mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== VENUS REVEALED: A New Look Below the Clouds of Our Mysterious Twin Planet _________________________________________________________________ Venus Revealed VENUS REVEALED has been named as a finalist for a 1998 LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE! In Venus Revealed, planetary scientist David Harry Grinspoon takes the reader on a lively jaunt through the history of our relationship with the planet Venus. Ever since the ancient, unrecorded moment when humans first started looking up and noticing that one "star" was brighter and behaved differently from all the others, Venus has played an important role in the evolution of human ideas. Venus is the Earth's twin, seperated at birth 4.5 billion years ago. Venus, the brightest planet in the sky and the closest to Earth, is also the most Earthlike planet in many ways, and a world rich with insights and lessons about the most crucial environmental tests facing our home world. For thousands of years Venus has been a celestial object of worship and wonder. Mayan astronomer-priests and ancient Sumerians tracked the movements of Venus in the sky and told stories of Venus' underworld exploits in the service of humanity. For millennia we watched, worshipped, feared and sought guidance from "morning star" and "evening star". For hundreds of years Venus has been an object of telescopic observation and fantasy. Paradoxically, Venus' great, attention-grabbing brightness in our evening and morning skies results from the same feature which has made the true nature of this world so elusive: the planet is completely shrouded in bright, reflecting clouds that keep the surface hidden. We constructed an elaborate fantasy of a world very much like our own, probably inhabited and stuck in an earlier, more primitive stage of development, a living fossil of Earth's past, or perhaps even the garden from which we had banished ourselves. Beginning in 1961, Earth launched a fleet of spacecraft, like giant metal insects, to explore the planets, starting with Venus, and these aliens began to "phone home" with pictures and tales of worlds stranger than we could have imagined. For the last 35 years we have been trying to peer beneath that unyielding cloudy shroud. Finally, beginning in 1990 a spacecraft called Magellan began to reveal the face of our planetary twin. We have found an Earth-sized planet with ongoing geological activity, and intricate cycles of matter and energy with complex feedbacks that we've barely begun to understand. Like Earth, Venus is alive and kicking. Our twin has important tales to tell us regarding several of Earth's most pressing environmental problems, including ozone destruction, global warming and acid rain. Employing a conversational style full of humor and sprinkled with references to literature, music and pop culture, Grinspoon will make you think, wonder, shake your head and laugh out loud. Venus Revealed is illustrated with striking spacecraft images, many never before published, of the eerily familiar landscapes of Venus. This book makes a compelling case for comparative planetology as an important tool for gaining human self-knowledge, knowledge that is vital for our long term survival on our own planet. _________________________________________________________________ Excerpts: Prelude: Person, Place, or Thing? Ch. 1 -- Venus Before the Telescope: Goddess at the Edge of Night Ch. 2 -- Venus Through the Telescope: Earth's Twin Ch. 3 -- In the Time of Spacecraft: Descent into Hell Ch. 4 -- Chance or Necessity: Sizing Up the Planets Ch. 5 -- Long-Lost Sister: Magellan and the Rediscovery of Venus Ch. 6 -- Life on Venus: A Barren World? Epilog: If you do decide to go: What to wear, Venusian phrasebook, Travel arrangements. Artwork Images Outtakes _________________________________________________________________ Venus Revealed Reviews Here is what other people have had to say about Venus Revealed: "David Grinspoon is a talented young astronomer and polymath whose Venus Revealed should enchant anyone with even the slightest interest in Earth's benighted twin." -- Timothy Ferris, author of Coming of Age in the Milky Way "Grinspoon's book is a fresh and hip and comprehensive look at the whole story of an alien planet, from a researcher who has been close to the action." -- William K. Hartmann, planetary scientist, space artist, and author of The Grand Tour: A Traveler's Guide to the Solar System and The History of the Earth "David Grinspoon's Venus Revealed is a highly readable account of our planetary neighbor. He peers with good-natured with through her thick