| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details
|
More About the Author
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Hardcover
This book, along with Zubrin's "The Case for Mars," makes an excellent bookend to a spate of recent fiction and non-fiction about the exploration and colonization of Mars. Recommended reading and timely with the announcment of possible microfossils found in a Martian meteorite. As regards the so called "artifacts" of Cydonia, the author obviously realizes that light, shadow and wind-sculpted mesas have fooled a lot of wishful New Agers into believing pyramids and giant faces have been carved on the Red Planet. The quaint notion of intelligent features on Mars died out with Percivall Lowell's Martians and their "canals."
Format:Hardcover
Except for that atomic bomb thing back in the forties, the most important scientific news event of the twentieth century may have happened last summer, when NASA scientists announced circumstantial traces of life inside a meteorite believed to have originated from Mars. Astronomer-and-science-writer Donald Goldsmith competently reviews the evidence and reasoning on both sides of the controversy. His presentation is better than Time or Newsweek, without the annoying distractions of advertising and coverage of Dole's VP selection (which wasn't cosmically significant). Goldsmith's writing lacks the evocative imagery of Sagan, but he gets his facts straight with clarity and there is poetry in that. While being fair with practically everyone else, he does give short shrift to those who see Martian artifacts at Cydonia. As he points out, though, future space probes will soon resolve that issue as well as many others about just how far Martian life progressed. This book will prepare you for revelations to come.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Good study
17 Sep 2002
Format:Hardcover
I found it to being quite a good study on our current knowledge of the possibility of life on Mars.
The writer uses a court case allegory to discuss 'ALH84001' the Marian rock found by NASA to review the case.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
A worthwhile objective look at the martian meteorite
26 Feb 1997
Format:Hardcover
Except for that atomic bomb thing back in the forties, the most important scientific news event of the twentieth century may have happened last summer, when NASA scientists announced circumstantial traces of life inside a meteorite believed to have originated from Mars. Astronomer-and-science-writer Donald Goldsmith competently reviews the evidence and reasoning on both sides of the controversy. His presentation is better than Time or Newsweek, without the annoying distractions of advertising and coverage of Dole's VP selection (which wasn't cosmically significant). Goldsmith's writing lacks the evocative imagery of Sagan, but he gets his facts straight with clarity and there is poetry in that. While being fair with practically everyone else, he does give short shrift to those who see Martian artifacts at Cydonia. As he points out, though, future space probes will soon resolve that issue as well as many others about just how far Martian life progressed. This book will prepare you for revelations to come
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Slightly dated but fair overview of topic
2 Feb 2002
Format:Hardcover
This is a good overview of the possibility of life on Mars, using the evidence found in the meteorite ALH84001 as a starting point. Goldsmith uses a legal trial as a somewhat overprecious analogy, but overall this book is a fair and detailed summary of the arguments both for and against life on Mars based on current evidence.
It also covers future missions to Mars and somewhat dates itself while doing so, since Pathfinder and Global Surveyor are presented in the future tense.
Still, this is a useful and interesting book.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
