Challenges of Astronomy in a unique collection of thirty astronomy experiments ranging from ancient astronomy to cosmology. Each of the experiments contains one or more challenges for the reader. The progression is from the Earth outward through the solar system to the stellar and galactic realm. Topics include the shape of the sky, Stonehenge as a stoneage abacus, determination of the size of the Earth, the distance of the Moon and planets, Kepler's laws, planetary mass and density, the temperatures and atmospheres of planets, the speed of light, the distances of stars, the nature of the quiet and active Sun, photometry and spectroscopy, stars clusters and variable stars, fundamental properties of stars, and Olber's paradox.
Challenges of Astronomy is a translation and extensive revision of a German-language resource book for secondary school teachers of science. Physical science teachers will find this edition too a rich resource of experiments to their own milieus, but it is suitable for many other English-language readers too, from northern and southern hemisphere locations. The beginning experiments are suitable for bright high school and non-science major university students while the later experiments which offer increasingly difficult challenges are more suitable for sciences majors. Amateurs with a variety of skills will find this hands-on book entertaining, informative, and useful.

We are living in a golden age of astronomy and space exploration, with more discoveries about the universe every day. With so many possibilities now open to us, revered science writers Michael E. Bakich and David J. Eicher will take young readers on a journey to the throughout the universe in this latest edition of A Child's Introduction series. Perfect for budding explorers aged 8-12, Bakich and Eicher explore the history of space exploration from the very first rocket in China, to the moon landing, to the latest missions to Mars (and beyond). They also include profiles of noteworthy scientists, engineers, and astronauts including Isaac Newton, Neil Armstrong, Mae Carol Jemison; fun sections on space food, UFOs, a timeline of space suits, and how to go to the bathroom in space; and STEM experiments like how to build your own rocket and how to tell time using the sun. Packed with dozens of NASA photos and charming original illustrations, and a pull-out poster, this fascinating book reveals the wonders of space exploration-past, present and future!

Accretion disks are ubiquitous in our universe, and produce intense brightening. How does the gas in the disk lose its angular momentum to release massive amounts of gravitational energy? This is one of the biggest open questions in astronomy. This book studies four types of newly detected outbursts in dwarf novae through optical observations and/or numerical simulations and puts forward physical interpretations of these outbursts on the basis of the disk instability model, the most plausible model for dwarf-nova outbursts. It demonstrates that the disk-instability model can explain rich variety in dwarf-nova outbursts if some new aspects are taken into account (e.g. the extremely slow growth of tidal instability and thermal instability in the disk misaligned against the binary orbital plane). Moreover, it shares valuable insights on the evolution of binary systems by finding period bouncers and dwarf novae with F-type companion stars, which are rare objects.

A Telegraph Best Science Book of the Year "A witty yet in-depth exploration of the prospects for human habitation beyond Earth...Spacefarers is accessible, authoritative, and in the end, inspiring." -Richard Panek, author of The Trouble with Gravity It's been over fifty years since Apollo 11 landed on the moon. So why is there so little human presence in space? Will we ever reach Mars? And what will it take to become a multiplanet species? While many books have speculated on the possibility of living beyond the Earth, few have delved into the practical challenges. A wry and compelling take on the who, how, and why of near-future colonies in space, Spacefarers introduces us to the engineers, scientists, planners, dreamers, and entrepreneurs who are striving right now to make life in space a reality. While private companies such as SpaceX are taking the lead and earning profits from human space activity, Christopher Wanjek is convinced this is only the beginning. From bone-whittling microgravity to eye-popping profits, the risks and rewards of space settlement have never been so close at hand. He predicts we will have hotels in low-earth orbit, mining and tourism on the Moon, and science bases on Mars-possibly followed (gravity permitting) by full blown settlements. "Nerdily engaging (and often funny)...Technology and science fiction enthusiasts will find much here to delight them, as Wanjek goes into rich detail on rocketry and propulsion methods, including skyhooks and railguns to fling things into orbit...He is a sensible skeptic, yet also convinced that, in the long run, our destiny is among the stars." -The Guardian "If the events of this year have had you daydreaming about abandoning the planet entirely, [Spacefarers] is a geekily pleasurable survey of the practicalities and challenges." -The Telegraph "The best book I've read on space exploration since Isaac Asimov." -Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic

Research on extrasolar planets is one of the most exciting fields of activity in astrophysics. In a decade only, a huge step forward has been made from the early speculations on the existence of planets orbiting "other stars" to the first discoveries and to the characterization of extrasolar planets. This breakthrough is the result of a growing interest of a large community of researchers as well as the development of a wide range of new observational techniques and facilities.

