![]() |
![]() |
Your cart is empty |
||
Books > Science & Mathematics > Astronomy, space & time
This book, in three parts, describes three phases in the development of the modern theory and calculation of the Moon's motion. Part I explains the crisis in lunar theory in the 1870s that led G.W. Hill to lay a new foundation for an analytic solution, a preliminary orbit he called the "variational curve." Part II is devoted to E.W. Brown's completion of the new theory as a series of successive perturbations of Hill's variational curve. Part III describes the revolutionary developments in time-measurement and the determination of Earth-Moon and Earth-planet distances that led to the replacement of the Hill Brown theory in 1984.
Since 1967, the main scientific events of the General Assemblies of the International Astronomical Union have been published in the separate series, Highlights of Astronomy. The present Volume 11 presents the major scientific presentations made at the XXIIIrd General Assembly, August 18-30, 1997, in Kyoto, Japan. The two volumes (11A+B) contain the texts of the three Invited Discourses as well as the proceedings or extended summaries of the 21 Joint Discussions and two Special Sessions held during the General Assembly.
Leo Goldberg Kitt Peak National Observatory Tucson, Arizona 85726, U. S. A. Of all the reasons for exploring the Universe, none is more com pelling than the possibility of discovering intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. Still the quest for extraterrestrial life has been near the bottom of the astronomers' list of priorities, not because the number of extraterrestrial civilizations is conjectured to be van ishingly small, but because our powers of detection were thought to be far too weak. About ten years ago, however, the growing reach of ra dio telescopes on the ground and of optical and infrared telescopes in space persuaded a number of thoughtful astronomers that the time for a more serious search had arrived. Accordingly, a joint Soviet-American conference on the problems of Communication with Extraterrestrial In telligence was convened at the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory of the Armenian Academy of Sciences during September 5-11, 1971 and was soon followed by a number of other important meetings, notably a series of NASA-sponsored workshops in the USA held between January, 1975 and May, 1976. Since SETI is fundamentally an international undertaking and as tronomical methods and techniques are required for its pursuit, it is natural for the International Astronomical Union to lend its support by sponsoring conferences and otherwise facilitating cooperation among countries. The active involvement of the I. A. U."
Stellar mass loss is an essential part of the cycling of material from the interstellar medium into stars and back, and must be understood if we are to model processes on galactic to cosmological scales. The study of stellar winds and the effects of stellar mass loss has reached a particularly exciting stage where observational capabilities are increasingly able to provide interesting constraints on models and theories. Recent resu1ts from theoretical and observational work for both hot and cool stars with substantial winds have led to the suggestion that a combination of pulsation with other mechanisms makes for particularly efficient mass loss from stars. This provided the original motivation for the organization of this workshop. The conference was organized along relatively conventional lines according to the types of objects being scrutinized. However the true unity of the proceedings comes from the interplay of the mechanisms involved. For example, for the cool, luminous Mira variables, pulsation leads to shock waves that extend the atmosphere, enhancing dust formation; radiation pressure on dust drives the wind, cooling the atmosphere and in some cases suppressing the shocks. Similarly for the Be stars, both pulsation (in this case, non-radial) and radiation pressure (due to UV resonance lines) are expected to be important, and this expectation is at least qualitatively borne out by the observations.
Stars are born and die in clouds of gas and dust, opaque to most types of radiation, but transparent in the infrared. Requiring complex detectors, space missions and cooled telescopes, infrared astronomy is the last branch of this discipline to come of age. After a very successful sky survey performed in the eighties by the IRAS satellite, the Infrared Space Observatory, in the nineties, brought spectacular advances in the understanding of the processes giving rise to powerful infrared emission by a great variety of celestial sources. Outstanding results have been obtained on the bright comet Hale-Bopp, and in particular of its water spectrum, as well as on the formation, chemistry and dynamics of planetary objects in the solar system. Ideas on the early stages of stellar formation and on the stellar initial mass function have been clarified. ISO is the first facility in space able to provide a systematic diagnosis of the physical phenomena and the chemistry in the close environment of pre-main sequence stars, in the interstellar medium, and in the final stages of stellar life, using, among other indicators, molecular hydrogen, ubiquitous crystalline silicates, water and ices. ISO has dramatically increased our ability to investigate the power production, excitation and fuelling mechanism of galaxies of every type, and has discovered a new very cold dust component in galaxies. ISO has demonstrated that luminous infrared galaxies were brighter and much more numerous in the past, and that they played a dominant role in shaping present day galaxies and in producing the cosmic infrared background.
The first comprehensive monograph on this active and productive field of research investigates solar-type activity amongst the large spectrum of low- and middle-mass main sequence stars, and presents the subject in a systematic and comprehensive fashion.
