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EDITORIAL INFORMATION

Pluto and Charon explores the remote, icebound reaches of our planetary system in an interwoven tale of exotic Pluto, its unusual satellite companion Charon, and the dynamic, high technology world of 20th century astronomy. Astronomers Alan Stern and Jacqueline Mitton recount a story of planetary astronomy at its frontier. The book begins with a description of the dramatic discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, and continues through to the latest images of Pluto taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, and the effort to build Pluto Express, a NASA reconnaissance mission to the only planet not yet visited by spacecraft.

Stern and Mitton vividly present the major events in the discovery and exploration of the distant Pluto-Charon and introduce the reader to the researches whose ingenuity and determination opened up the outer solar system for all to appreciate. Their light and accessible narrative transforms our view of Pluto and Charon from the vague awareness of a faint pinprick of light slowly moving against the constellations into a richer appreciation for a pair of ice worlds with an astronishingly wide range of remarkable attributes. So too, as Stern and Mitton describe, astronomers have evolved their view of Pluto from a planetary footnote to the gateway to the deep outer solar system.

Pluto and Charon is the definitive account of the outermost planet in our solar system, its satellite, and its context in the outer solar solar system. Peppered with tantalizing predictions of discoveries yet to be made, this innovative and accessible book will be valued by all who are interested in science, astronomy, and the exploration of distant frontiers.

(Extracted from the dust jacket).

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Contents.

-Preface.

-Prologue: !Encounter.

-1. New Frontier.

-2. First Facts.

-3. A Distant Dance.

-4. Another Snow.

-5. Building a Binary Planet.

-6. Icefields and Ice Dwarfs.

-7. Everest.

-8. Postcript: Where No One Has Gone Before.

-A Chronology of Major Events in the Exploration of Pluto.

-Suggested Readings.

-Index.