Advanced Reading Space Books Available at the Lambuth Library
The following books are some popular astronomy-related examples of what is available at the Lambuth Library. Please visit the library or browse the library catalog to find other items.
"The definitive visual guide to exploring all the marvels of the stars, the Milky Way, and the universe beyond. Chart the wonders of the cosmos in our own solar system and beyond with The Stars. Packed with 3-D artworks of each constellation and incredible new imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope, ground-based observatories worldwide, and more, this awe-inspiring guide features the most fascinating objects known to astronomy, from glittering star-birth nebulae to supermassive black holes. The position, size, and color of every night-sky object is revealed with unprecedented clarity, and a specially commissioned 3-D model of the celestial sphere that surrounds our planet charts all 88 constellations, together forming a complete map of the sky. From the Big Bang to the search for extraterrestrial life, key areas in astronomy and cosmology are covered, and colorful infographics distill a wealth of data into an easy-to-digest visual format. Whether you want to know more about space and the night sky or are eager to take up stargazing, The Stars is your guide to exploring these fascinating marvels of the universe, "--Amazon.com.
As solar astronomy is becoming very popular among amateur astronomers and laymen, the book provides the practical knowledge to build simple solar telescopes and other equipment for making solar observations.- Amazon
The cosmos -- The evolution and origin of life on Earth -- Where to look for life elsewhere in the solar system -- Life on Mars? -- Life on Europa? -- The fate of life in the solar system -- Potential habitats beyond the solar system -- Searching for planets: direct methods -- Searching for planets: indirect methods -- Exoplanetary systems -- How to find life on exoplanets -- Extraterrestrial intelligence.
If standard gravitational theory is correct, then most of the matter in the universe is in an unidentified form which does not emit enough light to have been detected by current instrumentation. This book is the second editon of the lectures given at the 4th Jerusalem Winter School for Theoretical Physics, with new material added. The lectures are devoted to the "missing matter" problem in the universe, the search to understand dark matter. The goal of this volume is to make current research work on unseen matter accessible to students without prior experience in this area and to provide insights for experts in related research fields. Due to the pedagogical nature of the original lectures and the intense discussions between the lecturers and the students, the written lectures included in this volume often contain techniques and explanations not found in more formal journal publications.
Magnificent illustrations and incisive text display and explain the wonders of the cosmos while projecting a cautiously optimistic future for human space exploration efforts.
Today, we accept that we live on a planet circling the sun, that our sun is just one of billions of stars in the galaxy we call the Milky Way, and that our galaxy is but one of billions born out of the big bang. Yet as recently as the early twentieth century, the general public and even astronomers had vague and confused notions about what lay beyond the visible stars.- Amazon
Could Einstein have possibly anticipated directly testing the most captivating prediction of general relativity, that there exist isolated pockets of spacetime shielded completely from our own? Now, almost a century after that theory emerged, one of the world's leading astrophysicists presents a wealth of recent evidence that just such an entity, with a mass of about 3 million suns, is indeed lurking at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way -- in the form of a supermassive "black hole"! With this superbly illustrated, elegantly written, nontechnical account of the most enigmatic astronomical object yet observed, Fulvio Melia captures all the excitement of the growing realization that we are on the verge of actually seeing this exotic object within the next few years. Melia traces our intellectual pilgrimage to the "brooding behemoth" at the heart of the Milky Way. He describes the dizzying technological advances that have recently brought us to the point of seeing through all the cosmic dust to a dark spot in a clouded cluster of stars in the constellation Sagittarius. Carefully assembling the compelling circumstantial evidence for its black hole status, he shows that it is primed to reveal itself as a glorious panorama of activity within this decade -- through revolutionary images of its "event horizon" against the bright backdrop of nearby, radiating gas. Uniquely, this book brings together a specific and fascinating astronomical subject -- black holes -- with a top researcher to provide not only amateur and armchair astronomers, but also professional scientists seeking a concise overview of the topic, a real sense of the palpable thrill in the scientific community when an important discovery is imminent.
Ted Spitzmiller describes how humans first came to employ lifting gasses such as hydrogen and helium. He traces the influence of science fiction writers on the development of rocket science, looks at the role of rocket societies in the early twentieth century, and discusses the use of rockets in World War II warfare. Spitzmiller considers the engineering and space medicine advances that finally enabled humans to fly beyond the earth's atmosphere during the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. He recreates the excitement felt around the world as Yuri Gagarin and John Glenn completed their first orbital flights. He recounts triumphs and tragedies, such as Neil Armstrong's "one small step" and the Challenger and Columbia disasters. The story continues with the development of the International Space Station, NASA's interest in asteroids and Mars, and the emergence of China as a major player in the space arena. Spitzmiller shows the impact of space flight on human history and speculates on the future of exploration beyond our current understandings of physics and the known boundaries of time and space.
The world-renowned physicist presents a revolutionary look at the momentous discoveries that changed the perception of the world with this first-ever compilation of seven classic works on physics and astronomy. Features landmark writings by some of the world's great thinkers, including Copernicus, Newton, and Kepler.
The successes of the space program--the first orbital flight, the first spacewalk, the first moon landing--and the stories of Apollo I, Apollo II, and Apollo 13, written by America's first man in space.