T Verne’s classic 1870 science-fiction its discoveries, authors the make of use Jules Spitzer infrared space telescope and some of Sackville-West. And, to help to explain the that of T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf and Vita and Orson Welles, and, more surprisingly, tion Rovers invokes work the of H.G.Wells example, chapterthe on Marsthe Explora comparedperspective with many texts. For ground, provides this agenerally refreshing scholar. For with those a scientific back tion an between astronomer and aliterary context is, —this after acollabora all, them in a historical and even cultural how the missions were achieved and place missions to close scrutiny. describe They and Holly Henry submit 12 of space these System up. close us to study most of types inour object Solar to mostly robotic probes that have allowed entire to our electromagnetic view, spectrum atmosphere, have opened up almost the satellites that, from freed absorbing the space exploration —from Earth-orbiting years have a profusion seen of for methods The HubbleSpaceTelescope cruisesaboveEarth inMay2009. 32 | NATURE | VOL 501 | 5 SEPTEMBER 2013 NATURE32 | VOL | SEPTEMBER 501 | 5 international inscope, finds A celebration ofuncrewed space missions isless than Universe the Probing COMMENT SPACE EXPLORATION In In Dreams of Other Worlds Universe, near and far. The past 60 knowledge and understanding of the he space age has revolutionized our BOOKS &ARTS , Chris Impey, Chris Twenty - - -

John Zarnecki © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited. Allrights reserved Voyager asspacecraft, well as lessthe widely such as Hubble the Space Telescope and the known beyond scientific community,the Henry’s list includes examples that are well top ten artists. It is impossible. Impey and picking your team football best or all-time Deep the Cameron’s films Under Sea the Leagues Thousand explain scientific the are able They guides. — Impey and Henry of our System Solar outer reaches the to interiorthe of Sun the — fromobservations through infrared cold Universe revealed verse represented by X-ray , or the core. Whether that Uni is high-energy the achievements,nological is at science their missionsto these beingwonderful tech — ifwe reminding need —that inaddition yet engaging way. The authors remind us well-analysed and presented inascholarly ever your of view choices, their are they all and theChandra X-ray Observatory. What known Hipparcos star-mapping mission Selecting justSelecting 12missions is abit like (2005). Avatar . (2009)and Press: 2013. HOLLY HENRY CHRIS IMPEYAND Exploration Unmanned Space Amazing Storyof Worlds: The Dreams ofOther and James James and Aliens of - - - myopic. One could easilyfor make acase the Soviet Union, Russia or Japan to seems me Japanese Hayabusa in2010. spacecraft ticles from asteroid the 25143Itokawa by the craft in1986and return the of par to Earth Halley’s comet — by Europe’s Giotto space close fly-by of nucleus acometary —that of had significant successes, including first the Space Agency, Japan, India and Chinahave relatively poor. More recently, Europeanthe subsequently Russian, programme has been tions, output scientific the of and Soviet, the Venus lander. But, with some notable excep side of Moon, the and Venera first 7,the Luna 9, as well as first the image of far the first successful lunar lander, soft 1966 the achieved many great firsts —such as the dominant the been force. The SovietUnion scientifically, USspace programme the has centric world view. There is no doubt that generalists. accessible and interesting to specialists and imperative of missions these inaway that is e-mail: [email protected] mission. Giotto mission and the Cassini–Huygens Telescope, the Hubble Space the including involvement in space-science missions, in He Berne. has more than 30years of International Institutethe Science Space John Zarnecki informative and engaging read. Worlds Other ‘spacepervasive nationalism’ of occasional blip. However, subtle the but generous and embracing spirit, despite the outhas carried generally been inan open, international isscience a truly activity and there is barely amention of this. Space Telescope —but start from very the tributed hardware and finance to Hubble the and ground operations. Europe con has also construction,” with NASA handling launch engineers were involved in its design and teen countries and more than three hundred ceived by European the four Space Agency; NASA’s, later writing that “SOHO was con But, oddly, authors the first refer to SOHO as below and far beyond Sun’s the visible surface. in 1995andboth operating, still observing Heliospheric (SOHO), launched Observatory unprecedented accuracy, and and Solar the than 100,000stars and other to objects and 1993measured positions the of more These are Hipparcos, 1989 which between missionspean-led round intheir dozen. phere of Venus; or Hayabusa the mission. which for drifted up to two days in the atmos planet; or Franco–Soviet the Vega balloons, vived for up to two hours on the surface of the Venus landers Venera 13and 14,which sur Not to include asingle mission from the issueI do take with book’s the subtly US- The authors do point out that space Impey and Henry do include two Euro tarnishes what is otherwise an an whatotherwise is tarnishes is directoris of science at ■ Dreams of ------

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