The Moons of Jupiter

by Kristin Leutwyler

Launched in 1989, Project Galileo is NASA's most ambitious interplanetary mission to date. The Galileo spacecraft is scheduled to crash into Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere in September 2003, nearly nine years after it entered orbit around the mighty planet. During this time, Galileo made a number of startling discoveries and transmitted more than 6,000 images of Jupiter and its many moons. This book explores Jupiter's moons: Io, which simmers with...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393050602
• ISBN13: 9780393050608
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 2.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 11.5" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

A nice picture book of probe-photos, with a disappointing text. 4.4 stars

____________________________________________ A nice picture book of, you guessed it.... basically Galileo's Big Four, but with a few of the minor moons tossed in for extra flavor. Photos from all the probes so far (to 2002), with a nice variety of surface features. Sure, you can get all these (and a lot more!) online, but there's a lot to be said for a book (especially if you're still on dialup), and an editor's discerning eye. The color printing is pretty good, as good as the 'originals' (slow-scan digital TV images, transmitted a long, long way, and *heavily* processed). The one big flaw, in my opinion, is the self-consciously arty text, heavy on classical allusions (to the mythical names, mostly). But these are easily skimmed or skipped. The big strength is a good selection of probe-photos, nicely reproduced & reasonably priced. Given the widespread dissatisfaction expressed in the reviews below, however, it might be best to borrow it from your library before buying. Per RA Levien's review, "...the book is printed on the too-glossy paper of low-quality coffee table books that makes is prone to smudging and glare, so the few decent images the book contains are hard to enjoy." This isn't true of the copy (first edition, first printing) in front of me, a well-used library copy. Happy reading-- Peter D. Tillman Consulting Geologist, Tucson & Santa Fe (USA)

An Artist's Opinion

I recently came across a copy of The Moons of Jupiter and found it to be a remarkably useful book for my purposes. As an artist I was especially appreciative of both the variety of the imagery and the innovative layout of a number of the pages, some of which could pass for works of art themselves. Although I know little about astronomy, I enjoyed the mix of mythology and science in the accompanying text . The Moons of Jupiter is a welcome addition to my visual resource library.

humanities and science integrated

I loved this book. The graceful writing links the images from the spacecraft to the myth, art, and poetry inspired by the subjects of these images.

Misapprehensions

It might be useful to clear up a few misapprehensions promoted in the review of The Moons of Jupiter by "A reader from the United States." He (she?) makes the point that "You can find every public domain image in this book by going to the nasa photojournal website at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov." This is absolutely true. But what this anonymous reviewer neglects to reveal is that virtually every image of astronomical phenomena whether of the Ghost Head Nebula, Jupiter's Io, or our own Luna, whether from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Galileo Spacecraft or the soon to land Mars Exploration Rovers, whether published in the New York Times, National Geographic, or The Moons of Jupiter is in fact a "public domain image" provided by NASA or one of its contractors. It is our tax money, after all, that funds NASA. Think about it. This side of launching your own space craft with camera aboard, where else would such images originate? The issue isn't the source of the images (they all come from the same places), rather it is selecting images, in this case, from several thousand images of Jupiter and its moons, sequencing these images, and in this particular instance figuring out how to obtain reproduction quality materials. This brings me to the reader from the United States? second point, to wit that the first image in The Moons of Jupiter of Io a volcanic plume on Jupiter is "the worst case of crude print production I've ever seen." (I could say this is one of the worse cases of hyperbole that I have read, but I won't.) What he (she?) doesn't reveal, or more probably doesn't realize, is that the Galileo images of Jupiter and its moons had a seemingly insurmountable problem. When the Galileo space probe reached Jupiter the main antennae failed to deploy, so a second antennae had to be jerry-rigged to transmitted imaging data. This has meant that many of the color image files coming down from Galileo were exceeding small. So while these images look great on a computer screen, many of them, particularly the color images, were not suitable for print reproduction. Taking advantage of the difference between electronic and chemical photography, suitable electronic files of these images were created at great expense and used in The Moons of Jupiter. The result is that a few images in the book are perhaps inferior to those posted at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov, but most images are as good or in several cases actually superior to those on the NASA website. For those who are curious, check it out. Finally, the reader from the United States opines that the "text is slathered with artistic references and comparisons?forcing the reader to agree that 'this is an art book!!!'" Those readers who prefer a strictly technical exposition of the photography reproduced in The Moons of Jupiter should go to the NASA website for this information. The idea behind the book's narrative was to give the somehow familiar yet alien landscapes of Jupiter's moons a human dimensi

Wonderful book!

A friend gave me a copy of The Moons of Jupiter as a gift. I have never been an astronomy buff, but now I am. The images in this book were like visiting strange new worlds. Io with its dramatic volcanoes; Europa with its frozen ice fields, covering water which may harbor life outside of the earth; Gayemede with its strange geology; and Callisto, pock-marked with meteor impacts. I particularly liked the last section of the book with its catalogue of all the minor outer satellites. The writing, too, was a big surprise. Rather than the dry technical exposition I expected, the accounts of different moons were filled with allusions to mythology, literature, art and history as well as informative science. This is a beautiful book which I highly recommend. Four stars for sure!--bh