Description

Connects introductory astronomy to a broad understanding of the universe.
In Astronomy Today, authors Eric Chaisson and Steve McMillan communicate their excitement about astronomy, combining up-to-date science with insightful pedagogy. The text emphasizes visualization, focusing on the process of scientific discovery in order to teach readers “how we know what we know.” The 9th Edition reflects current research and discoveries in the field of astronomy including the Horizon mission on Pluto, the Mars Maven mission on Mars, and the discovery of a potentially habitable planet around Proxima Centauri.

For courses in Introductory Astronomy.

Extend learning beyond the classroom
Pearson eText is an easy-to-use digital textbook that students can purchase on their own or you can assign for your course. It lets students read, highlight, and take notes all in one place. The mobile app lets students learn on the go, offline or online. Creating a course allows you to schedule readings, view reading analytics, and share your own notes with students, motivating them to keep reading, and keep learning. Learn more about Pearson eText.

Features

About the Book

 

Pedagogical features enhance learning

• Conceptual Understanding
• Concept Checks are critical-thinking questions throughout each chapter that prompt students to reflect on the material just presented and to test their mastery of key concepts.
• The Big Picture in each chapter explains how the chapter’s content fits in with an overall perspective on introductory astronomy, helping students see how each chapter is connected to a broad understanding of the universe. Big Pictures now tie to end of chapter questions.
• Concept Link icons refer students back to previous sections in the text to help them understand how concepts are related, allowing them to more easily see the “big picture.”
• The Big Question at the end of each chapter mirrors The Big Picture at the beginning by piquing student interest about current research. It identifies a critical unanswered question relating to chapter content, reinforcing that astronomy is still an evolving science.
• Learning Outcomes, which are consistent with the AAS outcomes, are reinforced with helpful labels.

• Skill Building
• Process of Science Check questions throughout every chapter prompt students to consider how astronomers use various aspects of the process of science in their research.
• Discovery boxes explore a wide variety of interesting supplementary topics, providing students with insight into how scientific knowledge evolves while emphasizing the process of science.
• More Precisely boxes present mathematical information that the instructor can include or exclude in class discussions.
• Spectrum icons accompany each photo in the text, identifying the wavelength used to capture the image and reinforcing for students how light influences the way we see things.
• End-of-chapter sections include both collaborative and individual activities.

Art and visual aids supplement the material

• Compound art employs multiple-part images to capture all aspects of a complex subject wherever possible, including images from various wavelengths, interpretive line drawings paired with astronomical photographs, and breakouts that zoom in or out from astronomical objects and phenomena.
• Annotated art, newly introduced in this edition and appearing in at least half of the book’s figures, employs a proven educational research tool by integrating written and visual information to enhance student understanding of photos and diagrams.
• Annotations are included for half of the figures in this text. Informed by education research, these annotations function much like the professor’s voice, interpreting and explaining the art for the student.
• Additional scale markers have been added to visually help students understand the difficult-to-comprehend scale of the universe.

New features and updates in the 9th Edition

• UPDATED! Updated science reflects current research and discoveries from the New Horizon mission on Pluto, the Mars Maven mission on Mars, to new discovery of a potentially habitable planet around Proxima Centauri.
• NEW! New Big Picture emphasis prompts students to put topics in context throughout each chapter with a revised Big Picture chapter opener, revised end of chapter Big Question, and new end of chapter questions indicated by a BP icon.
• REVISED! Learning Outcomes have been tightened and are now more concise, measurable, and testable.
• NEW! New Data Points feature alerts students to the mistakes that students statistically make most often, and why.
• REVISED! Individual chapters have been significantly revised to reflect new scientific content. In particular, Chapter 15 on Exoplanets, Chapters 10-12 on Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, Chapter 14 on Solar System Debris, and Chapter 22 on Neutron Stars and Black Holes have all been revised. Many chapters also include substantially improved imagery illustrating the text.
• REVISED! End-of chapter material in all chapters has been significantly revised with restructured discussion sections, Big Picture questions, new conceptual questions, and new collaborative and individual activities.