clouds, unveils her musical intercourse with human history and leaves the reader not only educated and entertained, but familiar, and indeed, almost intimate, with this formerly mysterious and all-too-elusive inner planet." -- Dorion Sagan, author of Biospheres and (with Lynn Margulis) of What Is Life? "David Grinspoon gets to the heart of why astronomers dream of Venus. In Venus Revealed he explores our sister planet with intimacy and grace." -- Clifford Stoll, author of The Cuckoo's Egg Here are some published reviews: * Publisher's Weekly; * Kirkus Reviews; * Booklist; * The Planetary Report Also, Venus Revealed is reviewed in the May, 97 issue of Astronomy Magazine. Some on-line reviews: * The Bactra Review * SpaceViews * Wigglefish Zine Read twenty questions with David Grinspoon on the Wigglefish Web Zine. Listen to a RealAudio interview with David Grinspoon discussing Venus Revealed. _________________________________________________________________ To Order . . . Scheduled Appearances I would prefer that you buy the book from your local independent bookstore, but if you can't find it locally, you can order the book from Amazon.com Books. Book signings and slide show presentations given by the author are scheduled for the following: 1997: * February 5 CU Bookstore, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO; (303) 492-6411 * February 10 A Moment of Science, 6:30pm, TCI Channel 54, Boulder, CO; with LIVE CALL-INS!!! * February 13 Boulder Bookstore, 1107 Pearl Street, Boulder, CO; (303) 447-2074 * February 19 The Tattered Cover, LoDo, 1628 16th Street at Wynkoop, Denver, CO; (303) 436-1070 * February 23: David Grinspoon will discuss Venus Revealed on nationally syndicated radio show To the Best of Our Knowledge. Check your local NPR station for broadcast time. * February 23: Radio show "The World Tonight" from CKNW Radio in Vancouver. Live interview nationally broadcast in Canada. * March 11: Beginning today an on-line audio interview with David Grinspoon can be heard at the Ann On-line web site. * March 21: Interview and discussion of Venus Revealed on KFJC, Los Altos California, 6:15pm; interview will also be transcribed and placed on the Printer's Inc. website. * March 22 Printers Inc. Bookstore, 310 California Ave., Palo Alto, CA; (415) 327-6500 * March 25 The Booksmith, 1644 Haight St. San Francisco, CA; (415) 863-8688 * April 3: David Grinspoon will guest-host an online chat and discuss Venus Revealed on Prodigy, 9-11 PM ET. There will be a Venus Trivia Questions Contest with copies of Venus Revealed as prizes! * April 15: David Grinspoon will discuss Venus Revealed on "How on Earth", KGNU, 88.5 FM in Boulder, Colorado, 8:30-9 AM. * May 11: David Grinspoon will be a guest on the Omni Online web show, 10-11 EDT. * July 4-6 David Grinspoon will be speaking at the "Exploring Distant Worlds Book Extravaganza" at Planetfest '97 in Pasadena, California. * July 19, Highlands Grounds, Denver, Colorado. * July 31: David Grinspoon will discuss Venus Revealed at the July Meeting of the Boston Chapter of the National Space Society, at MIT, 7:30 PM. * December 5: David Grinspoon will give a talk and planetarium show about Venus at the Fiske Planetarium, Boulder, CO 7:30 PM. 492-5002. 1998: * February 17: Talk on "Recent Results in Space Science" at the Denver Museum of Natural History, Gates Planetarium. 7 PM. * February 24: David Grinspoon will discuss "Life on Venus?" at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle at 7PM. * October 5: David Grinspoon will speak in the "Distinguished Author Lecture Series" at the Hayden Planetarium, American Museum of Natural History, New York. Venus Links To learn more about Venus, check out these web links: * Venus Page from the Welcome to the Planets CDROM page; contains lots of info and pictures of various surface features; * Venus Introduction with info, statistics, movies, and pictures; from Calvin J. Hamilton's Views of the Solar System CDROM; includes a crater atlas and corona atlas for interactive searches; * Magellan Image Server; download any of the images sent back by Magellan; * Face of Venus (F.O.V.) * Magellan Mission to Venus project home page; learn all about the spacecraft, the data it produced, and download pictures and animations; * A three part article by Larry Klaes about the history of Soviet Venus exploration:1, 2, 3. * Read about (and see an artists depiction of) a proposed Venus surface lander mission. _________________________________________________________________ [LINK] [LINK] There have been 2926 accesses to this page since January 29, 1997. 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