Sumário
- 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
- accretion disk
- the disk of gas and dust found orbiting newborn stars, as well as compact stellar remnants such as white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes when they are in binary systems and are sufficiently close to their binary companions to draw off material
- black hole
- a region in spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing—not even light—can escape
- equivalence principle
- concept that a gravitational force and a suitable acceleration are indistinguishable within a sufficiently local environment
- event horizon
- a boundary in spacetime such that events inside the boundary can have no effect on the world outside it—that is, the boundary of the region around a black hole where the curvature of spacetime no longer provides any way out
- general theory of relativity
- Einstein’s theory relating gravity and the structure (geometry) of space and time
- gravitational redshift
- an increase in wavelength of an electromagnetic wave (light) when propagating from or near a massive object
- gravitational wave
- a disturbance in the curvature of spacetime caused by changes in how matter is distributed; gravitational waves propagate at (or near) the speed of light.
- singularity
- the point of zero volume and infinite density to which any object that becomes a black hole must collapse, according to the theory of general relativity
- spacetime
- system of one time and three space coordinates, with respect to which the time and place of an event can be specified