Top

The Secret Lives of Planets

On sale

11th July 2019

Price: £19.99

Select a format

Selected: Audiobook Downloadable / ISBN-13: 9781529319446

Disclosure: If you buy products using the retailer buttons above, we may earn a commission from the retailers you visit.

An inside guide by astronomer Paul Murdin revealing everything you need to know about the planets, their satellites and our place in the solar system.

We have the impression that the solar system is perfectly regular like a clock, or a planetarium instrument. On a short timescale it is. But, seen in a longer perspective, the planets, and their satellites, have exciting lives, full of events – for example, did you know that Saturn’s moon, Titan, boasts lakes which contain liquid methane surrounded by soaring hills and valleys, exactly as the earth did before life evolved on our fragile planet? Or that Mercury is the shyest planet? Or, that Mars’ biggest volcano is 100 times the size of Earth’s, or that its biggest canyon is 10 times the depth of the Grand Canyon, or that it wasn’t always red, but blue?

The culmination of a lifetime of astronomy and wonder, Paul Murdin’s enchanting new book reveals everything you ever wanted to know about the planets, their satellites, and our place in the solar system.

(P)2019 Hodder & Stoughton Limited