Also available with Mastering Astronomy

Mastering ^™  Astronomy is the leading online homework, tutorial, and assessment system, designed to improve results by engaging students with powerful, interactive content. Instructors ensure students arrive ready to learn by assigning new Interactive pre-lecture videos that give students exposure to key concepts before class and open classroom time for active learning or deeper discussions of topics. With Learning Catalytics^™ instructors can expand on key concepts and encourage student engagement during lecture through questions answered individually or in pairs and groups. Students further master concepts through book-specific Mastering Astronomy assignments, which provide hints and answer-specific feedback that build problem-solving skills.  Mastering Astronomy now features Virtual Astronomy Labs, providing assignable online laboratory activities that use Stellarium and Interactive Figures.

• Tutorials feature specific wrong-answer feedback, hints, and a wide variety of interactive, educationally effective content to guide your students through the toughest topics in physics. The hallmark Hints and Feedback sections offer instruction similar to what students would experience in an office hour, allowing them to learn from their mistakes without being given the answer.
• Narrated Figures and Visual Activities offer visual activities, narration, and animations that expand on figures in the text. Pause-and-respond questions engage students in a deeper understanding of the topic, while visual activities help students build versatile interpretation skills.
• NEW! Interactive pre-lecture videos provide subject overview for exposure to key concepts before class, opening the classroom time for active learning or deeper discussions of topics. These can be used for simple pre-class exposure or fully flipped classrooms.
• NEW! 20 additional tutorials focus on critical thinking.
• NEW! eText 2.0:
• Full eReader functionality includes page navigation, search, glossary, highlighting, note taking, annotations, and more. 
• A responsive design allows the eText to reflow/resize to a device or screen. eText 2.0 now works on supported smartphones, tablets, and laptop/desktop computers.
• In-context glossary offers students instant access to definitions by simply hovering over key terms.
• Seamlessly integrated videos and activities allow students to watch and interact within the eText learning experience.
• Accessible (screen-reader ready)
• Configurable reading settings, including resizable type and night reading mode.
• NEW! New and enhanced interactive figures are formatted for mobile use.

New to this Edition

About the Book 

• Updated science reflects current research and discoveries from the New Horizon mission on Pluto, the Mars Maven mission on Mars, to new discovery of a potentially habitable planet around Proxima Centauri.
• New Big Picture emphasis prompts students to put topics in context throughout each chapter with a revised Big Picture chapter opener, revised end of chapter Big Question, and new end of chapter questions indicated by a BP icon.
• Learning Outcomes have been tightened and are now more concise, measurable, and testable.
• New Data Points feature alerts students to the mistakes that students statistically make most often, and why.
• Individual chapters have been significantly revised to reflect new scientific content. In particular, Chapter 15 on Exoplanets, Chapters 10-12 on Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, Chapter 14 on Solar System Debris, and Chapter 22 on Neutron Stars and Black Holes have all been revised. Many chapters also include substantially improved imagery illustrating the text.
• End-of chapter material in all chapters has been significantly revised with restructured discussion sections, Big Picture questions, new conceptual questions, and new collaborative and individual activities.

Also available with Mastering Astronomy

Mastering ^™  Astronomy is the leading online homework, tutorial, and assessment system, designed to improve results by engaging students with powerful, interactive content. Instructors ensure students arrive ready to learn by assigning new Interactive pre-lecture videos that give students exposure to key concepts before class and open classroom time for active learning or deeper discussions of topics. With Learning Catalytics^™ instructors can expand on key concepts and encourage student engagement during lecture through questions answered individually or in pairs and groups. Students further master concepts through book-specific Mastering Astronomy assignments, which provide hints and answer-specific feedback that build problem-solving skills.  Mastering Astronomy now features Virtual Astronomy Labs, providing assignable online laboratory activities that use Stellarium and Interactive Figures.

