Overview
- Juxtaposes stunning images of Earth and many space objects to give us perspective on our place within the Solar System
- Offers spectacular visuals from a range of talented space artists, including the author
- Includes a brief history of humankind's perception of the cosmos
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Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Our Place in Time: How Our Concepts Have Evolved
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
In later chapters, you will be told how close the visionaries of the past came to guessing what today’s explorers would find. Astronomer/painter Lucien Rudaux’s masterpieces of Mars dust storms anticipated Viking and Mars rover images by nearly a century. Space artist Ludek Pesek envisioned astronauts setting up camp on the lunar surface in scenes hauntingly similar to photos taken by Apollo astronauts decades later. But the real benefit of this work is in better grasping the nature of our universe -- how big it is, now large it is, and how we fit into it.
Reviews
“The premise of the book is to put the Universe to scale using more-easily-understood analogies. And where comparison pictures, like that on the cover, are used, this premise works well. … Overall, this is a book packed with information and many good illustrations. … it does present much of current astronomical knowledge in an original way.” (Debra Holton, The Observatory, Vol. 137 (1257), April, 2017)
“It uses familiar objects or time frames to create a sense of scale that helps the reader visualize the sizes and the distances between extraterrestrial bodies and structures ranging from asteroids to galaxy clusters. … Picture This! is well formatted. Its wide margins keep the text to an easy-to-read size and provide space for explanatory footnotes. The photographs are almost three-dimensional in their clarity.” (Loretta Hall, National Space Society, nss.org, February, 2017)
“Carroll uses many original illustrations and is generally successful in the process, especially with figures that compare features on moons and planets with similar features on Earth. … the book is recommended for persons interested in the solar system, rather than as a general introduction to modern astronomy. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and general readers.” (D. E. Hogg, Choice, Vol. 54 (3), November, 2016)
“In Picture This! space artist and science writer Michael Carroll takes on astronomy. … Carroll uses the scale drawings as a set-up for exciting astronomy stories. … great for science enthusiasts and those interested in the general ideas of science without overwhelming the reader with the details. And as a scientist, I enjoyed … the scale drawings in Picture This!” (Rhett Allain, Nature Physics, Vol. 12, June, 2016)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Picture This!
Book Subtitle: Grasping the Dimensions of Time and Space
Authors: Michael Carroll
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24907-0
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Physics and Astronomy, Physics and Astronomy (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-24905-6Published: 13 April 2016
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-79697-0Published: 07 June 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-24907-0Published: 31 March 2016
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVII, 192
Number of Illustrations: 86 b/w illustrations, 31 illustrations in colour
Topics: Popular Science in Astronomy, Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology, Planetology