The Evening Star: Venus Observed

Of all the planets in the solar system, none has captivated the imagination of man more than Venus. As early as 3100 B.C., Venus was identified with the goddess of love, and until the 1960s it was believed that it might actually harbor life. Edgar Rice Burroughs populated Venus with a beautiful princess, a cast of dastardly villains, and of course a dashing hero. But the science of Venus has only recently been understood and it tells a very different story - of a planet with a surface temperature of 900(degree) Fahrenheit, a surface pressure ninety times that of Earth's at sea level, and a carbon dioxide atmosphere that is the prototype for all our fears of the greenhouse effect. In The Evening Star, Henry S.F. Cooper, Jr., veteran science and space reporter for The New Yorker, tracks the Magellan spacecraft that has been mapping Venus from orbit since August 1980. In eloquent, vivid prose, Cooper introduces us to the engineers who have nursed the spacecraft's fragile electronics and the scientists who have used the spacecraft's data to assemble a picture of this strange new world. In size, density, and composition, Venus is almost identical to Earth, yet its nature and history turn out to be as different as close relatives frequently can be. Why did Venus develop a hot, heavy atmosphere, while Earth did not? Why did Venus take one evolutionary pathway and Earth another? As the scientists wrestle with these and other questions, the engineers play tricks on the spacecraft's balky computer to keep the scientists supplied with the data they need. With a keen eye for irony and a knack for making the most sophisticated technology eminently accessible, Cooper highlights the continuedimportance of NASA space missions and the tenuous politics of their administration. An evocative narrative of the people who do science and of the challenges that confront them, The Evening Star is an illuminating portrait not only of Venus's character but of Earth's as well, and of the place of the two siblings in the family of planets.