The 50 Most Extreme Places in Our Solar System is the title of a Popular Science book by David Baker, professor of physics at Austin College and Todd Ratcliff, a planetary geophysicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The book is divided into nine sections with a few chapters in each section. The divisions are roughly phenomenological.
Surface and Interior- Tallest Mountain – Olympus Mons- Coldest Volcano – Cryovolcanos- A Truly “Grand” Canyon – Valles Marineris- Movers and Shakers – Plate Tectonics- Ooh! That’ll Leave a Mark – Extreme Impact Craters
Oceans & Water & Ice, Oh My!- Deepest Ocean – Europa- Best Surf Spot – Earth- Biggest Ice Cubes – Saturn’s Icy Moons- Jekyll and Hyde of the Solar System – Dirty, Icy Comets- The Sky is Falling! – The Dry Ice Caps of Mars
Wild Wild Weather- Longest Lived Storm – Jupiter’s Great Red Spot- An Ill and Still Wind Bloweth – Hurricanes on Earth- Wildly Wicked Winds of Neptune- Best Vacuum Cleaner – Martian Dust Devils- The Hardest Rain – Diamond Hail on Uranus and Neptune
Extreme Climates- Biggest, Baddest Babies of Climate – El Niño and La Niña- But It’s a Dry Heat – Runaway Greenhouse of Venus- Dirtiest Climate Change – Global Dust Storms on Mars- Most Bizarre Seasons – Uranus- Snowballs in Hell – Mercury
Rings and Things- Those Lovely Rings – Saturn- Billions and Billions of Bodies – The Oort Cloud- When Comets Attack – Shoemaker-Levy 9- The Planet That Wasn’t – The Asteroid Belt- Earth Shattering Impact – Birth of Our Moon?
Electro Magneto Extremo- Super Twisted Magnet – Our Sun- Blowing a Bubble in Space – The Solar Wind- Biggest Plasma Screen – Jupiter’s Magnetosphere- Most Radical Electric Light Shows – Aurorae on Earth and Jupiter- Shocking Superbolts of Saturn
Life- Juuust Right! – Earth’s Abundant Life- Death from Above – The Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event- Life from Above – Alien Origins- Little Green. . .Microbes? – Possible Life on Mars- Life in the Dark – Earth & Europa?
The Wack Pack- Stinkiest Place – The Rotten Egg of Io- Best Fuel Depot – Titan- Problematic Planethood – Pluto- Most Retro – Venus & Triton- Most Misinterpreted “Artifact”– The Face on Mars- One-Eyed Monster and the Hex of Saturn- FrankenMoon – Miranda- As Sure as Sunrise? – Hyperion’s Chaotic Rotation- The Incredible Shrinking Planet – Mercury- A Perfect Fit – Solar Eclipses on Earth- Strangest Life Form – Humans
Sum of Extreme Parts- Supreme Sun- Giant Jupiter- Sexy Saturn- Extreme Earth
The book is currently available in two translations with a third in progress.
German Extreme OrteKorean Extreme SpaceJapanese .Awards and Reviews
Reviews have been positive including being awarded Honorable Mention in Cosmology and Astronomy in the 2010 PROSE Awards and named an Outstanding University Press Book for Public and Secondary School Libraries by the Association of American University Presses
Radio Interview with Krys Boyd on KERA.Radio Interview with Larry Mantle on KPCC.