Guide to the planets

About this book

An easy to read book which reflected our limited knowledge of the solar system in the mid 1950s. There are chapters on each of the planets (including Pluto, which hadn't been downgraded to dwarf planet status at the time), the asteroid belt, the origins of the solar system, the movements of the planets, "Beyond the planets", "Life on the planets", and "Voyages to the planets". There are also several appendices including details of how to observe the planets and "useful work for the amateur". Many of the stated "facts" and suppositions have now been found to be incorrect and even the best images are basic compared to those gleaned from modern ground and space based telescopes.

Themes & subjects

About the author

Patrick Moore

4 March 1923 – 9 December 2012

Sir Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore was born in Pinner in Middlesex, the child of a Captain and his wife. He was raised in East Grinstead and educated at home due to chronic health problems. He joined the British Astronomical Association at eleven years of age. When he was 14, his mentor at the observatory in East Grinstead was killed, and Moore was asked to run the observatory. In 1941, he enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. In 1943, while Moore was training abroad, his fiancée was killed by a bomb in London. In 1944, he returned to England, and was posted as the navigator of a Vickers Wellington bomber in Cumbria. After the war, he taught school from 1945-1953. His first bo…