Contents
- Preface
1Science and the Universe: A Brief Tour
2Observing the Sky: The Birth of Astronomy
7Other Worlds: An Introduction to the Solar System
13Comets and Asteroids: Debris of the Solar System
14Cosmic Samples and the Origin of the Solar System
18The Stars: A Celestial Census
20Between the Stars: Gas and Dust in Space
21The Birth of Stars and the Discovery of Planets outside the Solar System
27Active Galaxies, Quasars, and Supermassive Black Holes
- AHow to Study for an Introductory Astronomy Class
- BAstronomy Websites, Images, and Apps
- CScientific Notation
- DUnits Used in Science
- ESome Useful Constants for Astronomy
- FPhysical and Orbital Data for the Planets
- GSelected Moons of the Planets
- HFuture Total Eclipses
- IThe Nearest Stars, Brown Dwarfs, and White Dwarfs
- JThe Brightest Twenty Stars
- KThe Chemical Elements
- LThe Constellations
- MStar Chart and Sky Event Resources
- Index
Key Terms
- cepheid
- a star that belongs to a class of yellow supergiant pulsating stars; these stars vary periodically in brightness, and the relationship between their periods and luminosities is useful in deriving distances to them
- light curve
- a graph that displays the time variation of the light from a variable or eclipsing binary star or, more generally, from any other object whose radiation output changes with time
- luminosity class
- a classification of a star according to its luminosity within a given spectral class; our Sun, a G2V star, has luminosity class V, for example
- parallax
- an apparent displacement of a nearby star that results from the motion of Earth around the Sun
- parsec
- a unit of distance in astronomy, equal to 3.26 light-years; at a distance of 1 parsec, a star has a parallax of 1 arcsecond
- period-luminosity relation
- an empirical relation between the periods and luminosities of certain variable stars
- pulsating variable star
- a variable star that pulsates in size and luminosity
- RR Lyrae
- one of a class of giant pulsating stars with periods shorter than 1 day, useful for finding distances