Asteroid: Earth Destroyer or New Frontier?

by Patricia Barnes-Svarney

A look at the creation and composition of asteroids and the frightening eventuality of a collision with the earth.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 073820885X
• ISBN13: 9780738208855
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Very good, if you are interested in the subject

The first chapters are a little bit too technical. However, you will learn a lot about the scientific background on asteroids and impacts. The chapters on how Earth has been hit in the past, the summary of the theory about the dinosaur extinction, and how the Chicxulub crater was found, are really good. The book also has a good coverage on subjects such as near-Earth objects, actual near-misses, what if?, and the Spaceguard survey. If you became interested on these subjects after the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact on Jupiter, or because you are a Sc-Fi fan who like the "hard stuff" and read Clark's "The Hammer of God", Benford's "Shiva Descending", or Niven's "Lucifr's Hammer", this book is for you. You can deepen your scientific knowledge and learn why these fiction novels seem so real, specially those written before the Alvarez paradigm.