8 of the Most Extreme Places in the Solar System [Slide Show]

A new book highlights the most unique locations in the solar system, some of which are surprisingly close to home

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The universe is a mighty big place, but there is no shortage of amazement right here in our celestial neighborhood. From Venus's searing surface temperatures, hot enough to melt lead, to Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a storm that has been raging for hundreds of years, to the cryovolcanoes of the Saturnian moon Enceladus, the solar system boasts plenty of extreme locales.

That is the thrust of a new book, The 50 Most Extreme Places in Our Solar System (Harvard University Press), which serves as a kind of photo-illustrated guidebook for the planets—along with their accompanying moons and rings—that surround the sun. The book's authors, David Baker of Austin College and Todd Ratcliff of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, acknowledge that they use the term "places" loosely: Some of the 50 entries are specific events, such as the asteroid impact that killed off the dinosaurs on Earth, and some are long-term phenomena, such as plate tectonics.

For a glimpse at our planetary system at its most intense, exotic and unique, we have selected a small sampling of Baker and Ratcliff's most extreme places. Click here for a guided tour through the wonders of the solar system, from a backspinning moon of Neptune to a breathtaking astrological phenomenon right here on Earth.

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