Free kindle edition of "Ceres: Pluto's little sister" provided for a limited time

"Like the Lonely Mountain Erebor in J. R. R. Tolkien's mythology, Ahuna Mons on Ceres was once occupied by a dragon, but one that 'breathed' ice, not fire."
- Bill Steigerwald, Goddard Space Flight Center

The Lonely Mountain is unique on Ceres and, matter of fact, in the entire solar system. Unfortunately, it had not been treated yet in any book, that's why we have published one ourselves. Three members of the Astronomical Society Urania Wiesbaden have joined to compile what we know about this minor world - the latest article referenced was published five days before this book!

In our latest campaign, the English Kindle edition will be available for free from Friday, June 22, to Sunday, June 24. The large-format full-colour printed edition is available from Amazon, Createspace and related services.

The live video recording of our latest public lecture on Ceres (in German) is available here:

Celestial Police looking for clouds in Pluto's atmosphere

Evidence for Possible Clouds in Pluto's Present Day Atmosphere describes "a search for discrete could features in Pluto's atmosphere using New Horizons data obtained on 14-15 July 2015, during the Pluto flyby closest approach. We report that Pluto's present day atmosphere is at least largely (>99% by surface area) free of discrete clouds. We also report a handful of features that may plausibly be clouds, all of which were detected obliquely and at high phase observing geometry. No cloud candidates were identified away from the terminators or in low phase (backscattering geometry) images."