Based on their lectures given at the 31st Saas-Fee Advanced Course, Andreas Quirrenbach, Tristan Guillot and Pat Cassen have written up up-to-date comprehensive lecture notes on the "Detection and Characterization of Extrasolar Planets," "Physics of Substellar Objects Interiors, Atmospheres, Evolution" and "Protostellar Disks and Planet Formation." This book will serve graduate students, lecturers and scientists entering the field of extrasolar planets as detailed and comprehensive introduction.

THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER One of TIME's Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Decade 'Captivating, fascinating, profoundly beautiful. . . Rovelli is a wonderfully humane, gentle and witty guide for he is as much philosopher and poet as he is a scientist' John Banville 'We are time. We are this space, this clearing opened by the traces of memory inside the connections between our neurons. We are memory. We are nostalgia. We are longing for a future that will not come' Time is a mystery that does not cease to puzzle us. Philosophers, artists and poets have long explored its meaning while scientists have found that its structure is different from the simple intuition we have of it. From Boltzmann to quantum theory, from Einstein to loop quantum gravity, our understanding of time has been undergoing radical transformations. Time flows at a different speed in different places, the past and the future differ far less than we might think, and the very notion of the present evaporates in the vast universe. With his extraordinary charm and sense of wonder, bringing together science, philosophy and art, Carlo Rovelli unravels this mystery. Enlightening and consoling, The Order of Time shows that to understand ourselves we need to reflect on time -- and to understand time we need to reflect on ourselves. Translated by Simon Carnell and Erica Segre

The hydrogen Lyman-alpha line is of utmost importance to many fields of astrophysics. This UV line being conveniently redshifted with distance to the visible and even near infrared wavelength ranges, it is observable from the ground, and provides the main observational window on the formation and evolution of high redshift galaxies. Absorbing systems that would otherwise go unnoticed are revealed through the Lyman-alpha forest, Lyman-limit, and damped Lyman-alpha systems, tracing the distribution of baryonic matter on large scales, and its chemical enrichment. We are living an exciting epoch with the advent of new instruments and facilities, on board of satellites and on the ground. Wide field and very sensitive integral field spectrographs are becoming available on the ground, such as MUSE at the ESO VLT. The giant E-ELT and TMT telescopes will foster a quantum leap in sensitivity and both spatial and spectroscopic resolution, to the point of being able, perhaps, to measure directly the acceleration of the Hubble flow. In space, the JWST will open new possibilities to study the Lyman-alpha emission of primordial galaxies in the near infrared. As long as the Hubble Space Telescope will remain available, the UV-restframe properties of nearby galaxies will be accessible to our knowledge. Therefore, this Saas-Fee course appears very timely and should meet the interest of many young researchers.

This book provides in-depth explanations of design theories and methods for remote sensing satellites, as well as their practical applications. There have been significant advances in spacecraft remote sensing technologies over the past decade. As the latest edition of the book "Space Science and Technology Research," it draws on the authors' vast engineering experience in system design for remote sensing satellites and offers a valuable guide for all researchers, engineers and students who are interested in this area. Chiefly focusing on mission requirements analyses and system design, it also highlights a range of system design methods.

The influence of Arabic-Islamic science on European astronomy is still evident in the number of terms and star names which derive from the Arabic. These articles examine what the Arabs - and other peoples of the Islamic world - knew about the fixed stars and the constellations, and the astrological traditions they associated with them. Professor Kunitzsch shows how the early folk astronomy of the Arabs was radically altered, without being swept away, by the discovery of ancient Greek, also Indian and Persian, sources; by far the most important of these was the Almagest of Ptolemy. This knowledge was then transmitted to medieval Europe, to Byzantium and, especially, to Spain, as the articles go on to describe, and was a vital factor in stimulating the development of scientific thought in the West.

