This state-of-the-art reference work includes over 15 sections dealing with all aspects of exoplanets and exobiology research, including historic aspects, the Solar System as a template, objects at the planet-to-star transition, exoplanet detection and characterization with related instrumentation, technology and software tools, planet and planet-system statistics with recent and planned surveys, their atmosphere and formation and evolution processes, habitability and exobiology implications, and outlooks for future exploration and science development, including visionary contributions. Each section has 10-20 contributions written by the top experts in their subject, including both senior researchers as well as young, smart researchers who represent the future of the discipline. All in all, this handbook comprehensively tackles one of the most challenging and dynamic fields of modern astronomy and astrophysics.

The interdisciplinary field of Astrobiology constitutes a joint arena where provocative discoveries are coalescing concerning, e.g. the prevalence of exoplanets, the diversity and hardiness of life, and its increasingly likely chances for its emergence. Biologists, astrophysicists, biochemists, geoscientists and space scientists share this exciting mission of revealing the origin and commonality of life in the Universe. The members of the different disciplines are used to their own terminology and technical language. In the interdisciplinary environment many terms either have redundant meanings or are completely unfamiliar to members of other disciplines. The Encyclopedia of Astrobiology serves as the key to a common understanding. Each new or experienced researcher and graduate student in adjacent fields of astrobiology will appreciate this reference work in the quest to understand the big picture. The carefully selected group of active researchers contributing to this work and the expert field editors intend for their contributions, from an internationally comprehensive perspective, to accelerate the interdisciplinary advance of astrobiology.

The last thirty years have seen an irrevocable change in the field of planetary science with the discovery of the first planets around stars other than our own Sun. While approximately twenty percent of the exoplanets we have discovered are close in size to the Earth, the similarity of their surface environment to our home world remains unknown. This book presents an exploration of the potential diversity of rocky planets through a quantitative study of how planetary processes change as properties deviate from the Earth. Changes in four specific properties are considered: the presence of a magnetic field, the production and loss of internal heat, planetary composition and volatile abundance.

Planets come in many different sizes, and with many different compositions, orbiting our Sun and countless other stars. Understanding their properties and interactions requires an understanding of a diverse set of sub-fields, including orbital and atmospheric dynamics, geology, geophysics, and chemistry. This textbook provides a physics-based tour of introductory planetary science concepts for undergraduate students majoring in astronomy, planetary science, or related fields. It shows how principles and equations learned in introductory physics classes can be applied to study many aspects of planets, including dynamics, surfaces, interiors, and atmospheres. It also includes chapters on the discovery and characterization of extrasolar planets, and the physics of planet formation.

This book is a compendium of key scientific questions, challenges, and opportunities across different areas of exoplanetary science. The field is currently experiencing rapid growth, and the book provides a front-row view of the advancements at the cutting-edge of the field. Each chapter contains a short exposition on the most important open questions, challenges, and opportunities in a specific area from the perspective of one or more top experts in the area. It provides a starting point for researchers, experts and non-experts alike, to obtain a quick overview of the forefront of exoplanetary science and a vision for the future of the field.

As we speak, stunning new snapshots of our Solar System are being transmitted to Earth by a fleet of space probes, landers, and rovers. Yet nowadays, it is all too easy to take such images for granted amidst the deluge of competing visuals we scroll through every day. To truly understand the value of these incredible space photos, we first need to understand the tools that made them possible. This is the story of imaging instruments in space, detailing all the technological missteps and marvels that have allowed us to view planetary bodies like never before. From the rudimentary cameras launched in the 1950's to the cutting-edge imaging instruments onboard the Mars Perseverance rover, this book covers more than 100 imaging systems sent aboard various spacecraft to explore near and distant planetary bodies. Featured within are some of the most striking images ever received by these pioneering instruments, including Voyager's Pale Blue Dot, Apollo's Blue Marble, Venera's images from the surface of Venus, Huygens' images of Titan, New Horizon's images of Pluto and Arrokoth, and much more. Along the way, you will learn about advancements in data transmission, digitization, citizen science, and other fields that revolutionized space imaging, helping us peer farther and more clearly across the Solar System.

