This book provides readers with an understanding of the basic physics and mathematics that governs our solar system. It explores the mechanics of our Sun and planets; their orbits, tides, eclipses and many other fascinating phenomena. This book is a valuable resource for undergraduate students studying astronomy and should be used in conjunction with other introductory astronomy textbooks in the field to provide additional learning opportunities. Features: Written in an engaging and approachable manner, with fully explained mathematics and physics concepts Suitable as a companion to all introductory astronomy textbooks Accessible to a general audience

Illustrated with breathtaking images of the Solar System and of the Universe around it, this book explores how the discoveries within the Solar System and of exoplanets far beyond it come together to help us understand the habitability of Earth, and how these findings guide the search for exoplanets that could support life. The author highlights how, within two decades of the discovery of the first planets outside the Solar System in the 1990s, scientists concluded that planets are so common that most stars are orbited by them. The lives of exoplanets and their stars, as of our Solar System and its Sun, are inextricably interwoven. Stars are the seeds around which planets form, and they provide light and warmth for as long as they shine. At the end of their lives, stars expel massive amounts of newly forged elements into deep space, and that ejected material is incorporated into subsequent generations of planets. How do we learn about these distant worlds? What does the exploration of other planets tell us about Earth? Can we find out what the distant future may have in store for us? What do we know about exoworlds and starbirth, and where do migrating hot Jupiters, polluted white dwarfs, and free-roaming nomad planets fit in? And what does all that have to do with the habitability of Earth, the possibility of finding extraterrestrial life, and the operation of the globe-spanning network of the sciences?

This book introduces the reader to all the basic physical building blocks of climate needed to understand the present and past climate of Earth, the climates of Solar System planets, and the climates of extrasolar planets. These building blocks include thermodynamics, infrared radiative transfer, scattering, surface heat transfer and various processes governing the evolution of atmospheric composition. Nearly four hundred problems are supplied to help consolidate the reader's understanding, and to lead the reader towards original research on planetary climate. This textbook is invaluable for advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate students in atmospheric science, Earth and planetary science, astrobiology, and physics. It also provides a superb reference text for researchers in these subjects, and is very suitable for academic researchers trained in physics or chemistry who wish to rapidly gain enough background to participate in the excitement of the new research opportunities opening in planetary climate.

Many astrophysical bodies produce winds, jets or explosions, which blow spectacular bubbles. From a nonmathematical, unifying perspective, based on the understanding of bubbles, the authors address many of the most exciting topics in modern astrophysics including supernovae, the production of structure in the Early Universe, the environments of supermassive black holes and gamma-ray bursts.

The Sun is so powerful, so much bigger than us, that it is a terrifying subject. Yet though we depend on it, we take it for granted. Amazingly the first book of its kind, CHASING THE SUNis a cultural and scientific history of our relationship with the star that gives us life. Richard Cohen, applying the same mix of wide-ranging reference and intimate detail that won outstanding reviews for By the Sword, travels from the ancient Greek astronomers to modern-day solar scientists, from Stonehenge to Antarctica (site of the solar eclipse of 2003, when penguins were said to sing), Mexico's Aztecs to the Norwegian city of Tromso, where for two months of the year there is no Sun at all. He introduces us to the crucial 'sunspot cycle' in modern economics, the religious dances of Indian tribesmen, the histories of sundials and calendars, the plight of migrating birds, the latest theories of global warming, and Galileo recording his discoveries in code, for fear of persecution. And throughout, there is the rich Sun literature -- from the writings of Homer through Dante and Nietzsche to Keats, Shelley and beyond. Blindingly impressive and hugely readable, this is a tour de force of narrative non-fiction.

Asteroids are the small, usually rocky, bodies that reside primarily in a belt between Mars and Jupiter. Individually, and as a population, they carry the signatures of the evolutionary processes that gave birth to the Solar System and shaped our planetary neighbourhood, as well as informing us about processes on broader scales and deeper cosmic times. The main asteroid belt is a lively place where the physical, rotational and orbital properties of asteroids are governed by a complicated interplay of collisions, planetary resonances, radiation forces, and the formation and fission of secondary bodies. The proceedings of IAU Symposium 318 are organised around the following core themes: origins, collisional evolution, orbital evolution, rotational evolution, and evolutional coupling. Together the contributions highlight the ongoing, exciting challenges for graduate students and researchers in this diverse field of study.