This thesis describes advances in the understanding of HgCdTe detectors. While long wave (15 m) infrared detectors HgCdTe detectors have been developed for military use under high background irradiance, these arrays had not previously been developed for astronomical use where the background irradiance is a billion times smaller. The main pitfall in developing such arrays for astronomy is the pixel dark current which plagues long wave HgCdTe. The author details work on the success of shorter wavelength development at Teledyne Imaging Sensors, carefully modeling the dark current-reverse bias voltage curves of their 10 m devices at a temperature of 30K, as well as the dark current-temperature curves at several reverse biases, including 250 mV. By projecting first to 13 and then 15 m HgCdTe growth, values of fundamental properties of the material that would minimize tunneling dark currents were determined through careful modeling of the dark current-reverse bias voltage curves, as well as the dark current-temperature curves. This analysis was borne out in the 13 m parts produced by Teledyne, and then further honed to produce the necessary parameters for the 15 m growth. The resulting 13 m arrays are being considered by a number of ground-based astronomy research groups.

Time is fundamental to our experience, but remains mysterious. This book shows how philosophers and scientists have tried to grapple with this most extraordinary of ordinary phenomena. From the attempts of early astronomers to reconcile solar and lunar and terrestrial reckonings, to the huge expansions and contractions of time consciousness brought on by scientists as diverse as Newton, Darwin, and Einstein, this book shows how time is as much a matter of human choice as it is a matter of scientific precision.

The review papers in this volume provide an in-depth examination of complex astrophysical phenomena of star formation via multi-wavelength observations and modeling. Among the fundamental issues discussed in the book are: The role of gravity and magnetized turbulence in the formation and evolution of molecular clouds The stellar feedback (supernovae, HII regions, winds, cosmic rays) in regulating star formation The origin of the stellar initial mass function and its universality across various environments Jets, magnetic fields and high energy particles in stellar clusters The origin of the first stars and black holes The goal of these papers is to review the major processes governing star formation and to investigate how they are interlinked. In doing so, they provide an in-depth look at the tremendous theoretical and observational progress that has been made in the recent past and also outline future perspectives. Previously published in Space Science Reviews in the Topical Collection "Star Formation"

Astronomer, planetary scientist, astrophysicist, exobiologist, educator, public figure, skeptic--all these hats represent important parts of Carl Sagan's complex, multifaceted career. Perhaps best known as the host of the popular television series Cosmos, Sagan offered to the world his extraordinary gift for cross-disciplinary research, his deep well of integrated visions and fruitful ideas, his vivid imagination, and his wealth of nonstop enthusiasm.
This concise, lively biography examines Carl Sagan's steady growth as a man, as a scientist, and as a communicator--a man who had both odd quirks and great charisma, who had an immensely eclectic knowledge base and a unique understanding of the central place of science in the human experience, all of which dovetailed smoothly with his phenomenal ability to communicate.
Separate chapters are devoted to Sagan's interest in the origin of life, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), and his work on Cosmos, where he collaborated with Ann Druyan, whom he eventually married and who remained his wife to the end of his life. There are also sections on Sagan's public advocacy for science and critical stance toward pseudoscience and his role as an activist for the environment and the safe use of atomic power.
This updated, paperback edition of Carl Sagan: A Biography contains many new photos as well as textual additions by Ann Druyan. Veteran science writers Spangenburg and Moser have captured much of the enthusiasm, gift for effective communication, and unflinching honesty that characterized Carl Sagan's life and career.

This open access book on the history of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory covers the scientific discoveries and technical innovations of late 20th century radio astronomy with particular attention to the people and institutions involved. The authors have made extensive use of the NRAO Archives, which contain an unparalleled collection of documents pertaining to the history of radio astronomy, including the institutional records of NRAO as well as the personal papers of many of the pioneers of U.S. radio astronomy. Technical details and extensive citations to original sources are given in notes for the more technical readers, but are not required for an understanding of the body of the book. This book is intended for an audience ranging from interested lay readers to professional researchers studying the scientific, technical, political, and cultural development of a new science, and how it changed the course of 20th century astronomy.

