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
- exoplanet
- a planet orbiting a star other than our Sun
- giant molecular clouds
- large, cold interstellar clouds with diameters of dozens of light-years and typical masses of 105 solar masses; found in the spiral arms of galaxies, these clouds are where stars form
- Herbig-Haro (HH) object
- luminous knots of gas in an area of star formation that are set to glow by jets of material from a protostar
- mini-Neptune
- a planet that is intermediate between the largest terrestrial planet in our solar system (Earth) and the smallest jovian planet (Neptune); generally, mini-Neptunes have sizes between 2.8 and 4 times Earth’s size
- protostar
- a very young star still in the process of formation, before nuclear fusion begins
- stellar wind
- the outflow of gas, sometimes at speeds as high as hundreds of kilometers per second, from a star
- super-Earth
- a planet larger than Earth, generally between 1.4 and 2.8 times the size of our planet
- transit
- when one astronomical object moves in front of another