JAXA 's Kaguya mission was successfully launched to the Moon on September 14, 2007 reaching its nominal 100 km circular orbit on October 19 after releasing two subsatellites Okina and Ouna in elliptical orbits with perilunes of 100 km and apolunes of 2400 and 800 km respectively. Observations were obtained for 10 months during the nominal mission beginning in mid-December 2007 followed by 8 month extended mission where data were obtained in lower orbits. The articles in this book were written by experts in each of the scientific areas of the Kaguya mission, and describe both the mission and the individual scientific investigations, including their objectives, the specifications of the instruments, their calibrations and initial results. This book is essential reading to all potential users of the Kaguya data and those interested in the scientific results of the mission, the properties of the lunar surface and crust and planetary exploration in general.
Jan H. Dort's work Ad: r>iaan Blaauw Meritus Emeritus Harry van der Laan 21 Jan Hendrik Dort and Dutch astronomy H. G. van Bueren 31 Dort's scientific importance on a world-wide scale Bengt Stromgren 39 Gart and international co-operation in astronomy D. H. Sadler 45 Reminiscences of the early nineteen-twenties Peter Van de Kamp 51 The first five years of Jan Dort at Leiden, Bart J. Bok 1924-1929 55 Early galactic structure Per Olof Lindblad 59 Early galactic radio astronomy at Kootwijk C. A. Muller 65 W. N. Christiansen Dort and his large radiotelescope 71 Ten years of discovery with Dort's Synthesis Radio Telescope R. J. Allen and R. D. Ekers 79 Gort's work on comets Maarten Schmidt 111 The evolution of ideas on the Crab Nebula L. WoUjer 117 Gort's work reflected in current studies of galactic CO W. B. Burton 123 On high-energy astrophysics V. L. Ginzburg 129 Dort and extragalactic astronomy Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge 141 Birthday wishes John A. and Janette Wheeler 151 The Earth and the Universe Abraham H. Oort 153 The challenge of Jan Dort J. H. Bannier 157 Jan Dort at the telescope Fjeda Walraven 161 Gart Westerhout Personal recollections 163 Style of research Henk van de Hulst 165 Manuscript Jan H.
Proceedings of the 116th Symposium of the International Astronomical Union, held at Porto Heli, Greece, May 26-31, 1985
The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope is set to become the largest telescope on Earth, and also the largest science project in Africa. From September 2011 to August 2012, the SKA featured regularly in the South African media. In The Stars in Our Eyes, author Michael Gastrow dissects the representation of the SKA in the South African media in the period under discussion. Who were the main actors in this unfolding narrative? Who held the stage and who were marginalised? Where did gatekeeping occur and why? What was the relationship between journalists and scientists? How did the story unfold in the social media as opposed to the print media? Drawing on mass communication theory and science communication theory, The Stars in Our Eyes: Representations of the Square kilometre Array Telescope in the South African Media addresses critical gaps in the literature on science communication, particularly with respect to science communication in an African context.
"If simple perfect laws uniquely rule the universe, should not pure thought be capable of uncovering this perfect set of laws without having to lean on the crutches of tediously assembled observations? True, the laws to be discovered may be perfect, but the human brain is not. Left on its own, it is prone to stray, as many past examples sadly prove. In fact, we have missed few chances to err until new data freshly gleaned from nature set us right again for the next steps. Thus pillars rather than crutches are the observations on which we base our theories; and for the theory of stellar evolution these pillars must be there before we can get far on the right track. " These words written by Martin Schwarzschi1d in his famous book en titled "Structure and Evolution of the Stars"(1958) remind us how necessary and fruitful is the interplay of stellar evolution theory and observations. Clearly, observations are the great censor by their possibility of confirming or contradicting theoretical constructions. In addition, they have a driving role: new and sometimes unexpected facts may give rise to progressive ideas and stimulate further theoretical developments. In turn, theory, in its major role of sifting out and placing the facts in a logical sequence based on physical laws, must also be predictive and indicate new and pertinent observations to be undertaken."
Minor bodies in the Solar System, though representing only a small fraction of the mass in the Solar System, may well play a fundamental role in terrestrial evolution. This book contains investigations of the dynamics and physics of comets, asteroids and meteor streams, and the rather controversial topic of periodic phenomena in the Solar System as signified by geological records, together with several associated developments in celestial dynamics. All these problems are interwoven. This book makes a contribution towards unravelling the nature of the interactions between the Earth and its celestial environment.
The history of the development of Euclidean, non-Euclidean, and relativistic ideas of the shape of the universe, is presented in this lively account by Jeremy Gray. The parallel postulate of Euclidean geometry occupies a unique position in the history of mathematics. In this book, Jeremy Gray reviews the failure of classical attempts to prove the postulate and then proceeds to show how the work of Gauss, Lobachevskii, and Bolyai, laid the foundations of modern differential geometry, by constructing geometries in which the parallel postulate fails. These investigations in turn enabled the formulation of Einstein's theories of special and general relativity, which today form the basis of our conception of the universe. The author has made every attempt to keep the pre-requisites to a bare minimum. This immensely readable account, contains historical and mathematical material which make it suitable for undergraduate students in the history of science and mathematics. For the second edition, the author has taken the opportunity to update much of the material, and to add a chapter on the emerging story of the Arabic contribution to this fascinating aspect of the history of mathematics.
