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Encyclopedia of the

Solar System

Third Edition

Edited by

Tilman Spohn

Institute of Planetary Research

German Aerospace Centre (DLR)

Berlin, Germany

Doris Breuer

Institute of Planetary Research

German Aerospace Centre (DLR)

Berlin, Germany

Torrence V. Johnson

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA

Pasadena, CA

USA

AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON • NEW YORK • OXFORD

PARIS • SAN DIEGO • SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO

Elsevier

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The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1GB, UK

225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451, USA

First edition 1999

Second edition 2007

Third edition 2014

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

Encyclopedia of the solar system / edited by Tilman Spohn, Doris Breuer and Torrence Johnson. – Third edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Summary: “This book is ﬁlled with the knowledge about our solar system that resulted from all this exploration, whether by

spacecraft or by telescopes both in space and earth-bound. All of this new knowledge is based on discoveries made in the interim by

scientist-explorers who have followed their inborn human imperative to explore and to understand. Many old mysteries,

misunderstandings, and fears that existed 50 years ago about what lay beyond the Earth have been eliminated. We now know the

major features of the landscape in our cosmic backyard and can look forward to the adventure, excitement, and new knowledge that

will result from more in-depth exploration by today’s spacecraft, such as those actually exploring the surface of these faraway places,

including the Huygens Titan lander and the Mars Exploration rovers, doing things that were unimaginable before the Space Age

began. The Encyclopedia of the Solar System is ﬁlled with images, illustrations, and charts to aid in understanding. Every object in

the solar system is covered by at least one chapter. Other chapters are devoted to the relationships among the objects in the solar

system and with the galaxy beyond. The processes that operate on solar system objects, in their atmospheres, on their surfaces, in

their interiors, and interactions with space itself are all described in detail. There are chapters on how we explore and learn about the

solar system and about the investigations used to make new discoveries. And there are chapters on the history of solar system

exploration and the missions that have carried out this enterprise. All written by an international set of world-class scientists using

rigorous yet easy-to-understand prose”–Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-0-12-415845-0

1. Solar system–Encyclopedias. I. Spohn, T. (Tilman), editor of compilation. II. Breuer, Doris, 1965- editor of compilation. III.

Johnson, T. V. (Torrence V.), editor of compilation.

QB501.E53 2014

523.203–dc23

2014002257

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-12-415845-0

For information on all Elsevier publications

visit our web site at

store.elsevier.com

Printed and bound in China

14 15 16 17 18 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Foreword*

The solar system has become humankind’s new backyard.

It is the playground of robotic planetary spacecraft that has

surveyed just about every corner of this vast expanse in

space. Nowadays, every schoolchild knows what even the

farthest planets look like. Fifty years ago, these places

could only be imagined, and traveling to them was the

realm of ﬁction. In just this short time in the long history of

the human species we have leapt off the surface of our

home planet and sent robotic extensions of our eyes, ears,

noses, arms, and legs to the far reaches of the solar system

and beyond.

In the early twentieth century, we were using airplanes

to extend our reach to the last unexplored surface regions

of our own planet. Now 100 years later, at the beginning of

the twenty-ﬁrst century, we are using spacecraft to extend

our reach from the innermost planet Mercury to the

outmost planet Neptune, and we have a spacecraft on the

way to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. Today, there are tele-

scopes beyond imagination 100 or even 50 years ago that

can image Pluto and detect planets around other stars!

Now, Sol’s planets can say “we are not alone”; there are

objects just like us elsewhere in the universe. As human-

ity’s space technology improves, perhaps in the next

100 years or so human beings also may be able to say “we

are not alone.”

When I was a kid more than 50 years ago, I was thrilled

by the paintings of Chesley Bonestell and others who put

their imagination on canvas to show us what it might be like

“out there.” Werner Von Braun’s

Collier’s

magazine arti-

cles of 1952e1954 superbly illustrated how we would go to

the Moon and Mars using new rocket technologies.

Reading those fabulous articles crystallized thoughts in my

young mind about what to do with my life. I wanted to be

part of the adventure to ﬁnd out what these places were like.

Not so long after the

Collier’s

articles appeared, we did go

to the Moon, and pretty much as illustrated, although

perhaps not in such a grand manner. We have not sent

humans to Marsdat least we have not yetdbut we have

sent our robots to Mars and to just about every other place

in the solar system as well.

* This foreword to the second edition has been editorially updated to be

included in the present edition.

This book is ﬁlled with the knowledge about our solar

system that resulted from all this exploration, whether by

spacecraft or by telescopes both in space and earth-bound.

It could not have been written 50 years ago as almost

everything in this Encyclopedia was unknown back then.

All of this new knowledge is based on discoveries made in

the interim by scientist-explorers who have followed their

inborn human imperative to explore and to understand.

Many old mysteries, misunderstandings, and fears that

existed 50 years ago about what lay beyond the Earth have

been eliminated.

We now know the major features of the landscape in our

cosmic backyard and can look forward to the adventure,

excitement, and new knowledge that will result from more

in-depth exploration by today’s spacecraft, such as those

actually exploring the surface of these faraway places,

including the

Huygens Titan

lander, the

Mars Exploration

and the Curiosity rovers, doing things that were unimag-

inable before the Space Age began.

The

Encyclopedia of the Solar System

is ﬁlled with

images, illustrations, and charts to aid in understanding.

