Books in the Astronomers' Universe series

Since ancient times, humans have been engaged in a continual quest to find meaning in and make sense of sights and events in the night sky. Cultures spread around the world recorded their earliest efforts in artwork made directly on the natural landscapes around them, and from there they developed more and more sophisticated techniques for observing and documenting astronomy.This book brings readers on an astronomical journey through the ages, offering a history of how our species has recorded and interpreted the night sky over time. From cave art to parchment scribe to modern X-ray mapping of the sky, it chronicles the ever-quickening development of tools that informed and at times entirely toppled our understanding of the natural world.Our documentation and recording techniques formed the bedrock for increasingly complex forays into astronomy and celestial mechanics, which are addressed within these chapters. Additionally, the book explores how nature itself has recorded the skies in its own way, which can be unraveled through ongoing geological and archaeological studies. This tale of human discovery and ingenuity over the ages will appeal to anybody interested in the field of astronomy and its rich cultural history.

Starting out from humankind's earliest ideas about the cosmos, this book gives the reader a clear overview of our current understanding of the universe, including big bang theories and the formation of stars and galaxies, as well as addressing open questions.

What about the future of the universe? And how long might the universe as we recognize it survive? This title takes the reader on a journey through space and time, beginning with a long look at the Earth and solar system, voyaging to the outermost galaxies, and finishing with speculations about the life and fate of the entire universe.

For a long time I have been giving scientific lectures in different countries and on diverse topics, generally related to astronomy and to my work at the Arecibo Observatory. Many of us want to believe that extraterrestrial creatures can talk to us, that perhaps they are even living among us, as UFO fans believe.

The world as it is viewed from modern physics and cosmology has many strange and unexpected features. - Where are we going?The author, an experienced scientist and teacher, presents the knowledge that we have about our world for non-experts. He takes us on a journey through cosmology and the quantum world of elementary particles.

This accessible book explores key discoveries in recent years of space exploration and addresses major questions such as: How prolific is life in the universe? How far back to the Big Bang can we probe? And what hidden treasures still lurk in our Solar System?

Other sources would have you believe that helium was jointly discovered by Janssen and Norman Lockyer, a British scientist, and that their discovery letters reached Paris the same day, one sent from India, and the other from England.

The book describes from a historical point of view how cosmic rays were discovered. The main focus is on how the knowledge was gained, describing the main experiments and the conclusions drawn. Cosmic rays have an official date of discovery which is linked to the famous balloon flights of the Austrian physicist Hess in 1912.

The book focuses on how the exploration of the cosmic background radiation has shaped our picture of the Universe. Using a simple language and captivating metaphors, this book will help the reader to understand the mechanisms behind our Universe.

This fascinating book proposes a sound and realistic exploration on the topic of terraforming. The book presents what is physically possible today and hints what might conceivably be put into practice in the next several hundred years.

Grappling with Gravity explores the physiological changes that will occur in humans and the plants and animals that accompany humans as we move to new worlds, be it to colony in the emptiness of space or settlements on the Moon, Mars, or other moons or planets. As a person adapts in space he or she will become less fit to live on Earth.

Exoplanets: Finding, Exploring, and Understanding Alien Worlds probes the basis for possible answers to the fundamentals questions asked about these planets orbiting stars other than our Sun.

The author of this book draws attention to ongoing and future observations that might reveal relics of an era before the big bang. In doing so, he provides an accessible introduction to the extraordinary new ideas of string cosmology.

This volume presents the findings of several satellites from across the globe sent to observe the sun. Beautifully illustrated, the book combines newly acquired scientific understanding with detailed descriptions of features visible on the Sun's surface and in its atmosphere.

In accessible, informative language, this book describes stunning discoveries in astronomy and solar system science showing that complex organic compounds, formed in and ejected from old stars, could have played a central role in the origin of life on Earth.

'Incoming Asteroid!' is based on a project within ASTRA (the Association in Scotland to Research into Astronautics) to provide scientific answers to the question - what would we do if we knew there was going to be an asteroid impact in ten years' time or less?