Mercury (Blastoff!)

Reviewed with Rebecca Stefoff's Pluto.Gr. 3-5. From the Blastoff series, these books discuss the discovery of the two planets, what is known about them now, and how astronomers hope to learn more. Pluto describes how the ninth planet, its moon Charon, and the Kuiper belt were located and why some scientists refuse to classify Pluto as a planet at all. Readers will learn about the mission to Pluto, Charon, and the Kuiper Belt that was authorized in 2001 but later canceled. The outlook for research seems brighter for Mercury, with a NASA space probe scheduled for 2004 and a joint mission by Europe and Japan planned for 2009. Mercury explains what researchers hope to learn from these projects and traces the long history of people observing the planet: from sky gazers in the ancient world to the Arecibo radio telescope in 1965 to the Mariner 10 space probe in 1974.