Dieses Buch fasst die Entwicklungen der Physik in Forschung und Personal an der heutigen RWTH Aachen zusammen. Es wirft dabei Schlaglichter auf wichtige Akteure, beruhmte Forscher und wegweisende Experimente, die die physikalische Forschung an der Hochschule seit der Grundung vor 150 Jahren gepragt haben. In den Anfangsjahren der Hochschule, noch im 19. Jahrhundert, waren bedeutende Physiker, meist noch nicht auf der hoechsten Stufe der akademischen Sprossenleiter, fur einige Jahre dort tatig: Otto Lehmann, Erfinder der Flussigkristalle, die Nobelpreistrager Philipp Lenard und Wilhelm Wien. Das neue, zwanzigste Jahrhundert, sah Arnold Sommerfeld auf einem Lehrstuhl fur Mechanik in Aachen. Aus Mechanik wurde Stroemungslehre und Aerodynamik. Theodore von Karman war hier fur mehr als ein Jahrzehnt ein Meister der Flugphysik, Rolf Wideroee als Doktorand in Aachen Erfinder des Linearbeschleunigers und des Betatrons. Nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg facherte sich die Physik gewaltig auf. Festkoerperphysik, Teilchen- und Astroteilchenphysik pragen seitdem die Physik der Technischen Hochschule und werden hier mit ausgewahlten Vertretern und Gebieten dargestellt. Gerade in der Teilchenphysik profitiert die Darstellung von dem persoenlichen Miterleben und Mitwirken des Autors. So zeigt Dieter Rein wie die RWTH Aachen im Laufe der Jahre zu einer weltweit bedeutenden Einrichtung der Physik geworden ist.

This open access book provides a comprehensive toolbox of analysis techniques for ionospheric multi-satellite missions. The immediate need for this volume was motivated by the ongoing ESA Swarm satellite mission, but the tools that are described are general and can be used for any future ionospheric multi-satellite mission with comparable instrumentation. In addition to researching the immediate plasma environment and its coupling to other regions, such a mission aims to study the Earth's main magnetic field and its anomalies caused by core, mantle, or crustal sources. The parameters for carrying out this kind of work are examined in these chapters. Besides currents, electric fields, and plasma convection, these parameters include ionospheric conductance, Joule heating, neutral gas densities, and neutral winds.

This edited volume charts the history of celestial navigation over the course of five centuries. Written by a group of historians and scientists, it analyzes how competing navigation systems, technologies, and institutions emerged and developed, with a focus on the major players in the US and the UK. The history covers the founding of the Royal Observatory; the first printing of a Nautical Almanac; the founding of the US and UK Nautical Almanac Offices; the creation of international standards for reference systems and astronomical constants; and the impact of 20th century technology on the field, among other topics. Additionally, the volume analyzes the present role and status of celestial navigation, particularly with respect to modern radio and satellite navigation systems. With its diverse authorship and nontechnical language, this book will appeal to any reader interested in the history of science, technology, astronomy, and navigation over the ages.

This book is the first complete account of the scientific life and work of Edwin Hubble, whose discoveries form the basis of all theories of the evolution of the universe. One of the outstanding astronomers of the twentieth century, Hubble studied the velocities or redshifts of galaxies and discovered that the universe is expanding. He convincingly proved that our galaxy is only one of countless galaxies and thus paved the way for the exploration of an immense world beyond the limits of our knowledge. The exploding universe proposed by Hubble, now termed the Big Bang, is used to explain the origin of the elements, of stars, and of galaxies. The second part of the book describes the fundamental discoveries on the nature of the universe made subsequently, and thus sets his achievements in context. Hubble's vision, particularly his efforts to help build the big telescope at Mt. Palomar, firmly established the United States as a leader in observational astronomy. Written by two prominent astronomers (Dr. Novikov is the author of Black Holes and the Universe, CUP, 1990) who have built on Hubble's work, this book is a classic of science, setting out the thrilling story of the exploding universe.

This book presents a collection of focused review papers on the advances in topics in modern astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology and planetary science. The chapters are written by expert members of an EU-funded ERASMUS+ program of strategic partnership between several European institutes. The 13 reviews comprise the topics: Space debris, optical measurements Meteors, light from comets and asteroids Extrasolar enigmas: from disintegrating exoplanets to exo-asteroids Physical conditions and chemical abundances in photoionized nebulae from optical spectra Observational Constraints on the Common Envelope Phase A modern guide to quantitative spectroscopy of massive OB stars Explosion mechanisms of core-collapse supernovae and their observational signatures Low-mass and substellar eclipsing binaries in stellar clusters Globular cluster systems and Galaxy Formation Hot atmospheres of galaxies, groups, and clusters of galaxies The establishment of the Standard Cosmological Model through observations Exploiting solar visible-range observations by inversion techniques: from flows in the solar subsurface to a flaring atmosphere Starburst galaxies The book is intended for the general astronomical community as well as for advanced students who could use it as a guideline, inspiration and overview for their future careers in astronomy.

