Synopses & Reviews
With their best-selling astronomy textbook, HORIZONS, authors Mike Seeds and Dana Backman help you understand your place in the universe-not just your location in space, but your role in the unfolding history of the physical universe. To achieve this goal, they focuses on two central questions: "What Are We?," which highlights your place as a planet dweller in an evolving universe, guiding you to better understand where we came from and how we formed, and "How Do We Know?," which provides insights into how the process of science can teach us more about what we are.
Synopsis
This newly revised and updated Edition of HORIZONS shows readers their place in the universe, not just their location, but also their role as planet dwellers in an evolving universe. Fascinating and engaging, the book illustrates how science works, and how scientists depend on evidence to test hypotheses. Students will learn to focus on the scientific method through the strong central questioning themes of "What are we?" and "How do we know?"
About the Author
Michael A. Seeds has been Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, since 1970. In 1989, he received F&M College?s Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching. Seeds?s love for the history of astronomy led him to create upper-level courses on Archaeoastronomy and Changing Concepts of the Universe. His research interests focus on variable stars and the automation of astronomical telescopes. Mike is coauthor with Dana Backman of HORIZONS: EXPLORING THE UNIVERSE, Twelfth Edition (2011); ASTRONOMY: THE SOLAR SYSTEM AND BEYOND, Sixth Edition (2009); and PERSPECTIVES OF ASTRONOMY (2008), all published by Cengage. He was Senior Consultant in the creation of the twenty-six-episode telecourse accompanying the book HORIZONS: EXPLORING THE UNIVERSE.Dana Backman works for the SETI Institute of Mountain View, California, as director of outreach for the SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) mission at NASA?s Ames Research Center. He also teaches introductory astronomy, astrobiology, and cosmology courses in Stanford University?s Continuing Studies Program. From 1991 to 2003, he taught in the physics and astronomy department at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he invented and taught a Life in the Universe course in the interdisciplinary Foundations program. Dr. Backman?s research interests focus on infrared observations of planet formation, models of debris disks around nearby stars, and evolution of the solar system?s Kuiper Belt. With Mike Seeds, he also coauthored HORIZONS: EXPLORING THE UNIVERSE, 11e (2009); ASTRONOMY: THE SOLAR SYSTEM AND BEYOND, 6e (2009); and PERSPECTIVES ON ASTRONOMY (2008)--all published by Cengage. Dr. Backman earned his bachelor?s degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. from the University of Hawai?i.
Table of Contents
Part I: THE SKY. 1. Here and Now. 2. The Sky. 3. Cycles of the Sky. 4. The Origin of Modern Astronomy. 5. Light and Telescopes. Part II: THE STARS. 6. Starlight and Atoms. 7. The Sun. 8. The Family of Stars. 9. The Formation and Structure of Stars. 10. The Deaths of Stars. 11. Neutron Stars and Black Holes. Part III: THE UNIVERSE OF GALAXIES. 12. The Milky Way Galaxy. 13. Galaxies. 14. Active Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes. 15. Modern Cosmology. Part IV: THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 16. The Origin of the Solar System. 17. The Terrestrial Planets. 18. The Jovian Planets, Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. 19. Meteorites, Asteroids, and Comets. Part V: LIFE. 20. Life on Other Worlds. Afterword. Appendix A: Units and Astronomical Data. Appendix B: Observing the Sky. Glossary. Answers to Even-Numbered Problems. Index.