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-Title: Astronomy. A Beginner's Guide to the Universe.
-Author:
Eric Chaisson; Steve McMillan.
-Publisher:
Prentice Hall.
-Pages:
14 + 498 + 32
-Illustrations:
Color photos and graphics.
-Language:
English.
-Publication Date:
November 1, 1994.
-ISBN: 0-13-644063-0

Front Cover

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EDITORIAL INFORMATION

Astronomy: A Beginner's Guide to the Universe has been written for students who have taken no previous college science course, and is intended primarily for a one-semester descriptive astronomy course. We intened to engage, rather than intimidate-special care is taken to review even the most basic points of science within the context of astronomy. We present a broad view of astronomy in much the same way as we teach it to our own students-mostly descriptive, and with little math. The lack of math doesn't prevent discussing important conceptual issues, however. Rather, we rely on simple concepts and analogies to explain what can be understood about a complex subject without gross oversimplification.

(Extracted from the preface).

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GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-About the Authors.
-Contents.
-Preface.
-1. Introduction to Astronomy: Measuring the Universe.
-2. The Copernican Revolution: The Birth of Modern Science.
-3. Light and Matter: The Inner Workings of the Cosmos.
-4. Telescopes: The Tools of Astronomy.
-5. The Solar System: An Introduction to Comparative Planetology.
-6. The Earth-Moon System: Our Cosmic Backyard.
-7. The Terrestrial Planets: A Study in Contrasts.
-8. The Jovian Planets: Giants of the Solar System.
-9. Moons, Rings, and Pluto: Small Worlds Among Giants.
-10. Interplanetary Debris: Understanding Our Past.
-11. The Sun: Our Parent Star.
-12. Measuring the Stars: Giants, Dwarfs, and the Main Sequence.
-13. The Interstellar Medium: Birthplace of Stars.
-14. Stellar Evolution: From Middle Age to Death.
-15. Stellar Explosions: Novae, Supernovae, and the Formation of Heavy Elements.
-16. Neutron Stars and Black Holes: Strange States of Matter.
-17. The Milky Way Galaxy: A Grand Design.
-18. Normal Galaxies: The Large-Scale Structure of the Universe.
-19. Active Galaxies and Quasars: Limits of the Observable Universe.
-20. Cosmology: The Big Bang and the Fate of the Universe.
-21. Life in the Universe: Are We Alone?
-Appendix Tables.
-Glossary.
-Photo Credits.
-Index.
-Star Charts.

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OUR REVIEW

You don't know much about astronomy and you would like to know, but you are not happy with the too simple books to introduce the reader into this science? Then, Astronomy: A Beginner's Guide to the Universe is the solution. It is an updated work, full of images and graphics, and it contains practically everything that any reader interested in astronomy needs to know before taking the next step: going to university and studying the career that will have them become professional astronomers. In actual fact, the authors have focused this work as a textbook for a course of astronomy whose duration would be about half a year but one we can use for as long as we like from our homes. Certainly, at the end of each chapter we will find summaries, key terms, questions for evaluation and even proposals for specific work and observations. Equally valuable are the interludes that intertwine with the general text, bringing us brief discussions of issues that merit some further explanation or complementary notes.

The careful treatment of the images, the pleasant format and the wonderful narrative style, excellent and very educational as it is, make Astronomy: A Beginner's Guide to the Universe one of the few works that, by themselves, can satisfy any reader interested in the astronomical sciences. The authors have written it taking as a basis their university text Astronomy Today, which contains much more mathematics and other more technical aspects that are only available to advanced students. However, the character of Astronomy: A Beginner's Guide to the Universe allows for a wider range of readers, and therefore, the graphics and images included have been greatly improved. Besides, for the students and professors who so may wish, the book can be complemented with a series of supplementary material, beginning with a special edition for the instructor, transparencies, slides, thousands of questions, laboratory exercises, and a student's guide. That is to say, we have here one of the most complete and useful learning programs for astronomy ever published up till now.

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