Uranus and Neptune - Carolyn Kennett ****

This is the latest in the Kosmos series on the planets, previously including Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Like its predecessors, it is well illustrated, though the subjects themselves are rather less photographed than most planets, so we get more historical context photos - not a bad thing because the history is usually more interesting than pure facts about the planets.

In the Uranus section, for example, we read of the planet's origins, Herschel's discovery (including a photo of a reproduction of his telescope of the period, where we usually only see illustrations of the later, bigger telescopes), its naming and more. Similarly, with Neptune we get lots of interesting detail on the rather messy story of its discovery.

The bulk of the astronomical content inevitably comes from the probes that have given us far more detail about the planets and their moons. In each case there's a whole chapter, for example on Voyager 2's contribution, followed by what we've learned since. The whole thing is then pulled together by a short chapter on how to see the ice giants yourself - something most of us would probably think impossible.

Inevitably a book like this falls a little into Rutherford's 'stamp collecting' category - it's about the attempt to discover facts rather than much that has changed scientific theory. This is particularly the case when it comes to coverage of the planets' moons. Yet on the whole, Carolyn Kennett manages to make the subject approachable, in large part due to that historical context.

A useful addition that pretty much completes this attractive series (though really there ought to be an 'Earth' one too).

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Review by Brian Clegg - See all of Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly digest for free here

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