Copernicus sowed the seed from which science has grown to be a dominant aspect of modern culture, fundamental in shaping our understanding of the workings of the cosmos. John Henry reveals why Copernicus was led to such a seemingly outrageous and implausible idea as a swiftly moving Earth.

For many years, planetary science has been taught as part of the astronomy curriculum, from a very physics-based perspective, and from the framework of a tour of the Solar System - body by body. Over the past decades, however, spacecraft exploration and related laboratory research on extraterrestrial materials have given us a new understanding of planets and how they are shaped by geological processes. Based on a course taught at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, this is the first textbook to focus on geologic processes, adopting a comparative approach that demonstrates the similarities and differences between planets, and the reasons for these. Profusely illustrated, and with a wealth of pedagogical features, this book provides an ideal capstone course for geoscience majors - bringing together aspects of mineralogy, petrology, geochemistry, volcanology, sedimentology, geomorphology, tectonics, geophysics and remote sensing.

Complete color global maps and high-resolution mosaics of Jupiter's four large moons - Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto - are compiled for the first time in this important atlas. The satellites are revealed as four visually striking and geologically diverse planetary bodies: Io's volcanic lavas and plumes and towering mountains; Europa's fissured ice surface; the craters, fractures and polar caps of Ganymede; and the giant impact basins, desiccated plains and icy pinnacles of Callisto. Featuring images taken from the recent Galileo mission, this atlas is a comprehensive mapping reference guide for researchers. It contains 65 global and regional maps, nearly 250 high-resolution mosaics, and images taken at resolutions from 500 meters to as high as 6 meters.

Concise and self-contained, this textbook gives a graduate-level introduction to the physical processes that shape planetary systems, covering all stages of planet formation. Writing for readers with undergraduate backgrounds in physics, astronomy, and planetary science, Armitage begins with a description of the structure and evolution of protoplanetary disks, moves on to the formation of planetesimals, rocky, and giant planets, and concludes by describing the gravitational and gas dynamical evolution of planetary systems. He provides a self-contained account of the modern theory of planet formation and, for more advanced readers, carefully selected references to the research literature, noting areas where research is ongoing. The second edition has been thoroughly revised to include observational results from NASA's Kepler mission, ALMA observations and the JUNO mission to Jupiter, new theoretical ideas including pebble accretion, and an up-to-date understanding in areas such as disk evolution and planet migration.

"Discovering the Solar System, Second Edition" covers the Sun, the planets, their satellites and the host of smaller bodies that orbit the Sun. This book offers a comprehensive introduction to the subject for science students, and examines the discovery, investigation and modelling of these bodies. Following a thematic approach, chapters cover interiors, surfaces and the atmospheres of major bodies, including the Earth. The book starts with an overview of the Solar System and its origin, and then takes a look at small bodies, such as asteroids, comets and meteorites.

Carefully balancing breadth of coverage with depth, "Discovering the Solar System, Second Edition" Offers a comprehensive introduction, assuming little prior knowledgeIncludes full coverage of each planet, as well as the moon, Europa and Titan. The Second Edition includes new material on exoplanetary systems, and a general update throughout.Presents latest results from the Mars Rover and Cassini-Huygens missionsIncludes a colour plate sectionContains 'stop and think' questions embedded in the text to aid understanding, along with questions at the end of major sections. Answers are provided at the end of the book.Provides summaries at the end of each chapter, and a glossary at the end of the book

Praise for the First Edition:

""(...) essential reading for all undergraduate students (...) and for those at a more advanced level approaching the subject for the first time."" THE SCIENCE BOOK BOARD BOOK REVIEW

""One of the best books on the solar system I have seen. The general accuracy and quality of the content is excellent."" JOURNAL OF THE BRITISH ASTRONOMICAL ASSOCIATION

"In this time of uncertainty, millennials are asking the cosmos for answers." - The Guardian. These are indeed luna-tic times: people have, once again, begun to believe in the power of the moon. Just think about the popularity of all kinds of moon sign apps, and how labels such as Vetements and Valentina flirt with cosmic prints and astrology. The moon is no longer exclusive to flower power hippies, but is now also popular among well-educated youngsters. How did that come about? Which artists and writers were influenced by the moon? How do you integrate the moon into your daily life? Lunatic offers the answers to these questions. It's a beautiful inspirational guide brimming with glowing images and original illustrations, which also serves as a practical manual that explains your zodiac sign and how the phases of the moon influence your life.

