The Planets

Model Worlds
(Overview)

Genesis
(The Sun)

Mythology
(Mercury)

Beauty
(Venus)

Geography
(Earth)

Lunacy
(The Moon)

Sci-Fi
(Mars)

Astrology
(Jupiter)

Music of the Spheres
(Saturn)

Night Air
(Uranus and Neptune)

UFO
(Pluto)

Planeteers
(Coda)

Acknowledgments
Glossary
Details
Bibliography
Index

“Playful . . . lyrical . . . a guided tour so imaginative that we forget we’re being educated as we’re being entertained.” —Newsweek



“[Sobel] has outdone her extraordinary talent for keeping readers enthralled. . . . Longitude and Galileo’s Daughter were exciting enough, but The Planets has a charm of its own . . . . A splendid and enticing book.” —San Francisco Chronicle



“A sublime journey. [Sobel’s] writing . . . is as bright as the sun and its thinking as star-studded as the cosmos.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution



“An incantatory serenade to the Solar System. Grade A-” —Entertainment Weekly



“Like Sobel’s [Longitude and Galileo’s Daughter] . . . [The Planets] combines masterful storytelling with clear, engaging explanations of the essential scientific facts.” —Physics World

Dava Sobel is an award-winning former science writer for The New York Times. The author of the bestselling Longitude and Galileo’s Daughter, Sobel’s work has also appeared in Audubon, Discover, Life, and The New Yorker.