This encyclopedia provides a snapshot of our current geological knowledge on solid-surface Solar System bodies. Each entry contains information about the features’ morphology, its interpretation, proposed formation models, distribution and occurrence, planetary or terrestrial analogs, and research history. The entries are fully referenced. All image captions include original image IDs. More than 600 named planetary feature types are discussed in the encyclopedia, covering a wide range of scales--from micrometers to global scale--and also include landform types (structural or topographic features), parts of landforms, terrain types or surface textures, surface patterns, and features identified at wavelengths extending from visible to radio waves (e.g., albedo, thermal infrared, and radar features). The book covers features formed by impact, aeolian, magmatic, volcanic, tectonic, fluvial, lacustrine, marine and coastal, mass movement, sedimentary, desiccation, liquefaction, periglacial, glacial, nival, sublimation, collapse, weathering, and selective erosion or other, including complex processes. Depending on the information and formation models available, the entries have different approaches. Some of them discuss their subject from the point of view of the inferred process or origin, others are morphology or description-based. As a default, entries focus on extraterrestrial landforms, while also mentioning their proposed terrestrial analogs. Most planetary landforms are not body-specific, but some have no known terrestrial counterparts. Named historic (obsolete) landform types are also included to provide reference for previous key research papers. To make it easier to find features with related origins, the encyclopedia contains entries that list landforms based on their formative processes. It also lists body-specific features on Mercury (5 feature types), Venus (40), the Earth (13), the Moon (15), Mars (87), Io (7), Europa (17), Callisto (7), Titan (9), Triton (2), mid-sized satellites (8), and small bodies (3). Also included are entries on the 51 planetary feature descriptor terms approved by IAU.

Contains chapters on meteorites and early solar system solids, organics in early-type meteorites, asteroids and comets, impact metamorphism, lunar geology, noble gas chemistry in planets, meteorite isotopic analysis, lab analysis, and micrometeorites.

Volcanism and tectonism are the dominant endogenic means by which planetary surfaces change. This book aims to encompass the broad range in character of volcanism, tectonism, faulting and associated interactions observed on planetary bodies across the inner solar system - a region that includes Mercury, Venus, Earth, the Moon, Mars and asteroids. The diversity and breadth of landforms produced by volcanic and tectonic processes is enormous, and varies across the inner solar system bodies. As a result, the selection of prevailing landforms and their underlying formational processes that are described and highlighted in this volume are but a primer to the expansive field of planetary volcanism and tectonism. This Special Publication features 22 research articles about volcanic and tectonic processes manifest across the inner solar system.

Treatise on Geophysics, Second Edition, Eleven Volume Set is a comprehensive and in-depth study of the physics of the Earth beyond what any geophysics text has provided previously. Thoroughly revised and updated, it provides fundamental and state-of-the-art discussion of all aspects of geophysics. A highlight of the second edition is a new volume on Near Surface Geophysics that discusses the role of geophysics in the exploitation and conservation of natural resources and the assessment of degradation of natural systems by pollution. Additional features include new material in the Planets and Moon, Mantle Dynamics, Core Dynamics, Crustal and Lithosphere Dynamics, Evolution of the Earth, and Geodesy volumes. New material is also presented on the uses of Earth gravity measurements. This title is essential for professionals, researchers, professors, and advanced undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of Geophysics and Earth system science. Comprehensive and detailed coverage of all aspects of geophysics Fundamental and state-of-the-art discussions of all research topics Integration of topics into a coherent whole

The changing focus and approach of geomorphic research suggests that the time is opportune for a summary of the state of discipline. The number of peer-reviewed papers published in geomorphic journals has grown steadily for more than two decades and, more importantly, the diversity of authors with respect to geographic location and disciplinary background (geography, geology, ecology, civil engineering, computer science, geographic information science, and others) has expanded dramatically. As more good minds are drawn to geomorphology, and the breadth of the peer-reviewed literature grows, an effective summary of contemporary geomorphic knowledge becomes increasingly difficult. The fourteen volumes of this Treatise on Geomorphology will provide an important reference for users from undergraduate students looking for term paper topics, to graduate students starting a literature review for their thesis work, and professionals seeking a concise summary of a particular topic. Information on the historical development of diverse topics within geomorphology provides context for ongoing research; discussion of research strategies, equipment, and field methods, laboratory experiments, and numerical simulations reflect the multiple approaches to understanding Earth's surfaces; and summaries of outstanding research questions highlight future challenges and suggest productive new avenues for research. Our future ability to adapt to geomorphic changes in the critical zone very much hinges upon how well landform scientists comprehend the dynamics of Earth's diverse surfaces. This Treatise on Geomorphology provides a useful synthesis of the state of the discipline, as well as highlighting productive research directions, that Educators and students/researchers will find useful. Geomorphology has advanced greatly in the last 10 years to become a very interdisciplinary field. Undergraduate students looking for term paper topics, to graduate students starting a literature review for their thesis work, and professionals seeking a concise summary of a particular topic will find the answers they need in this broad reference work which has been designed and written to accommodate their diverse backgrounds and levels of understanding Editor-in-Chief, Prof. J. F. Shroder of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, is past president of the QG&G section of the Geological Society of America and present Trustee of the GSA Foundation, while being well respected in the geomorphology research community and having won numerous awards in the field. A host of noted international geomorphologists have contributed state-of-the-art chapters to the work. Readers can be guaranteed that every chapter in this extensive work has been critically reviewed for consistency and accuracy by the World expert Volume Editors and by the Editor-in-Chief himself No other reference work exists in the area of Geomorphology that offers the breadth and depth of information contained in this 14-volume masterpiece. From the foundations and history of geomorphology through to geomorphological innovations and computer modelling, and the past and future states of landform science, no "stone" has been left unturned!

