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Dan Bortolotti

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Exploring Saturn Hardcover – September 6, 2003

by Dan Bortolotti (Author)

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An illustrated preview to the Cassini-Huygens mission arriving at Saturn in 2004.

Exploring Saturn is a lively, informative way for students to fully appreciate and understand the Cassini orbiter's historic rendezvous with the ringed planet in 2004. It features Cassini's 4-year mission details including the breakaway Huygens probe that will plummet to Saturn's largest moon, Titan -- the only moon in our solar system with an atmosphere. The data gathered from the Cassini-Huygens mission will help scientists to unravel Saturn's many mysteries, answer questions about Earth's formation, and investigate the possibility of life on other planets.

Exploring Saturn tells the remarkable story of discovering Saturn and its moons. Ancient astronomers estimated with surprising accuracy the distance, weight, and composition of Saturn using little more than observation and elementary physics. The book includes the latest findings from NASA as well as stunning color images from the Hubble Space Telescope, Voyager and Pioneer probes.

Included are practical website resources and a six-year schedule and location guide for backyard observations of the planet. The informative text is lively and conversational-easily accessible by students and amateur astronomers.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-9-Nicely timed to coincide with the planned arrival of the Cassini-Huygens probe in the Saturnian system this summer, Bortolotti's introduction to the sixth planet pairs eye-catching photos and artists' renditions with lively discussions of what we know, don't know, and hope to find out soon. Opening with a coherent capsule history of how early modern astronomers simplified Ptolemy's "wickedly complicated model" of the solar system, the author then lays out Saturn's probable origins and inner structure, provides tantalizing glimpses of those mysterious rings, and describes each moon in turn-including one, as yet unnamed, discovered in 2003. He then covers the Cassini-Huygens mission in detail, closes with a series of summary charts, and caps it all off with a first-class Webliography. The illustrations, which range from Galileo's first crude sketch of Saturn's "handles" and other early art to photos of the probe before its departure and plenty of stunning space photographs from earlier missions or the Hubble, add a crowd-pleasing blend of hard information and eye candy. Serious students and casual browsers alike will have trouble putting this down.
John Peters, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 4-8. This appealing presentation features a well-organized and engaging text as well as many exceptionally clear, colorful illustrations: photographs, space-telescope images, paintings, and drawings. Before discussing what is known about the planet, its rings, and its moons, Bortolotti explains how the information about Saturn has been collected,^B beginning with the ancients' observations and including the Cassini-Huygens explorer, which was launched in 1997 and will reach the planet and its main moon, Titan, in 2004. Students who wish to follow this planetary explorer and its four-year orbit of Saturn will find a good, basic introduction to the mission's goals and equipment. A section on observing Saturn includes pictures of how it will look from Earth during each year from 2003 to 2010. The volume ends with charts of facts about Saturn's ring system, its many moons, and how it compares with Earth. Though the absence of an index is regrettable, the lively writing and excellent illustrations make this very accessible. Carolyn Phelan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

This book will provide children ages 9 to 13 with an overview of Saturn's mythology and observational history... Even adults may learn something. (Sky and Telescope)

Easy to understand... clearly written... an excellent reference book. (Thomas F. Chambers CM)

This appealing presentation features a well-organized and engaging text as well as many exceptionally clear, colorful illustrations... the lively writing and excellent illustrations make this very accessible. (Carolyn Phelan Booklist / RBB 2003-12-01)

Absolutely packed with information... The pages are full of interesting information with strategically placed pictures and illustrations so that you are not overwhelmed by the text. This is a fantastic book. (Heather Empey Resource Links)

Like a visit from an old friend, complete with photos and anecdotes. A lot can be learned from this easy read. (Sharon Wooton Olympia Olympian 2003-10-25)

Lavishly illustrated... tells readers in detail all we currently know about the ringed planet. (Janet Julian Kliatt 2004-01-15)

[Starred Review:] A crowd-pleasing blend of hard information and eye candy. Serious students and causal browsers alike with have trouble putting this down. (John Peters School Library Journal)

From the Author

When I began my research for Exploring Saturn, one question kept nagging me: How do we know all this stuff? Many books will tell you how far away Saturn is, how much it weighs, what gases are in its atmosphere, even what its core is made of. But none of them explain how we figured these things out. How do you weigh a planet? How can you tell what's inside it?

In this book, I explain not only what we know about Saturn, but how we learned it -- how scientists from Aristotle to the guys at NASA have built on the work of those who came before them. Spacecraft certainly helped, of course, and when the Cassini orbiter arrives at Saturn in July 2004, we'll have an opportunity to learn a lot more about the planet, its moons, and its rings. But you may be surprised to read how much scientists figured out before the Space Age -- and in some cases before telescopes.

Kind of makes me wish I paid more attention in math class.

About the Author

Dan Bortolotti is an editor and a writer whose work has appeared in Equinox and Canadian Geographic magazines.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Firefly Books (September 6, 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 64 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1552977668
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1552977668
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 9 - 13 years
Grade level ‏ : ‎ 4 - 8
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9 x 0.25 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #7,524,351 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,448 in Children's Exploration Books
- #4,658 in Children's Astronomy Books (Books)
- #8,353 in History of Technology

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