Gas giant -- A gas giant is a large planet that is not primarily composed of rock or other solid matter. Gas giants may have a rocky or metallic core—in fact, such a core is thought to be required for a gas giant ... > full article

Extrasolar planet -- An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet beyond the Solar System. As of 11 November 2006, 209 extrasolar planets have been discovered. Known exoplanets are members of planetary systems that ... > full article

Equatorial bulge -- An equatorial bulge is a planetological term which describes a bulge which a planet may have around its equator, distorting it into an oblate spheroid. Because of a planet's equatorial bulge, its ... > full article

Asteroid belt -- The asteroid belt is a region of the solar system falling roughly between the planets Mars and Jupiter where the greatest concentration of asteroid orbits can be found. Despite popular imagery, the ... > full article

Brown dwarf -- Brown dwarfs were originally called black dwarfs, a classification for dark substellar objects floating freely in space which were too low in mass to sustain stable hydrogen ... > full article

Astrobiology -- Astrobiology is the study of life in space, combining aspects of astronomy, biology and geology. It is focused primarily on the study of the origin, distribution and evolution of ... > full article

Red giant -- A red giant is a large non-main sequence star of stellar classification K or M; so-named because of the reddish appearance of the cooler giant stars. As Earth's sun is of one solar mass, it is ... > full article

Definition of planet -- The definition of "planet" has for some time been the subject of intense debate. Although the word dates back thousands of years, no officially decreed scientific definition of "planet" existed ... > full article

Planet -- The International Astronomical Union defines "planet" as a celestial body that, within the Solar System that is in orbit around the Sun; has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid ... > full article

Solar radiation -- Solar radiation is radiant energy emitted by the sun, particularly electromagnetic energy. About half of the radiation is in the visible short-wave part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The other ... > full article

The 12th Planet (The Earth Chronicles, Book 1)
Zecharia Sitchen's The 12th Planet is the starting point on a quest that spans six books and 20 years worth of ancient aliens, genetic manipulation, and scrutiny of linguistic minutiae. If we trust ... > read more

Roving Mars : Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet
teve Squyres is the face and voice of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission. Squyres dreamed up the mission in 1987, saw it through from conception in 1995 to a successful landing in 2004, and serves ... > read more

Physics for Scientists and Engineers (3rd Edition)
Physics for Scientists and Engineers combines outstanding pedagogy with a clear and direct narrative and applications that draw the reader into the physics. The new edition features an unrivaled ... > read more

Lonely Planet Healthy Travel Africa (Lonely Planet Healthy Travel Guides Africa)
Getting the most out of your travels means staying healthy. Healthy Travel Africa is a user-friendly guide to minimising health risks for travellers to all parts of Africa, including Egypt. Written ... > read more

Field Notes from a Catastrophe
An argument for the urgent danger of global warming in a book that is sure to be as influential as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.Known for her insightful and thought-provoking journalism, New ... > read more

Essential Cosmic Perspective, The (3rd Edition)
The Essential Cosmic Perspective, Third Edition, built from the ground up on our new understanding of the universe, has been revised and streamlined to make it easier for readers to navigate and ... > read more

Elemental Geosystems, Fourth Edition
This book gives readers an accessible, systematic, non-mathematical, and visually appealing start in physical geography. It features a distinctive, holistic integration of human-Earth relationships, ... > read more

Gen-e-sis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origins
Life on Earth arose nearly 4 billion years ago, bursting forth from air, water, and rock. Though the process obeyed all the rules of chemistry and physics, the details of that original event pose as ... > read more

The Privileged Planet : How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery
A convincing case that the rare, finely tuned conditions that allow for intelligent life on Earth are no coincidence, and that Earth was practically designed for ... > read more

Earth: Portrait of a Planet
This survey is the first to weave together the three major intellectual revolutions in the Earth Sciences that have occurred in the last forty years--the theory of plate tectonics, the ... > read more