This is the story of humankind's quest over centuries to learn the true nature of the most dominant object in our Solar System: the Sun. Award-winning science writer Peter Bond describes in detail how our ideas about the Sun have changed over the millennia, starting with the simple observations of classical astronomy and continuing through telescopic observations to the age of nuclear physics. He shows how we discovered the Sun's basic characteristics - its distance, size, temperature and composition - and then describes how, with evermore sophisticated instruments, we have learned about the Sun's enormous energy output, its atmosphere and the explosive eruptions that blast clouds of magnetized gas and high-energy particles toward our world. Most of this book focuses on the Space Age, when suborbital rockets and satellites have probed every aspect of our nearby star. Each of these missions is described in detail, with summaries of their objectives, spacecraft designs, scientific payloads and results. The book also looks forward, describing forthcoming missions that will shed new light on remaining solar mysteries, notably the source of the energy that heats the outer corona to millions of degrees. Richly illustrated with mission photos, design diagrams, and infocharts, this book is a fascinating read for anybody interested in the Sun and our attempts to unravel its secrets.

'Philosophy is written in this great book which is continually open before our eyes - I mean the universe...' Galileo's astronomical discoveries changed the way we look at the world, and our place in the universe. Threatened by the Inquisition for daring to contradict the literal truth of the Bible, Galileo ignited a scientific revolution when he asserted that the Earth moves. This generous selection from his writings contains all the essential texts for a reader to appreciate his lasting significance. Mark Davie's new translation renders Galileo's vigorous Italian prose into clear modern English, while William R. Shea's version of the Latin Sidereal Message makes accessible the book that created a sensation in 1610 with its account of Galileo's observations using the newly invented telescope. All Galileo's contributions to the debate on science and religion are included, as well as key documents from his trial before the Inquisition in 1633. A lively introduction and clear notes give an overview of Galileo's career and explain the scientific and philosophical background to the texts. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Thirty-five million years ago, a meteorite three miles wide and moving sixty times faster than a bullet slammed into the sea bed near what is now Chesapeake Bay. The impact, more powerful than the combined explosion of every nuclear bomb on Earth, blasted out a crater fifty miles wide and one mile deep. Shock waves radiated through the Earth for thousands of miles, shaking the foundations of the Appalachians, as gigantic waves and winds of white-hot debris transformed the eastern seaboard into a lifeless wasteland. Chesapeake Invader is the story of this cataclysm, told by the man who discovered it happened. Wylie Poag, a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, explains when and why the catastrophe occurred, what destruction it caused, how scientists unearthed evidence of the impact, and how the meteorite's effects are felt even today. Poag begins by reviewing how scientists in the decades after World War II uncovered a series of seemingly inexplicable geological features along the Virginia coast. As he worked to interpret one of these puzzling findings in the 1980s in his own field of paleontology, Poag began to suspect that the underlying explanation was the impact of a giant meteorite. He guides us along the path that he and dozens of colleagues subsequently followed as--in true scientific tradition--they combined seemingly outrageous hypotheses, painstaking research, and equal parts good and bad luck as they worked toward the discovery of what turned out to be the largest impact crater in the U.S. We join Poag in the lab, on deep-sea drilling ships, on the road for clues in Virginia, and in heated debates about his findings. He introduces us in clear, accessible language to the science behind meteorite impacts, to life and death on Earth thirty-five million years ago, and to the ways in which the meteorite shaped the Chesapeake Bay area by, for example, determining the Bay's very location and creating the notoriously briny groundwater underneath Virginia. This is a compelling work of geological detective work and a paean to the joys and satisfactions of a life in science. Originally published in 1999. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This volume contains Euler's early astronomical tables and his First theory of the moon of 1753.

Mass media in the late nineteenth century was full of news from Mars. In the wake of Giovanni Schiaparelli's 1877 discovery of enigmatic dark, straight lines on the red planet, astronomers and the public at large vigorously debated the possibility that it might be inhabited. As rivalling scientific practitioners looked to marshal allies and sway public opinion-through newspapers, periodicals, popular books, exhibitions, and encyclopaedias-they exposed disagreements over how the discipline of astronomy should be organized and how it should establish acceptable conventions of discourse. News from Mars provides a new account of this extraordinary episode in the history of astronomy, revealing how major transformations in astronomical practice across Britain and America were inextricably tied up with popular scientific culture and a transatlantic news economy that enabled knowledge to travel. As Joshua Nall argues, astronomers were journalists, too, eliding practice with communication in consequential ways. As writers and editors, they played a pivotal role in the emergence of a "new astronomy" dedicated to the study of the physical constitution and life history of celestial objects, blurring harsh distinctions between those who produced esoteric knowledge and those who disseminated it.