Not long ago, the Solar System was the only example of a planetary system - a star and the bodies orbiting it - that we knew. Now, we know thousands of planetary systems, and have even been able to observe planetary systems at the moment of their birth. This Very Short Introduction explores this new frontier, incorporating the latest research. The book takes the reader on a journey through the grand sweep of time, from the moment galaxies begin to form after the Big Bang to trillions of years in the future when the Universe will be a dilute soup of dim galaxies populated mostly by red dwarf stars. Throughout, Raymond T. Pierrehumbert introduces the latest insights gained from a new generation of telescopes that catch planetary systems at the moment of formation, and to the theoretical advances that attempt to make sense of these observations. He explains how the elements that make up life and the planets on which life can live are forged in the interiors of dying stars, and make their way into rocky planets. He also explores the vast array of newly discovered planets orbiting stars other than our own, and explains the factors that determine their climates. Finally, he reveals what determines how long planetary systems can live, and what happens in their end-times. Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

​On February 15, 2013, the Chelyabinsk meteor sailed over Russian skies in a streak of light that was momentarily brighter than the Sun. The remarkable event and its subsequent shock wave were witnessed and documented by countless local residents, launching a widespread scientific expedition to gather and study the remaining meteoritic fragments. This book chronicles Chelyabinsk’s tale of recovery and discovery from the minds of many of the scientists who studied the superbolide, leading field experiments and collecting meteorites and meteorite dust across the region. The Chelyabinsk superbolide is a complex and multi-aspect phenomenon. The book not only presents the results of the scientific research but also details the firsthand experiences of those involved in such efforts, providing readers with a unique opportunity to look at the "inner workings" of science that are seldom shown to the public. Over the course of their studies, the scientists collected over 200 photographs and a dozen video recordings taken by nearly 40 different eyewitnesses. Many of those never-before-published illustrations and photos can be found in full color in the pages of this book.

Ongoing studies in mathematical depth, and inferences from helioseismological' observations of the internal solar rotation have shown up the limitations in our knowledge of the solar interior and of our understanding of the solar dynamo, manifested in particular by the sunspot cycle, the Maunder minimum, and solar flares. This second edition retains the identical overall structure as the first edition, but is designed so as to be self-contained with the early chapters presenting the basic physics and mathematics underlying cosmical magnetohydrodynamics, followed by studies of the specific applications appropriate for a book devoted to a central area in astrophysics.
New to this edition:
Chapter 6 gives an account of the present state of dynamo theory in general, and Chapter 8 the applications to the Sun and to other Late-Type' stars with differing rotation rates -- the Solar-Stellar Connection'. The minority of the more massive Early-Type' stars that are observably magnetic are well described by theoblique rotator' model, with a quasi-steady, fossil' magnetic structure frozen' into the highly conducting, non-turbulent envelope. Chapter 9 deals with the considerable progress on the associated theoretical problems.
Chapter 7 contains new material, relevant to both Late- and Early-Type Main Sequence stars, to the evolved Red Giants, and also to contracting pre-Main Sequence stars (Chapter 10}, which show the highest degree of magnetic activity (the magneto-rotational instability, and the magneto-centrifugal winds emitted by the surrounding accretion disk'). In the earlier phases of star formation in molecular clouds (Chapters 11-12), magneto-turbulence' is emerging as the appropriate scenario for the prediction of the mass spectrum of proto-stars, and the associated formation of planetary satellites. Chapter 14 describes developments in the study of the magnetosphere of a pulsar' -- a magnetized neutron star -- consisting of spontaneously generated electron-positron pairs.

Black holes, once considered to be of purely theoretical interest, play an important role in observational astronomy and a range of astrophysical phenomena. This volume is based on a meeting held at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which explored the many aspects of black hole astrophysics. Written by world experts in areas of stellar-mass, intermediate-mass and supermassive black holes, these review papers provide an up-to-date overview of developments in this field. Topics discussed range from black hole entropy and the fate of information to supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies, and from the possibility of producing black holes in collider experiments to the measurements of black hole spins. This is an invaluable resource for researchers currently working in the field, and for graduate students interested in this active and growing area of research.

