Summary

In the same manner Tyson drew the reader’s attention to the space between the galaxies earlier in the book, he dedicates this chapter to the cosmos between the planets, which contains “all manner of chunky rocks, pebbles, ice balls, dust, streams of charged particles, and far flung probes” as well as “monstrous gravitational and magnetic fields” (165). Tyson begins his analysis of interplanetary space at the top of this list with the chunky rocks called meteors. If it were not for the “protective blanket” of Earth’s upper atmosphere, mankind would feel the impact of “hundreds of tons of meteors per day” that Earth collides into along her orbital path (166). The most easily detectable remnant from one of Earth’s past collisions is the Moon, which “most likely burst forth from Earth’s iron-poor crust and mantle after glancing collision with a...