enjoyable prose with breathtaking pictures in a cleverly conceived "scientific Baedecker" that is likely to delight expert and lay readers alike. Hartmann presents a comprehensive look at Mars, all the while comparing geologic processes on the red planet with those on earth. The three major Martian eras spanning the planet's 4.5 billion years serve as the book's major sections, with chapters focusing on various amazing geological formations, such as Olympic Mons, a volcano three times as high as Mt. Everest; the north polar dune field, "the grandest, and perhaps the largest, tract of such dunes anywhere in the solar system"; and Valles Marineris, "a fantastic canyon system" so large that the Grand Canyon pales in comparison. The book is filled with pictures from virtually all of the U.S. missions to Mars, which Hartmann is uniquely qualified to interpret. He also addresses an array of fascinating side issues, such as the possibility of life on Mars and how meteorites originating on Mars have ended up on Earth. A series of sidebars called "My Martian Chronicles" details Hartmann's participation in deciphering some of the geologic secrets of our neighboring planet. The book works well as a whole and can be easily browsed with great pleasure. Color illus., 4 gatefolds.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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