From Dust to Life: The Origin and Evolution of Our Solar System
From Dust to Life: The Origin and Evolution of Our Solar System
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Abstract
The birth and evolution of our solar system is a tantalizing mystery that may one day provide answers to the question of human origins. This book tells the remarkable story of how the celestial objects that make up the solar system arose from common beginnings billions of years ago, and how scientists and philosophers have sought to unravel this mystery down through the centuries, piecing together the clues that enabled them to deduce the solar system's layout, its age, and the most likely way it formed. Drawing on the history of astronomy and the latest findings in astrophysics and the planetary sciences, the book offers the most up-to-date and authoritative treatment of the subject available. It examines how the evolving universe set the stage for the appearance of our Sun, and how the nebulous cloud of gas and dust that accompanied the young Sun eventually became the planets, comets, moons, and asteroids that exist today. It explores how each of the planets acquired its unique characteristics, why some are rocky and others gaseous, and why one planet in particular—our Earth—provided an almost perfect haven for the emergence of life. The book takes readers to the very frontiers of modern research, engaging with the latest controversies and debates. It reveals how ongoing discoveries of far-distant extrasolar planets and planetary systems are transforming our understanding of our own solar system's astonishing history and its possible fate.
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Front Matter
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One
Cosmic Archaeology
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Two
Discovering the Solar System
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Three
An Evolving Solar System
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Four
The Question of Timing
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Five
Meteorites
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Six
Cosmic Chemistry
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Seven
A Star Is Born
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Eight
Nursery for Planets
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Nine
Worlds of Rock and Metal
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Ten
The Making of the Moon
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Eleven
Earth, Cradle of Life
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Twelve
Worlds of Gas and Ice
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Thirteen
What Happened to the Asteroid Belt?
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Fourteen
The Outermost Solar System
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Fifteen
Epilogue: Paradigms, Problems, and Predictions
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Afterword to the 2017 edition
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End Matter
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