It is indeed an extremely useful book. It contains everything that is needed for the one en vogue back of the envelope calculations and much more. Lodders and Fegley have compiled a remarkable combination of data relevant to all aspects of planetology in a handy booklet. The real value of the book is the supporting literature documentation of all numbers listed. I recommend this book without any reservations. -- Herbert Palme, Meteoritics & Planetary Science, Vol 35, 2000 The Planetary Scientist's Companion is a concise reference book that will be helpful to students and researchers in planetary sciences and related areas. Even the rapid change in knowledge of our planetary system and the fast increase of available data will not outdate this book in the near future. I recommend this compilation to all persons working in the broad field of planetology. Also those teaching in Earth and planetary sciences will appreciate having The Planetary Scientist's Companion available on their bookshelf. -- Ludolf Schultz This book is incredibly comprehensive and well-organized. It is jam-packed with mostly tabular data from a wide variety of well-documented and relatively up-to-date sources, including classic research and review papers and disparate reference sources. While unusual for a reference book, The Planetary Scientist's Companion actually lends itself to casual reading, which is perhaps fitting for what the authors describe as a 'data journey' through the solar system and beyond. This is a succinct and handy reference book that will be of use to most students and teachers. --EOS, June 15, 1999 This book has been written for the 'friend of planetary sciences' who might be in need of some physical or chemical data to do a quick calculation or otherwise need some facts and figures. The 17 chapters start with basic technical data and proceed to cover all of the bodies in our solar system--the sun, the planets and their satellites, the asteroids, the comets, and also meteorites. Data for these bodies includes size, shape, composition, atmosphere, and orbital information. There is also a brief chapter, 'Beyond the Solar System' (nearby stars, brown dwarfs, and extrasolar planets), as well as a glossary.--Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Lodders and Fegley's modest volume is chock-full of information, a rich handbook for the Solar System. The first 100 pages are devoted to general geometric, chemical, and physical ideas, and data that will be useful later. The bulk of the handbook is a body-by-body description with data relating to the planets, their satellites and rings, asteroids, Centaur and Kuiper belt objects, comets meteorites, stars in the solar vicinity, and substellar objects. . . . The organization and the index are quite well done, and finding specific information is not difficult; the text is rich with a large number of helpful figures and graphs. There is a nice glossary that is extensive and should be useful. It should be a handy book for any physics department teaching an astronomy course, and especially for students or faculty when using telescopes for observation of nearby objects. As a convenient reference, it belongs in any good college library.--Choice [P]rovides important physical, chemical, and astronomical information that will be of interest to researchers and students in the fields of planetary science, geochemistry, and cosmochemistry. The book is compact, yet filled with easy-to-find tabular data and descriptive information on our solar system's planets and moons, the sun, and other objects such as asteroids and comets. There are also chapters on meteorites . . . and the newly discovered planets outside our solar system. . . . The authors state in the book's preface that they have not intended to create a work to replace textbooks on planetary science or cosmochemistry, but to provide a handy reference tool that brings together information that is widely scattered in scientific journals and books. They have achieved this objective. . . . [R]ecommended for all academic libraries supporting planetary astronomy or geochemistry course offerings and larger public library reference collections.--E-STREAMS It is indeed an extremely useful book. It contains everything that is needed for the one en vogue back of the envelope calculations and much more. Lodders and Fegley have compiled a remarkable combination of data relevant to all aspects of planetology in a handy booklet. The real value of the book is the supporting literature documentation of all numbers listed. I recommend this book without any reservations. -- Herbert Palme, Meteoritics & Planetary Science, Vol 35, 2000 The Planetary Scientist's Companion is a concise reference book that will be helpful to students and researchers in planetary sciences and related areas. Even the rapid change in knowledge of our planetary system and the fast increase of available data will not outdate this book in the near future. I recommend this compilation to all persons working in the broad field of planetology. Also those teaching in Earth and planetary sciences will appreciate having The Planetary Scientist's Companion available on their bookshelf. -- Ludolf Schultz This book is incredibly comprehensive and well-organized. It is jam-packed with mostly tabular data from a wide variety of well-documented and relatively up-to-date sources, including classic research and review papers and disparate reference sources. While unusual for a reference book, The Planetary Scientist's Companion actually lends itself to casual reading, which is perhaps fitting for what the authors describe as a 'data journey' through the solar system and beyond. This is a succinct and handy reference book that will be of use to most students and teachers. --EOS, June 15, 1999 The Planetary Scientist's Companion is a succinct and handy reference that will be useful to those in the geophysical community looking for a foothold into planetary science or for an interesting compact survey of the present understanding of planetary phenomena.--The Leading Edge
