Michael Benson has spent years compiling images collected by the unmanned probes that NASA has been sending into space to explore the solar system since the 1960s. The resulting book consists of two parts: the first is a visual tour of the solar system; and the second is a series of essays that explain the how and why of these photographs - the history of the journeys of the probes, how they work and why they were built. The volume has a foreword by Sir Arthur C. Clarke and an afterword by Lawrence Weschler.