Graeme Neill, The Bookseller's news editor reviews this app for FutureBook: One of Faber's first standalone's app is a surprising one. Instead of using its excellent literary backlist or perhaps something quirky based on QI or Harry Hill, it chose a look at the Solar System. Marcus Chown's the Solar System is an in-depth look at our immediate surroundings. The title screen features everything in the solar system from the Sun and Saturn to lesser known elements like Iapetus (one of Saturn's moons) to the Oort Cloud - a giant swarm of cometary nuclei that surrounds the solar system (what? You didn't know that already).

Tapping each element takes you to an in-depth look at it. It makes for fascinating but slightly challenging reading. The Earth page discusses the Milankovitch cycle or the variations in the Earth's orbit and axial tilt that has occasionally plunged it into an Ice Age. Thankfully, any of the more demanding terms are bolded and can be tapped to give a further explanation. Each orbital body also has a gallery of gorgeous images.

One great feature of the app is an animated solar system that you can zoom in and out of. By tapping on each planet or moon, you can bring up its profile page.

The app also features a video of the solar system's greatest features. Sadly it isn't soundtracked by Star Trekkin' by The Firm (or more sensibly, Gustav Holst's The Planets) but its plaintive horns are rather galactically appropriate. I'm hoping each Faber app is as ambitious as this.

If you'd like to learn more about the development of the Solar System app from Marcus Chown, click here.

The Solar System app was produced in development with Touch Press and is available on iTunes here.