Every object in the solar system is covered by at least one

chapter. Other chapters are devoted to the relationships

among the objects in the solar system and with the galaxy

beyond. The processes that operate on solar system

objects, in their atmospheres, on their surfaces, in their

interiors, and interactions with space itself are all

described in detail. There are chapters on how we explore

and learn about the solar system and about the investiga-

tions used to make new discoveries. And there are chap-

ters on the history of solar system exploration and the

missions that have carried out this enterprise. All written

by an international set of world-class scientists using

rigorous yet easy-to-understand prose.

Everything you want to know about the solar system is

here. This is your highway to the solar system. It is as much

fun exploring this Encyclopedia as all the exploration it

took to get the information that it contains. Let your ﬁngers

be the spacecraft as you thumb through this book visiting

all the planets, moons, and other small objects in the solar

system. Experience what it is like to look at our solar

system with ultraviolet eyes, infrared eyes, radio eyes, and

radar eyes.

Foreword

It has been almost 15 years since the ﬁrst edition. The

exploration of space has continued at a rapid pace since

then, and many missions have ﬂown in the interim. New

discoveries are being made all the time. This third edition

will catch you up on all that has happened since the

previous editions, including several new chapters based on

information from our latest missions.

I invite you to enjoy a virtual exploration of the solar

system by ﬂipping through the pages in this volume. This

book deserves a place in any academic setting and wherever

there is a need to understand the cosmos beyond our home

planet. It is the perfect solar system reference book,

lavishly illustrated and well written. The editors and

authors have done a magniﬁcent job.

We live in a wonderful time of exploration and

discovery. Here is your window to the adventure.

Wesley T. Huntress

Geophysical Laboratory,

Carnegie Institution of Washington,

Washington, D.C.

Preface to the

Third Edition

The known is ﬁnite, the unknown inﬁnite; intellectually we stand

on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability.

Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land.

Thomas Henry Huxley

It is now 15 years since the ﬁrst publication of the

Encyclopedia of the Solar System and 8 years since the

second and revised edition. The book has been an unde-

bated jewel in every library of books in solar system

science and a great success with readers.

When Elsevier approached us to prepare a third edition,

with a largely new editorship we thought hard on how we

would proceed. Elsevier had left us to decide whether we

wanted a completely new concept or to simply update the

existing book. We ﬁnally settled on a concept that tried to

further evolve an outstandingly successful work.

The past decade has seen an increasing importance of

geophysical tools for the exploration of planets. In addition,

our theoretical knowledge of the inner workings of terres-

trial planets has substantially increased. We have

acknowledged this by adding a chapter on geophysical

exploration tools, in general, and on exploration of the

Moon and on potential landing sites on Mars. We further

added a chapter on rotation of the planets and using its

observation to constrain models of the interior of terrestrial

planets. Chapters on the interiors of Mars and the Moond

the two planets we know bestdhave been added as well as

theoretical chapters pertaining to the inner workings of

terrestrial planetsdthe generation of their magnetic ﬁelds

and the relation between their thermal evolution, convec-

tion in the interior and their tectonics.

High resolution and stereo imaging is another novel

tool of planetary exploration that we serve by adding

a chapter. For the outer solar system we have added

a chapter on Enceladus. Finally, we have complemented

the suite of chapters dealing with the history of space

exploration with a chapter describing the strategies that

the space fairing nations have jointly developed in the

International Space Exploration Initiative

to take us from

robotic exploration to human exploration to permanent

human outposts.

Most of the authors of the previous edition have stayed

on the team. They have worked meticulously to bring

their chapters up-to-date, reﬂecting our current state of

knowledge. A few authors have been unable to contribute in

which case we have found new (co)authors ordin just

a couple of casesdhave reprinted the chapters after

editorial updates.

It is sad to note that Conway Leovy, author of the Mars

atmosphere chapter for the previous editions and Don

Hunten, author of the Venus atmosphere chapter have

passed away. David Catling was so kind to provide us with

a newly written chapter on the Martian atmosphere while

Fred Taylor updated Don’s chapter on Venus.

There have been signiﬁcant advances in our knowledge,

many related to new missions (compare the table in the

appendix). Since 2006, when most of the chapters of the

previous edition went to press, six missions have been

launched to the sun, among them, a Russian mission and

a French microsatellite. Unfortunately, the Russian satellite

failed. The French microsatellite is an example of a new

tool to explore the solar system, dedicated small to very

small and affordable missions. China, India, and Japan have

sent their own missions to the Moon in these years in

addition to three NASA missions, totaling eight new

missions altogether. The Moon continues to be the reach-

able target of great scientiﬁc interest. But even the Apollo

data and samples remain valuable as the new discovery of

water in lunar rocks and the seismic conﬁrmation of the

core and the discovery of its layering show.

Among the new missions since 2006 is Messenger,

a NASA orbiter mission that revolutionized our knowledge

of Mercury, the innermost planet and one of the two mostly

unexplored places up to then. (The other being Pluto to

which the New Horizon mission is on its way.) Another

new mission is Venus Express, the ﬁrst European Venus

orbiter. In the inner solar system where the earthlike planets

are located, Mars continues to be the prime target next to

the Moon with NASA continuing to launch a mission at

almost every opportunity, not the least because of Mars’

astrobiological potential. Here, exploration has proceeded

along the classical exploration path where ﬂybys are fol-

lowed by orbiters, orbiters by landers, and landers by

rovers. Robotic exploration would culminate with sample

return, planned for the next decade only to be topped by

human landing and exploration.

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