The most distant planets in our solar system, Uranus and Neptune were unknown by the ancients – Uranus was discovered in the 1780s and Neptune only in the 1840s. Our first sighting and subsequent investigation of both planets have been hampered by their sheer distance from Earth: there has only been one close encounter, Voyager 2 in the late 1980s. The Voyager mission revealed many enticing details about the planets and their moons, but also left many more questions unanswered.
This book is an informative and accessible introduction to Uranus, Neptune and their moons. It takes readers on the extraordinary journey from the discovery of these celestial bodies to the most recent observations made from space- and ground-based telescopes.