Planetfall: New Solar System Visions

Thanks to the photographic output of a small squadron of interplanetary spacecraft, a picture of the visual splendor and variety of the Solar System is emerging. Each of these spacecraft is following the traditions blazed by the great Earthbound explorers, but when its destination comes into view, we can no longer call that dramatic moment "landfall." Hence "Planetfall" (the moment of visual contact with the planets). Since then, probes built with more powerful cameras and greater maneuverability have looked deeper into the turbulent clouds and wheeling satellites of Jupiter; roamed the boulderstrewn red deserts of Mars; studied Saturn's immaculate rings; and chronicled vast upheavals erupting from the Sun itself.

And of course, they've shown us the surface of the ravishing Earth from space as well, a bluewhite orb with a disturbingly thin atmosphere, as it plunges deeper into ecological crisis. These new images are the subject of Benson's Planetfall, a truly revelatory photographic book that uses it's large page size to reproduce the greatest achievements in contemporary planetary photography as they have never been seen before.