This thesis by Cole Johnston brings novel insights into the inner workings of young massive stars. By bridging the observational fields of binary stars and asteroseismology this thesis uses state of the art statistical techniques to scrutinise theories of modern stellar astrophysics. Developing upon the commonly used isochrone fitting methodology, the author introduces the idea of isochrone cloud fitting in order to account for the full breadth of physics observed in stars. The author combines this methodology with gravity mode asteroseismic analysis to asses the level of chemical mixing deep within the stellar core in order to determine the star's age and core mass. Wrapped into a robust statistical framework to account for correlations, this methodology is employed to analyse individual stars, multiple systems, and clusters alike to demonstrate that chemical mixing has dramatic impact on stellar structure and evolution.
If standard gravitational theory is correct, then most of the matter in the universe is in an unidentified form which does not emit enough light to have been detected by current instrumentation. This proceedings was devoted to a discussion of the so-called "missing matter" problem in the universe. The goal of the School was to make current research work on unseen matter accessible to students of faculties without prior experience in this area. Due to the pedagogical nature of the School and the strong interactions between students and the lectures, the written lectures included in this volume often contain techniques and explanations not found in more formal journal publications.
Comets are always very impressive phenomena. Their appearances at regular, but mostly irregular, times excite people who see them. Astronomers have the obvious advantage of being able to see more of comets, and to study them. Their enthusiasm is reflected in the 50 papers in this book, written by more than 90 experts. The reviews in this book clearly describe a landmark in the history of cometary studies. Knowledge gathered up to and including Comet Halley are presented in two volumes. The first volume is about general aspects of observing and studying comets, where they originate and how their evolution develops. The second volume goes into the details of what a comet is: the nucleus, the coma, cometary dust, plasmas and magnetic fields. The book ends with a reflection by Fred Whipple about Comets in the Post-Halley Era. The book discusses all aspects of comets and is therefore suitable for use in graduate level courses. All astronomers and geophysicists interested in comets will find very useful and well-presented information in this book.
Analyses of photometric time series obtained from the MOST, CoRoT and Kepler space missions were presented at the 20th conference on Stellar Pulsations (Granada, September 2011). These results are leading to a re-appraisal of our views on stellar pulsation in some stars and posing some new and unexpected challenges. The very important and exciting role played by innovative ground-based observational techniques, such as interferometric measurements of giant pulsating stars and high-resolution spectroscopy in the near infrared, is also discussed. These Proceedings are distinguished by the format of the conference, which brings together a variety of related but different topics not found in other meetings of this nature.
The open cluster NGC 6791 is now considered both the oldest and the most metal-rich known. Its age is 8 -10 Gyrs, twice as old as the canonical solar-metallicity cluster M67 (Garnavich et al. 1994; Demarque, Green, & Guenther 1992; Tripicco et al. 1995). That its metallicity is significantly above solar is suggested from moderate-resolution spectroscopy and from a mismatch of its color-magnitude diagram (CMD) with solar-metallicity isochrones. Tripicco et al. (1995) find [Fe/H] = +0.27 to +0.44. The cluster population is rich. In addition to about a dozen red giants and two dozen red horizontal-branch stars, the cluster has several very hot HB stars (Kaluzny & Udalski 1992). Liebert et al. (1994) have shown that the extremely blue stars are mostly sdB/sdO stars and at least 3 or 4 are likely cluster members, the first ever discovered in an open cluster. These may provide the key to the puzzling upturn in ultraviolet flux below 1500A seen in many high-metallicity systems (Burstein et al. 1988; Ferguson et al. & Liebert 1993).
Symposium No. 73 of the International Astronomical Union was devoted to the obser vational and theoretical aspects of close binary stars. Just over 100 participants attended. The Local Organizing Committee would like to thank the following: IAU for travel grants. IBM United Kingdom Ltd for very generous support in the form of travel grants. The Royal Society for the provision of travel grants to participants from Eastern Europe. We also thank the Director of the Institute of Astronomy, and our colleagues and research students for their moral support and assistance. Finally we thank Pauline Haughey for assisting with the editorial work. PETER EGGLETON SIMON MITTON JOHN WHELAN SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZING COMMITTEE M. Plavec (Chairman), T. Herczeg, E. P. J. van den Heuvel, J. B. Hutchings, G. Larsson-Leander, L. B. Lucy, L. Mestel, B. Paczynski, J. Sahade, B. Warner, R. E. Wilson. LOCAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE J. A. J. Whelan (Chairman), P. P. Eggleton, S. A. Mitton LIST OF PARTICIPANTS Baldwin, B. W., Victoria, Canada Icke, V., Cambridge, England Bateson, F. M., Tauranga, New Zealand Koumsiachvilli, M., Moscow, U.S.S.R Bath, G. T., Oxford, England Krzeminski, W. A., Warsaw, Poland Batten, A. H., Victoria, Canada Larsson-Leander, G., Lund, Sweden Berthier, E. J., Paris, France Leung, K.-C., Nebraska, U.S.A."
