Ron Miller

The most futuristic of humankind’s inventions is also one of the oldest. Author Ron Miller tells the story of rockets, from their humble beginnings as toys one thousand years ago to their initiation as fearsome weapons of war. Most recently, rockets have enabled human beings to escape the bonds of Earth, travel into space, and explore other worlds. This is a story of great geniuses, personal sacrifices, and grand adventure.

For hundreds of years scientists have sought and studied new worlds beyond Earth. Author Ron Miller describes the long, hard trek from the first tentative attempts to fly rocket-powered vehicles, to the first humans to brave traveling beyond Earth’s atmosphere, to the explorers who left their footprints in the soil of the Moon. This history of space exploration will compel you to consider the future of our journey.

Chronicles the formation of the solar system, particularly how asteroids, comets, and meteors were formed, and relates how astronomers learn about the existence and characteristics of these bodies.

From earliest times, humans have wondered about the sky above them. People looked at distant stars and wondered what they were made of. They wondered whether any other places in the universe were like Earth. At first people used simple telescopes to study the solar system-the Sun and all the planets that circle around it. Later, more powerful telescopes and high-tech machines allowed people to investigate worlds outside the solar system. In this book,...

"Uncover seven wonders of the four rocky planets. From Mercury, we'll watch the Sun appear to perform wild acrobatics. We'll also explore Venus, a planet full of puzzles and beauty. On Mars, we'll visit the tallest mountain and the deepest canyon of all the planets. This planet has hints of water that may be the key to identifying life forms on other planets."--Amazon.com.

Chronicles the discovery and exploration of the planet Saturn and discusses its rings and moons, its place in the solar system, and more.

Chronicles the origin and discovery of Uranus, Neptune, and their moons and discusses explorations and composition of these distant gas giants.

From earliest times, humans have wondered about the sky above them. Simple telescopes in the 1600s made possible descriptions of the wonders of Earth's Moon and the closer planets. It took the development of powerful telescopes and modern space probes to learn more about the more distant planets-Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. In this book, we'll explore seven wonders of these four enormous planets-called the gas giants-and their moons. On Saturn,...

From earliest times, humans have wondered about the sky above them and have studied all visible objects. People began to identify differences between stars and planets, and as technology advanced with telescopes and space probes, they sought deeper understanding of the millions of bits of debris rocketing through the solar system. Scientists determined that most of these objects are left over from the creation of the planets and their moons. They...

In the sixth century B.C.E., the Greek philosopher Anaximander theorized that Earth was at the center of the cosmos. That idea became ingrained in scientific thinking and Christian religious beliefs for more than one thousand years. Defiance of church doctrine could mean death, so no one dared dispute this long-accepted idea. No one except a handful of courageous scientists. In the 1500s and 1600s, men like Nicolaus Copernicus, Johanned Kepler, Galileo...