The study of stellar dynamics is experiencing an exciting new wave of interest thanks to observational campaigns and the ready availability of powerful computers. Whilst its relevance includes many areas of astrophysics, from the structure of the Milky Way to dark matter halos, few texts are suited to advanced students. This volume provides a broad overview of the key concepts beyond the elementary level, bridging the gap between the standard texts and specialist literature. The author reviews Newtonian gravity in depth before examining the dynamical properties of collisional and collisionless stellar-dynamical systems that result from gravitational interactions. Guided examples and exercises ensure a thorough grounding in the mathematics, while discussions of important practical applications give a complete picture of the subject. Readers are given a sound working knowledge of the fundamental ideas and techniques employed in the field and the conceptual background needed to progress to more advanced graduate-level treatises.

Knowledge about the outer heliosphere and the interstellar medium, which were long treated as two separate fields, has improved dramatically over the past 25 years as a consequence of recent developments: The discovery of interstellar pickup ions and neutral helium inside the heliosphere, the determination of the interstellar hydrogen distribution in the heliosphere obtained using backscattered solar Lyman-alpha radiation, the prediction and subsequent detection of the hydrogen wall just outside of the heliopause, the development of detailed global models for the interaction of solar wind plasma with the interstellar medium, and most recently, direct in-situ plasma and field measurements inside of the heliosheath. At the same time, our understanding of the nearby galactic environment, including the composition and dynamics of the warm gas clouds and hot gas in the local bubble, has benefited greatly from absorption-line spectroscopy using nearby stars as background sources and dynamic modeling. The present volume provides a synopsis of these developments organised into seven sections: Dominant physical processes in the termination shock and heliosheath, three-dimensional shape and structure of the dynamic heliosphere, relation of the plasmas and dust inside and outside of the heliosphere, origin and properties of the very local interstellar medium, energy and pressure equilibria in the local bubble, physical processes in the multiphase interstellar medium inside of the local bubble, and the roles that magnetic fields play in the outer heliosphere and the local bubble. The last theme is probably the most basic of all as magnetic fields play important roles in most of the phenomena discussed here. The volume concludes with four papers providing the "big picture" by looking at the time evolution of both the heliosphere and the local bubble, looking beyond the local bubble, and finally addressing the challenges in modeling the interface between the two media.

In this comprehensive and interdisciplinary volume, former NASA Chief Historian Steven Dick reflects on the exploration of space, astrobiology and its implications, cosmic evolution, astronomical institutions, discovering and classifying the cosmos, and the philosophy of astronomy. The unifying theme of the book is the connection between cosmos and culture, or what Carl Sagan many years ago called the "cosmic connection." As both an astronomer and historian of science, Dr. Dick has been both a witness to and a participant in many of the astronomical events of the last half century. This collection of papers presents his reflections over the last forty years in a way accessible to historians, philosophers, and scientists alike. From the search for alien life to ongoing space exploration efforts, readers will find this volume full of engaging topics relevant to science, society, and our collective future on planet Earth and beyond.

This comprehensive Encyclopedia covers the full history of astronomy from its ancient origins in Africa, South America, the Middle East and China to the latest developments in astrophysics and space-based research. The initial articles, which are largely organised chronologically, are followed by numerous thematic historical articles on the constituents of the Solar System, types of stars, stellar evolution, active galaxies, cosmology and much more. These are followed by articles on tools and techniques, from the history of spectroscopy to adaptive optics. The last part of the Encyclopedia is devoted to the history of ground- and space-based telescopes and observatories, covering the full spectral range from gamma-rays through the optical waveband to radio waves. Informative and accessibly written, each article is followed by an extensive bibliography to facilitate further research, whilst consistent coverage from ancient times to the present makes this an ideal resource for scholars, students and amateur astronomers alike.