This extensively updated new edition of the widely acclaimed Treatise on Geochemistry has increased its coverage beyond the wide range of geochemical subject areas in the first edition, with five new volumes which include: the history of the atmosphere, geochemistry of mineral deposits, archaeology and anthropology, organic geochemistry and analytical geochemistry. In addition, the original Volume 1 on "Meteorites, Comets, and Planets" was expanded into two separate volumes dealing with meteorites and planets, respectively. These additions increased the number of volumes in the Treatise from 9 to 15 with the index/appendices volume remaining as the last volume (Volume 16). Each of the original volumes was scrutinized by the appropriate volume editors, with respect to necessary revisions as well as additions and deletions. As a result, 27% were republished without major changes, 66% were revised and 126 new chapters were added. In a many-faceted field such as Geochemistry, explaining and understanding how one sub-field relates to another is key. Instructors will find the complete overviews with extensive cross-referencing useful additions to their course packs and students will benefit from the contextual organization of the subject matter Six new volumes added and 66% updated from 1stedition. The Editors of this work have taken every measure to include the many suggestions received from readers and ensure comprehensiveness of coverage and added value in this 2nd edition.

The Cambridge Guide to the Solar System provides a comprehensive and up-to-date description of the planets and their moons. Writing at an introductory level appropriate for high school and undergraduate students, Professor Lang leads the reader on a fascinating journey of exploration to the worlds beyond our home planet Earth. The book begins with a short introduction to the history of planetary observation and discovery. The major planets and their moons are then introduced by presenting common properties, processes, and themes. This is followed by chapters which focus on individual planets and other solar system objects, including a comprehensive treatment of the various space missions: from the Apollo missions to the Moon, to recent missions to Jupiter and Mars. Filled with vital facts and information, and lavishly illustrated in colour throughout, this book will also appeal to professionals as well as general readers with an interest in planetary science.

Although there is a chance that certain planets may be habitable for life, the moons of planets might have even more to offer. The ice moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune have taught us important lessons about new volcanic forms—cryovolcanism—and the bizarre landscapes sculpted by those erupting geysers. Glaciers, ice mountains, and vast canyons mold the faces of these worlds of ice and thunder. Yet, many ice moons and dwarf planets, including Ceres and Pluto, are in fact sea worlds, hiding deep oceans beneath their ice crusts. This book explores the frozen worlds beyond Mars, delving into the interior forces of migrating ice diapirs, seafloor volcanism and tidal friction, which help form the landscapes found above and biologically friendly environs buried below. It covers the latest research in the field and includes interviews with today’s foremost authorities, including astrobiologists Chris McKay (NASA Ames), Ralph Lorenz (Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory) and Karl Mitchell (Jet Propulsion Laboratory). Original art by the author enhances the concepts explored in the text, recreating some of the most remarkable landscapes on icy planets and moons.

The Encyclopedia of the Solar System, Third Edition--winner of the 2015 PROSE Award in Cosmology & Astronomy from the Association of American Publishers--provides a framework for understanding the origin and evolution of the solar system, historical discoveries, and details about planetary bodies and how they interact--with an astounding breadth of content and breathtaking visual impact. The encyclopedia includes the latest explorations and observations, hundreds of color digital images and illustrations, and over 1,000 pages. It stands alone as the definitive work in this field, and will serve as a modern messenger of scientific discovery and provide a look into the future of our solar system. New additions to the third edition reflect the latest progress and growth in the field, including past and present space missions to the terrestrial planets, the outer solar systems and space telescopes used to detect extrasolar planets.