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
Thinking Ahead
Chapter Outline
In previous chapters, we explored the contents of the universe—planets, stars, and galaxies—and learned about how these objects change with time. But what about the universe as a whole? How old is it? What did it look like in the beginning? How has it changed since then? What will be its fate?
Cosmology is the study of the universe as a whole and is the subject of this chapter. The story of observational cosmology really begins in 1929 when Edwin Hubble published observations of redshifts and distances for a small sample of galaxies and showed the then-revolutionary result that we live in an expanding universe—one which in the past was denser, hotter, and smoother. From this early discovery, astronomers developed many predictions about the origin and evolution of the universe and then tested those predictions with observations. In this chapter, we will describe what we already know about the history of our dynamic universe and highlight some of the mysteries that remain.