The Solar System

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii

Over the years we have had the guidance of a great many people
who care about astronomy and teaching. We would like to thank
all of the students and teachers who have contributed their
insights and suggestions. Th eir comments have been very helpful
in shaping this book.
We would especially like to thank the reviewers whose care-
ful analysis and thoughtful suggestions have been invaluable in
completing this new edition.
Many observatories, research institutes, laboratories, and
individual astronomers have supplied fi gures and diagrams for
this edition. Th ey are listed next to each fi gure, and we would
like to thank them specifi cally for their generosity.
Special thanks go to Kathryn Coolidge, who has reviewed
chapters word by word and been a tremendous help with issues
of organization, presentation, and writing. Jamie Backman also
has been a careful reader, contributing many insights to the way
the contents of the book should be organized and presented.
We are happy to acknowledge the use of images and data
from a number of important programs. In preparing materials for
this book we used NASA’s Sky View facility located at NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center. We have used atlas images and
mosaics obtained as part of the Two Micron All Sky Survey
(2MASS), a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and
the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of
Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space

Administration and the National Science Foundation. A number

of solar images are used by the courtesy of the SOHO consortium,

a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

It is always a pleasure to work with the Cengage Learning

team. Special thanks go to all of the people who have contributed

to this project including Jill Clark, Cate Barr, Nicole Mollica,

Belinda Krohmer, and Rebecca Berardy Schwartz.

We have enjoyed working on production with Margaret

Pinette of Heckman & Pinette, and we appreciate her under-

standing and goodwill. We would especially like to thank editors

Kilean Kennedy and Teri Hyde for their help and guidance

throughout this project.

Most of all, we would like to thank our families for putting

up with “the books.” Th ey know all too well that textbooks are

made of time.

Mike Seeds

Dana Backman

Reviewers

Romeel Dave, University of Arizona

C. Renee James, Sam Houston State University

Dan Lester, University of Texas

Mark Showalter, SETI Institute

Gerald Cecil, University of North Carolina

William Keel, University of Alabama

Alexander G. Tielens, Leiden Observatory

Acknowledgments