This is the first scholarly collection of articles focused on the cultural astronomy of the African continent. It weaves together astronomy, anthropology, and Africa and it includes African myths and legends about the sky, alignments to celestial bodies found at archaeological sites and at places of worship, rock art with celestial imagery, and scientific thinking revealed in local astronomy traditions including ethnomathematics and the creation of calendars.
This book is the fourth volume under the title Organizations and
Strategies in Astronomy (OSA). These OSA Books are intended to
cover a large range of fields and themes. In practice, one could
say that all aspects of astronomy-related life and environment are
considered in the spirit of sharing specific expertise and lessons
learned.
"Astrochemistry and Astrobiology" is the debut volume in the new series "Physical Chemistry in Action." Aimed at both the novice and experienced researcher, this volume outlines the physico-chemical principles which underpin our attempts to understand astrochemistry and predict astrobiology. An introductory chapter includes fundamental aspects of physical chemistry required for understanding the field. Eight further chapters address specific topics, encompassing basic theory and models, up-to-date research and an outlook on future work. The last chapter examines each of the topics again but addressed from a different angle. Written and edited by international experts, this text is accessible for those entering the field of astrochemistry and astrobiology, while it still remains interesting for more experienced researchers.
In recent years aperture synthesis and interferometry have become very powerful tools in radioastronomy. Investigation of distant galaxies, for example, have revealed structures with sizes of less than a kiloparsec. In general, the study of galaxies has benefited from the great power of these techniques. Radar applications have also dramatically increased their quality by using the interferometry principle. Tracking and airborne radar can now determine position and velocity of objects with a much higher accuracy. This book describes in the first six, short chapters the basics of interferometry and aperture synthesis. The following two, long chapters treat the aspects of radioastronomical interferometers and radar applications of interferometry in great detail. The text offers readers a very good opportunity to familiarize themselves with the mathematical background of these very complex techniques. For researchers and students in radioastronomy and electrical engineering.
Present and Future of Nuclear Physics; Introductory Lecture. Cluster Decay, Fission and Fusion: Cluster Radioactivity; P.B. Price. Recent Advances in Cluster Radioactivities; D.N. Poenaru, W. Greiner. Heavy Elements: Multinucleon Transfer Reactions-An Alternative Path to Heavy Element Synthesis; M.T. Magda. Microscopic and Semi-microscopic Approach to the Properties of Transactinide Nuclei; L. Bitaud, et al. Nuclear Structure: On the Origin of Rotations and Vibrations in Atomic Nuclei; J.P. Draayer, et al. Particle-rotor Model Description of Deformed Nuclei; A. Covello, et al. Weak Interaction and Double Beta Decay: Nuclear Aspects of Double Beta Decay; S. Stoica. A New Look to the Nuclear Structure Calculations of the PNC Cases in A=1821 Nuclei; M. Horoi. Nuclear Astrophysics: Recent Topics from Nuclear Reactions in the Energies Ranging from keV to GeV; K. Kubo. Heavy Ion Collisions: Processes in Peripheral Ultrarelativistic Heavy Ion Collisions; M. Greiner, et al. Miscellaneous Topics: Gamma and Meson Production by Cherenkovlike Effects in Nuclear Media; W. Stocker, D.B. Ion. 58 additional articles. Index. |
![]() ![]() You may like...
Teaching Science - Foundation To Senior…
Robyn Gregson, Marie Botha
Paperback
R610
Discovery Miles 6 100
Enhancing Learning and Teaching Through…
Chenicheri Sid Nair, Patricie Mertova
Paperback
R1,537
Discovery Miles 15 370
Research Anthology on Architectures…
Information R Management Association
Hardcover
R13,709
Discovery Miles 137 090
Water, Land, and Forest Susceptibility…
Uday Chatterjee, Biswajeet Pradhan, …
Paperback
R3,135
Discovery Miles 31 350
Contributions to International…
Alojz Kopacik, Peter Kyrinovic, …
Hardcover
R1,563
Discovery Miles 15 630
Achievement Teams - How a Better…
Steve Ventura, Michelle Ventura
Paperback
Co-Teaching Do's, Don'ts, and Do Betters
Toby J Karten, Wendy W. Murawski
Paperback
|