Austin College Professor Takes Students on a Voyage to the Strangest, Smelliest, Hottest, Iciest, Deepest, Tallest, and Windiest Reaches of the Solar System

Online, August 30, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Sherman, Texas - Austin College, a leading national independent liberal arts college located north of Dallas, will host a book signing and interactive lecture for the release of "The 50 Most Extreme Places in Our Solar System" on Sept. 7. Co-authored by Austin College Physics Chairman Dr. David Baker, the book provides an intimate, smart, and eye-opening look at our corner of the galaxy, sure to fascinate anyone who has ever looked up at the sky and wondered what it is like out there.

Written by Baker and Todd Ratcliff, planetary geophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, "The 50 Most Extreme Places in Our Solar System" will be available at a 20 percent discount during a book signing and interactive lecture in the Austin College Hoxie-Thompson Auditorium from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 7. The book is published by Harvard University Press and available in bookstores and online Sept. 1 for $27.95.

"Todd and I discovered fascinating things when researching this book like lightning bolts on Earth are only the thickness of a banana, while superbolts produced during thunderstorms on Saturn may be as wide as the Eiffel tower," Baker said. "Writing this book restored our sense of wonder by reminding us just how strange, exotic, and beautiful our sun, its eight planets (sorry, Pluto), many planetoids, and rocky asteroid belt really are."

Generously illustrated with explanatory figures and NASA photographs, the book fuses the human fascination of extreme natural events with the captivating allure of outer space by reporting new scientific discoveries with dazzling images from NASA's most recent observations in a fresh, unique style.

"As recognized by recent Princeton Review rankings that rate Austin College faculty 14th for academic excellence, David Baker represents the level of esteemed professors at Austin College," said Dr. Marjorie Hass, president of Austin College. "We are proud of our brilliant professors like David who are passionate about sharing their work with students and making cutting-edge science a part of everyday studies at Austin College."

Written for a diverse age of readers, "The 50 Most Extreme Places in Our Solar System" will spark the interest of anyone amazed by nature's remarkable power, from high school and college students to amateur astronomers and meteorologists, by exploring extreme regions on Earth and beyond - giant turbulent storms, explosive volcanoes, and the possibility of life surviving in harsh conditions.

As a research scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Baker successfully launched high-tech weather balloons in the Marshall Islands. He is a recipient of multiple teaching awards and routinely leads adventure-oriented science courses to remote places in Patagonia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Australia, Peru, and the Galapagos. Austin College students have been known to camp overnight outside the administration building to enroll in these most extreme courses.

Baker and Ratcliff will conduct a book signing from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 17 at Borders in Allen, TX. Additional book signings will be April 2 and 3 in Washington, DC at the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Center and Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, respectively.

For more information and to purchase The 50 Most Extreme Places in Our Solar System, visit www.extremesolarsystem.com. For more information on Austin College, visit www.austincollege.edu.

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Media Contacts:

Allison Lowe, HCK2 Partners for Austin College
[email protected] or (972) 499-6631

Michael Strysick, Associate Vice President & Executive Director of College Relations [email protected] or (903) 813-2385

Vickie S. Kirby, Senior Director of Editorial Communication
[email protected] or (903) 813-2414