This book explores the practicality of using the existing subsurface geology on the Moon and Mars for protection against radiation, thermal extremes, micrometeorites and dust storms rather than building surface habitats at great expense at least for those first few missions. It encourages NASA to plan a precursor mission using this concept and employ a "Short Stay" Opposition Class mission to Mars as the first mission rather than the "Long Stay" concept requiring a mission that is too long, too dangerous and too costly for man's first missions to Mars. Included in these pages is a short history on the uses of caves by early humans over great periods of time. It then describes the ongoing efforts to research caves, pits, tunnels, lava tubes, skylights and the associated technologies that pertain to potential lunar and Mars exploration and habitation. It describes evidence for existing caves and lava tubes on both the Moon and Mars. The work of noted scientists, technologists and roboticists are referenced and described. This ongoing work is moreextensive than one would think and is directly applicable to longer term habitation and exploration of the Moon and Mars. Emphasis is also given to the operational aspects of working and living in lunar and Martian caves and lava tubes.

The book begins at the Sun then travels through the solar system to see the stars, how they work, and ultimately what they mean to us. The idea is to provide an integrated view of the galaxy and its contents. Along the way we look at spectra, atmospheric phenomena, gravity and the laws of motion, telescopes and how they work, interstellar gas and dust, star birth and death, and planets orbiting other stars. Most popular books tend to focus on one particular topic. From the Sun to the Stars is one of the few that tells the story of the Sun against the background of other stars and other planets and, for that matter, of stars and other planets against the background of the Sun and solar system. This presents the subject with a breadth that few other books can match.This book grew out of the OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) lectures given by the author at the University of Illinois. It doesn't require any prior knowledge and is suitable for anyone who is interested in astronomy.

This is just the resource you need to get middle schoolers ready for August 21, 2017—the day when millions of North Americans will have the rare chance to witness a total solar eclipse. But the book’s usefulness won’t end when the eclipse does! Solar Science offers more than three dozen hands-on, inquiry-based activities on many fascinating aspects of solar astronomy. The activities cover the Sun’s motions, space weather caused by the Sun, the measuring of time and seasons in our daily lives, and much more. The authors are award-winning experts in both astronomy and science education, so they know how to prompt students to work like scientists by asking questions, doing experiments, comparing notes, and refining and reporting results. They also know you have to make the most of every instructional minute. The book contains plenty of ideas for related writing projects; grade-appropriate math examples; and connections to music, art, fiction, and history. It’s also aligned with the three-dimensional learning encouraged by the Next Generation Science Standards and connects to the Common Core State Standards. Solar Science is ideal for teachers, informal science educators, youth group leaders, curriculum specialists, and teacher trainers. You can use these versatile activities one at a time, as the basis of a stand-alone unit on the Sun, or as a comprehensive curriculum. You get to determine the best way for your students to learn a lot while having fun with the Sun.

Compiled by a team of experts, this textbook introduces the properties and evolution of the most immediately visible objects in the Universe - stars. Designed for elementary university courses in astronomy and astrophysics, it starts with a detailed discussion of our nearest star, the Sun, and describes how solar physicists have come to understand its internal workings. It then considers how we study the basic physical properties and life-cycles of more distant stars, culminating with a discussion of more 'exotic' objects, such as neutron stars and black holes. This second edition has a greater emphasis on the physical and spectral properties of stars, introducing stellar atmospheres, spectral line formation and the role of binary stars in the formation of compact objects. Avoiding complex mathematics, and generously illustrated in colour throughout, this accessible text is ideal for self-study and will appeal to both amateur astronomers and undergraduate students.

Cassini-Huygens was the most ambitious and successful space journey ever launched to the outer Solar System. This book examines all aspects of the journey: its conception and planning; the lengthy political processes needed to make it a reality; the engineering and development required to build the spacecraft; its 2.2-billion mile journey from Earth to the Ringed Planet and the amazing discoveries from the mission. The author traces how the visions of a few brilliant scientists matured, gained popularity and eventually became a reality. Innovative technical leaps were necessary to assemble such a multifaceted spacecraft and reliably operate it while it orbited a planet so far from our own. The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft design evolved from other deep space efforts, most notably the Galileo mission to Jupiter, enabling the voluminous, paradigm-shifting scientific data collected by the spacecraft. Some of these discoveries are absolute gems. A small satellite that scientists once thought of as a dead piece of rock turned out to contain a warm underground sea that could conceivably harbor life. And we now know that hiding under the mist of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is a world with lakes, fluvial channels, and dunes hauntingly reminiscent of those on our own planet, except that on Titan, it's not water that fills those lakes but hydrocarbons. These and other breakthroughs illustrate why the Cassini-Huygens mission will be remembered as one of greatest voyages of discovery ever made.

