The Planets

  • David McNab &
  • James Younger
Yale University Press, $35

How do planets form? This model of planetary formation, to be found in Santa Cruz, California, represents a Jupiter-sized planet that has carved out a groove in a disk of gas and dust around a young star.

The planet's presence is sending ripples through the nebula, which might lead to the formation of more worlds. The Planets, by David McNab and James Younger (Yale University Press, $35), in which this picture may be found, chronicles our planetary travels, and describes how our understanding of the Solar System has developed from the first star-gazers in ancient times to Galileo and today. Space-race archives have been plumbed, and the book contains pictures from the Apollo, Voyager, Pioneer and Viking missions.