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Books > Science & Mathematics > Astronomy, space & time > Solar system
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Celestial Shadows - Eclipses, Transits, and Occultations (Paperback, Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2015)
Loot Price: R5,428
Discovery Miles 54 280
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Celestial Shadows - Eclipses, Transits, and Occultations (Paperback, Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2015)
Series: Astrophysics and Space Science Library, 410
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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Much of what is known about the universe came from the study of
celestial shadows. This book looks in detail at the way eclipses
and other celestial shadows have given us amazing insights into the
nature of the objects in our solar system and how they are even
helping us discover and analyze planets that orbit stars other than
our Sun. A variety of eclipses, transits, and occultations of the
mooons of Jupiter and Saturn, Pluto and its satellite Charon,
asteroids and stars have helped astronomers to work out their
dimensions, structures, and shapes - even the existence of
atmospheres and structures of exoplanets. Long before Columbus set
out to reach the Far East by sailing West, the curved shadow of the
Earth on the Moon during a lunar eclipse revealed that we inhabit a
round world, a globe. More recently, comparisons of the sunlit and
Earthlit parts of the Moon have been used to determine changes in
the Earth's brightness as a way of monitoring possible effects in
cloud coverage which may be related to global warming. Shadows were
used by the Greek mathematician Eratosthenes to work out the first
estimate of the circumference of the Earth, by Galileo to measure
the heights of the lunar mountains and by eighteenth century
astronomers to determine the scale of the Solar System itself. Some
of the rarest and most wonderful shadows of all are those cast onto
Earth by the lovely "Evening Star" Venus as it goes between the
Earth and the Sun. These majestic transits of Venus occur at most
two in a century; after the 2012 transit, there is not a chance to
observe this phenomenon until 2117, while the more common sweep of
a total solar eclipse creates one of the most dramatic and
awe-inspiring events of nature. Though it may have once been a
source of consternation or dread, solar eclipses now lead thousands
of amateur astronomers and "eclipse-chasers" to travel the globe in
order to experience the dramatic view under "totality." These
phenomena are among the most spectacular available to observers and
are given their full due in Westfall and Sheehan's comprehensive
study.
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