Questions about the origin and nature of Earth and the life on it have long preoccupied human thought and the scientific endeavor. Deciphering the planet's history and processes could improve the ability to predict catastrophes like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, to manage Earth's resources, and to anticipate changes in climate and geologic processes. At the request of the U.S. Department of Energy, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Science Foundation, and U.S. Geological Survey, the National Research Council assembled a committee to propose and explore grand questions in geological and planetary science. This book captures, in a series of questions, the essential scientific challenges that constitute the frontier of Earth science at the start of the 21st century. Table of Contents Front Matter Summary 1 Origins 2 Earth's Interior 3 A Habitable Planet 4 Hazards and Resources References Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members Appendix B: Acronyms and Abbreviations

The sun is the source of energy for life on earth and is the strongest modulator of the human physical environment. In fact, the Suna (TM)s influence extends throughout the solar system, both through photons, which provide heat, light, and ionization, and through the continuous outflow of a magnetized, supersonic ionized gas known as the solar wind. While the accomplishments of the past decade have answered important questions about the physics of the Sun, the interplanetary medium, and the space environments of Earth and other solar system bodies, they have also highlighted other questions, some of which are long-standing and fundamental. The Sun to the Eartha "and Beyond organizes these questions in terms of five challenges that are expected to be the focus of scientific investigations in solar and space physics during the coming decade and beyond.

This book chronicles the history of climate science and planetary exploration, focusing on our ever-expanding knowledge of Earth's climate, and the parallel research underway on some of our nearest neighbours: Mars, Venus and Titan. From early telescopic observation of clouds and ice caps on planetary bodies in the seventeenth century, to the dawn of the space age and the first robotic planetary explorers, the book presents a comprehensive chronological overview of planetary climate research, right up to the dramatic recent developments in detecting and characterising exoplanets. Meanwhile, the book also documents the discoveries about our own climate on Earth, not only about how it works today, but also how profoundly different it has been in the past. Highly topical and written in an accessible and engaging narrative style, this book provides invaluable historical context for students, researchers, professional scientists, and those with a general interest in planetary climate research.

Observations from the first spacecraft to orbit the planet Mercury have transformed our understanding of the origin and evolution of rocky planets. This volume is the definitive resource about Mercury for planetary scientists, from students to senior researchers. Topics treated in depth include Mercury's chemical composition; the structure of its crust, lithosphere, mantle, and core; Mercury's modern and ancient magnetic field; Mercury's geology, including the planet's major geological units and their surface chemistry and mineralogy, its spectral reflectance characteristics, its craters and cratering history, its tectonic features and deformational history, its volcanic features and magmatic history, its distinctive hollows, and the frozen ices in its polar deposits; Mercury's exosphere and magnetosphere and the processes that govern their dynamics and their interaction with the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field; the formation and large-scale evolution of the planet; and current plans and needed capabilities to explore Mercury further in the future.

"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

Meteorites and Their Parent Planets provides an engrossing overview of a highly interdisciplinary field--the study of extraterrestrial materials. The second edition of this successful book has been thoroughly revised, and describes the nature of meteorites, where they come from, and how they get to Earth. Meteorites offer important insights into processes in stars and in interstellar regions, the birth of our solar system, the formation and evolution of planets and smaller bodies, and the origin of life. The first edition was immensely popular with meteorite collectors, scientists and science students in many fields, as well as amateur astronomers. In this second edition all of the illustrations have been updated and improved, many sections have been expanded and modified based on discoveries in the past decade, and a new final chapter on the importance of meteorites has been added. Everyone with an interest in meteorites will want a copy of this book.

On 21 August 2017, over 100 million people will gather in a narrow belt across the USA to witness the most watched total solar eclipse in history. Eclipse - Journeys to the Dark Side of the Moon, written by the widely read popular science author Frank Close, describes the spellbinding allure of this most beautiful natural phenomenon. The book explains why eclipses happen, reveals their role in history, literature and myth, and focuses on eclipse chasers, who travel with ecstatic fervour to some of the most inaccessible places on the globe to be present at the moment of totality. The book includes the author's quest to solve a 3000 years old mystery: how did the moon move backwards during a total solar eclipse, as claimed in the Book of Joshua? It is an inspirational tale: how a teacher and an eclipse inspired the author, aged eight, to a life in science, and a love affair with eclipses, which takes him to a war zone in the Western Sahara, to the South Pacific and the African bush. The tale comes full circle with another eight-year old boy - the author's grandson - at the 2017 great American eclipse. Readers of all ages will be drawn to this inspirational chronicle of the mesmerizing experience of total solar eclipse.

The Moon has always been an object of immense fascination for humanity - and not just because of its prominence in the night sky. With its complex orbit, it is far closer to our planet than any other celestial body. Already in ancient Babylon, humans have studied the Moon and its relationship to the planets and constellations. Through incisive texts and illustrations using photos and computer simulations, this book explores the similarities and differences to other planets and their moons, the Moon's interactions with the Sun and the Earth, and interesting historical associations. In addition to scientifically accurate texts, it contains numerous large-format photographs and graphics that vividly explain the complex phenomenon of the Moon. Richly illustrated, it is designed for anyone interested in astronomy.

Examines some of the most interesting aspects of the solar system, detailing how we unraveled the mystery of our world.