Rain Of Iron And Ice: The Very Real Threat Of Comet And Asteroid Bombardment (Helix Books) - Softcover

John S. Lewis, author of Rain of Iron and Ice, is professor of planetary sciences and codirector of the Space Engineering Research Center at the University of Arizona-Tucson. He has chaired international conferences on space resources and is a globally recognized expert on the subject.

News flash: After 200 years of touting the uniformity principle, scientists have discovered catastrophism. Of course, there has always been evidence of destruction coming from the heavens: The Book of Revelations, Charles Fort, medieval astrologers, Christian Millenialists, and Immanuel Velikovsky have all insisted upon it. But now, after centuries of debunking such theories, science proclaims its official dictum: cataclysm is possible, indeed probable. Rain of Iron and Ice traces the history of religious and scientific beliefs about meteorite falls, cometary eruptions, and asteroid near-misses and reviews eschatology (the literature of such catastrophes). Lewis, a noted planetary scientist and impact crater expert and author of Space Resources (LJ, 9/15/87), follows the fascinating study of bombardment on the Earth, Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars. He outlines the results of computer simulations and the implications for the future of life on Earth, offering suggestions as to "what we can do about it." Lewis does a fairly thorough job of reviling experts for scoffing at superstition and ignoring the vast quantities of eyewitness reports, but he stays within the bounds of establishment science (there are no footnotes to Velikovsky). Following Duncan Steel's more lay oriented Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets (LJ 5/1/95), this scholarly history is suitable for academic libraries and informed science readers in public libraries.?Valerie Vaughan, Hatfield P.L., Mass.
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