titan reviewed

My review of the book "Titan unveiled" has just appeared in Chemistry & Industry, issue 6, p. 30.

Here's a snippet:

"The story of Titan exploration clearly deserves to be told in a popular science book (or even in several books), and Cassini veteran Ralph Lorenz and astronomy writer Jacqueline Mitton have had a good go at telling it from the very beginning to the mid-point of the primary mission, which is June 2006. The chronological account is lightened up by “blog entries” giving Lorenz’s experience at the research front line first hand. The most memorable of these describes how, in 2005, he retrieves a computer program he wrote for the Huygens landing some time in the early 90s. As he goes through the motions of firing up a half-dead PC, we realise just how much time it takes to get a mission to the Saturnian system. "

Which reminds me it will be decades before any further visit to Titan may take place. What a shame.

Titan Unveiled by Ralph Lorenz and Jacqueline Mitton
Princeton University Press 2008
ISBN 978-0-691-12587-9
$ 29.95