Planetfall

Product Description

In the span of a single lifetime a momentous transformation in human consciousness has quietly taken hold: We are beginning to think of our home not as the Earth but as the Solar System. Thanks to the photographic output of a small squadron of interplanetary spacecraft a picture of the visual splendor & variety of the Solar System is emerging. Each of these spacecraft is following the traditions blazed by the great Earthbound explorers but when its destination comes into view we can no longer call that dramatic moment landfall." Hence " Planetfall" (the moment of visual contact with the planets). Michael Bensons masterful book Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes gave us a magnificent view of the Solar System culled from millions of photographs taken by unmanned spacecraft up to the end of the twentieth century. Since then probes built with more powerful cameras & greater maneuverability have looked deeper into the turbulent clouds & wheeling satellites of Jupiter; roamed the boulder-strewn red deserts of Mars; studied Saturns immaculate rings; & chronicled vast upheavals erupting from the Sun itself. & of course theyve shown us the surface of the ravishing Earth from space as well a blue-white orb with a disturbingly thin atmosphere as it plunges deeper into ecological crisis. These new images are the subject of Bensons Planetfall a truly revelatory photographic book that uses its large page size to reproduce the greatest achievements in contemporary planetary photography as they have never been seen before."