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
- Chandrasekhar limit
- the upper limit to the mass of a white dwarf (equals 1.4 times the mass of the Sun)
- degenerate gas
- a gas that resists further compression because no two electrons can be in the same place at the same time doing the same thing (Pauli exclusion principle)
- millisecond pulsar
- a pulsar that rotates so quickly that it can give off hundreds of pulses per second (and its period is therefore measured in milliseconds)
- neutron star
- a compact object of extremely high density composed almost entirely of neutrons
- nova
- the cataclysmic explosion produced in a binary system, temporarily increasing its luminosity by hundreds to thousands of times
- pulsar
- a variable radio source of small physical size that emits very rapid radio pulses in very regular periods that range from fractions of a second to several seconds; now understood to be a rotating, magnetic neutron star that is energetic enough to produce a detectable beam of radiation and particles
- type II supernova
- a stellar explosion produced at the endpoint of the evolution of stars whose mass exceeds roughly 10 times the mass of the Sun