Simone Marchi presents the emerging story of how cosmic collisions shaped both the solar system and our own planet, from the creation of the Moon to influencing the evolution of life on Earth. The Earth emerged out of the upheaval and chaos of massive collisions in the infancy of the Solar System, more than four billion years ago. The largest of these events sent into orbit a spray of molten rocks out of which the Moon coalesced. As in ancient mythological tales, this giant catastrophe marks the birth of our planet as we know it. Space exploration has shown that signs of ancient collisions are widespread in the Solar System, from the barren and once-habitable Mars to the rugged asteroids. On Earth these signs are more subtle, but still cataclysmic, such as the massive asteroid strike which likely sparked the demise of the dinosaurs and many other forms of life some 66 million years ago. Signatures of even more dramatic catastrophes are concealed in ancient rocks. These events wreaked havoc on our planet's surface, influencing global climate and topography, while also enriching the Earth with gold and other rare elements. And recently, modern science is finding that they could even have contributed to developing the conditions conducive to life. In Colliding Worlds, Simone Marchi explores the key role that collisions in space have played in the formation and evolution of our solar system, the development of planets, and possibly even the origin of life on Earth. Analysing our latest understanding of the surfaces of Mars and Venus, gleaned from recent space missions, Marchi presents the dramatic story of cosmic collisions and their legacies.

In Placing Outer Space Lisa Messeri traces how the place-making practices of planetary scientists transform the void of space into a cosmos filled with worlds that can be known and explored. Making planets into places is central to the daily practices and professional identities of the astronomers, geologists, and computer scientists Messeri studies. She takes readers to the Mars Desert Research Station and a NASA research center to discuss ways scientists experience and map Mars. At a Chilean observatory and in MIT's labs she describes how they discover exoplanets and envision what it would be like to inhabit them. Today's planetary science reveals the universe as densely inhabited by evocative worlds, which in turn tells us more about Earth, ourselves, and our place in the universe.

Facts and images for Apollo missions 12 through 17 are covered in this concise guide to the program's essentials--mission objectives, dates, flight plans, astronauts, space suits, and vehicles--for collectors, educators, space enthusiasts, and those just discovering the history of the space program.

Saturn is the showcase of the Solar System. It may not be the largest of the planets, nor the smallest, nor even the only planet with rings. But it is among the most stunningly beautiful objects in the sky, and is always breathtaking when seen in a telescope. This is a beautifully illustrated, authoritative overview of the entire history of humankind's fascination with the ringed planet, from the first low-resolution views of Galileo, Huygens and other early observers with telescopes to the most recent discoveries by the spacecraft Cassini, which studied the planet at close range between 2004 and 2017. The book describes the planet from inside out, details the complicated system of rings and their interaction with Saturn's bevy of satellites, and considers how Saturn formed and the role it played in the early history of the Solar System. Featuring the latest research and a spectacular array of images, it will appeal to the wide audience for astronomy and popular science.

In the summer of 1878 three ruthless and brilliant scientists raced to Wyoming and Colorado to observe a total solar eclipse. One sought to discover a new planet. Another fought to prove that science was not an anathema to femininity. And a young, megalomaniacal inventor sought to test his bona fides and light the world through his revelations. David Baron brings to life these three competitors-James Craig Watson, Maria Mitchell and Thomas Edison-re-creating the jockeying of nineteenth-century astronomy. With accounts of train robberies and Indian skirmishes, the last days of the Wild West come alive. A magnificent portrayal of America's dawn as a superpower, American Eclipse depicts a nation looking to the skies to reveal its ambition and expose its genius.

Our Sun is the nearest star and thus an ideal laboratory to study dynamic processes which are related to solar terrestrial physics. The topics addressed in this book cover solar MHD and generation of acoustic waves, as well as physical parameters that are suited to describing solar activity and could serve as proxies for space weather forecasting. The influence of solar activity (radiation and solar wind) on telecommunication systems, satellite missions etc. is also discussed. In short, contribution reports are given on various topics in solar physics. The book covers solar physics from the photosphere to space weather influences. The intended level of readership is aimed at students working in this or related fields, professionals, and astronomers who wish to acquire some basic knowledge in the field of solar terrestrial relations, which is provided in the review articles.

This book addresses the problems of Geocosmos and provides a snapshot of the current research in a broad area of Earth Sciences carried out in Russia and elsewhere. The themes covered include solar physics, physics of magnetosphere, ionosphere and atmosphere, solar-terrestrial coupling links, seismology, geoelectricity, paleomagnetism and rock magnetism, as well as cross-disciplinary studies. The proceedings are carefully edited, providing a panoramic outlook of a broad area of Earth Sciences. The readership includes colleague researchers, students and early career scientists. The proceedings will help the readers to look at their research fields from various points of view. Problems of Geocosmos conferences are held by Earth Physics Department, St. Petersburg University bi-annually since 1994. It is the largest forum of this kind in Russia/former Soviet Union attracting up to 200 researchers in Earth and magnetospheric physics.