• Interactive pre-lecture videos provide subject overview for exposure to key concepts before class, opening the classroom time for active learning or deeper discussions of topics. These can be used for simple pre-class exposure or fully flipped classrooms.
• 20 additional tutorials focus on critical thinking.
• New eText 2.0:
• Full eReader functionality includes page navigation, search, glossary, highlighting, note taking, annotations, and more. 
• A responsive design allows the eText to reflow/resize to a device or screen. eText 2.0 now works on supported smartphones, tablets, and laptop/desktop computers.
• In-context glossary offers students instant access to definitions by simply hovering over key terms.
• Seamlessly integrated videos and activities allow students to watch and interact within the eText learning experience.
• Accessible (screen-reader ready)
• Configurable reading settings, including resizable type and night reading mode.
• New and enhanced interactive figures are formatted for mobile use.

Table of Contents

I. ASTRONOMY AND THE UNIVERSE

1. Charting the Heavens: The Foundations of Astronomy

2. The Copernican Revolution: The Birth of Modern Science

3. Radiation: Information from the Cosmos

4. Spectroscopy: The Inner Workings of Atoms

5. Telescopes: The Tools of Astronomy

 

II. OUR PLANETARY SYSTEM

6. The Solar System: An Introduction to Comparative Planetology

7. Earth: Our Home in Space

8. The Moon and Mercury: Scorched and Battered Worlds

9. Venus: Earth’s Sister Planet

10. Mars: A Near Miss for Life?

11. Jupiter: Giant of the Solar System

12. Saturn: Spectacular Rings and Mysterious Moons

13. Uranus and Neptune: The Outer Worlds of the Solar System

14. Solar System Debris: Keys to Our Origin

15. The Formation of Planetary Systems: The Solar System and Beyond

 

III. STARS AND STELLAR EVOLUTION

16. The Sun: Our Parent Star

17. The Stars: Giants, Dwarfs, and the Main Sequence

18. The Interstellar Medium: Gas and Dust among the Stars

19. Star Formation: A Traumatic Birth

20. Stellar Evolution: The Life and Death of a Star

21. Stellar Explosions: Novae, Supernovae, and the Formation of the Elements

22. Neutron Stars and Black Holes: Strange States of Matter

 

IV. GALAXIES AND COSMOLOGY

23. The Milky Way Galaxy: A Spiral in Space

24. Galaxies: Building Blocks of the Universe

25. Galaxies and Dark Matter: The Large-Scale Structure of the Cosmos

26. Cosmology: The Big Bang and the Fate of the Universe

27. The Early Universe: Toward the Beginning of Time 

28. Life in the Universe: Are We Alone?

Author

Eric Chaisson holds a Doctorate in Astrophysics from Harvard University, where he spent 10 years on the faculty of Arts and Sciences. For more than two decades thereafter, he served on the senior science staff at the Space Telescope Science Institute and held various professorships at Johns Hopkins and Tufts universities. He is now back at Harvard, where he teaches and conducts research at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Eric has written 12 books on astronomy and has published nearly 200 scientific papers in professional journals.

 

Steve McMillan holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Mathematics from Cambridge University and a Doctorate in Astronomy from Harvard University. He held postdoctoral positions at the University of Illinois and Northwestern University, where he continued his research in theoretical astrophysics, star clusters, and high-performance computing. Steve is currently Distinguished Professor of Physics at Drexel University and a frequent visiting researcher at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study and Leiden University. He has published more than 100 articles and scientific papers in professional journals.

 

Emily L. Rice, College of Staten Island, City University of New York

Emily holds bachelor’s degrees in physics and astronomy and German from the University of Pittsburgh and a master’s degree and doctorate in astronomy and astrophysics from UCLA. After completing her Ph.D. she held a postdoctoral position at the American Museum of Natural History, where she is still a resident research associate. Emily is currently Assistant Professor at the College of Staten Island and doctoral faculty in physics at the Graduate Center, both part of the City University of New York. In addition to her research on low-mass stars, brown dwarfs, and exoplanets as co-PI of the Brown Dwarfs in New York City (BDNYC) group, she is the co-author of Astronomy Labs: A Concept Oriented Approach and co-founder of the astronomy fashion blog STARtorialist.