LITMIR.BIZ

      Preface

       Thérèse ENCRENAZ1 and James LEQUEUX2

      ¹ LESIA, Paris Observatory, PSL University, Paris, France

      ² LERMA, Paris Observatory, PSL University, Paris, France

      The aim of this book is to present a global and synthetic vision of planetology to the reader, in other words, the study of the objects of the Solar System. This is an ambitious objective, because planetology has undergone considerable development over the last decades and, today, it presents interfaces with multiple disciplines. In our approach, we have chosen to prioritize the study of physico-chemical processes, in order to shed light on the mechanisms that are at the origin of the formation of the objects of the Solar System, or that are responsible for their evolution.

This work is a continuation of the book Le Système solaire (T. Encrenaz, J.-P. Bibring, M. Blanc, M.-A. Barucci, F. Roques, P. Zarka), published in 2003 by EDP-Sciences and CNRS Editions, in the “Savoirs Actuels” collection. This work was itself the third edition of Le Système solaire (T. Encrenaz, J.-P. Bibring, M. Blanc), first published in 1987 in co-edition with InterEditions and CNRS Editions. More than 30 years after this first edition, a complete revision of the work was essential: during this period, planetology has undergone several revolutions. The first ones, both realized thanks to ground-based telescopes, were the discovery of the first trans-Neptunian objects other than Pluto in 1992, and then, in 1995, the discovery of the first extrasolar planets around solar-type stars. The 1990, 2000 and 2010 decades saw the deep exploration of the planets Jupiter and Saturn and their system, with the Galileo and Cassini space missions. The beginning of the 21st century saw the resumption of the Mars exploration program with the launch of numerous probes, both in orbit and on the surface of the planet. Venus and Mercury were also visited by space probes,

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