Astronomy For Dummies

Description

An accessible guide to the wonders of the night sky, now updated From asteroids to black holes, from quasars to white dwarfs, this new edition of Astronomy For Dummies takes backyard stargazers on a grand tour of the universe. Featuring star maps, charts, gorgeous full-color photographs, and easy-to-follow explanations, this fact-filled guide gives readers a leg up on the basic principles of astronomy and shows how to get the most out of binoculars, telescopes, planetarium visits, and other fun astronomical activities. This updated edition includes an updated color signature and covers the many discoveries made in recent years, as well as new astronomy Web sites. Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Introduction About This Book Foolish Assumptions Icons Used in This Book Beyond the Book Where to Go from Here Part 1 Getting Started with Astronomy Chapter 1 Seeing the Light: The Art and Science of Astronomy Astronomy: The Science of Observation What You See: The Language of Light They wondered as they wandered: Understanding planets versus stars If you see a Great Bear, start worrying: Naming stars and constellations The smaller, the brighter: Getting to the root of magnitudes What do I spy? Spotting the Messier Catalog and other sky objects Looking back on light-years Keep on moving: Figuring the positions of the stars Gravity: A Force to Be Reckoned With Space: A Commotion of Motion Chapter 2 Join the Crowd: Skywatching Activities and Resources You’re Not Alone: Astronomy Clubs, Websites, Smartphone Apps, and More Joining an astronomy club for star-studded company Checking websites, magazines, software, and apps Traveling through cyberspace Perusing publications Surveying software and apps Visiting Observatories and Planetariums Ogling the observatories Popping in on planetariums Vacationing with the Stars: Star Parties, Eclipse Trips, Dark Sky Parks, and More Party on! Attending star parties Getting festive at an astro fest Tapping into Astronomy on Tap To the path of totality: Taking eclipse cruises and tours Recognizing reasons to book a tour Examining the advantages of cruising Intercepting eclipses in the air Making the right decision Motoring to telescope motels Chapter 3 Terrific Tools for Observing the Skies Seeing Stars: A Sky Geography Primer As Earth turns . . . . . . keep an eye on the North Star Beginning with Naked-Eye Observations Using Binoculars or a Telescope for a Better View Binoculars: Sweeping the night sky Prisms, glass, and shapes Deciphering the numbers on binoculars Making sure your binoculars are right for you Telescopes: When closeness counts Focusing on telescope classifications Examining telescope mounts Shopping for telescopes the smart (and economical) way Planning Your First Steps into Astronomy Chapter 4 Just Passing Through: Meteors, Comets, and Artificial Satellites Meteors: Wishing on a Shooting Star Spotting sporadic meteors, fireballs, and bolides Watching meteor showers: No umbrella needed Comets: Dirty Ice Balls or Icy Dirt Balls? Making heads and tails of a comet’s structure The nucleus The coma A tale of two tails Waiting for the “comets of the century” Hunting for the next great comet Locating comets the easy way Locating comets the systematic way Reporting a comet Artificial Satellites: Enduring a Love–Hate Relationship Skywatching for artificial satellites Finding satellite viewing predictions UFOs: Could some be aliens? Part 2 Going Once Around the Solar System Chapter 5 A Matched Pair: Earth and Its Moon Putting Earth under the Astronomical Microscope One of a kind: Earth’s unique characteristics Spheres of influence: Earth’s distinct regions Examining Earth’s Time, Seasons, and Age Orbiting for all time Knowing how time flies Looking out for leap seconds Finding the right time Tilting toward the seasons Estimating Earth’s age Making Sense of the Moon Get ready to howl: Identifying phases of the Moon In the shadows: Watching lunar eclipses Cultivating an interest in the occult(ations) Hard rock: Surveying lunar geology Moon ice? That’s nice Observing the near side Taking a shine to earthshine Joining the dark side Roving and scanning the Moon for science Quite an impact: Considering a theory about the Moon’s origin Chapter 6 Earth’s Near Neighbors: Mercury, Venus, and Mars Mercury: Weird, Hot, and Mostly Metal Dry, Acidic, and Hilly: Piercing the Veil of Venus Dropping the ball: Probing Venus with DAVINCI+ and EnVision Something in the air: Life in Venus’s clouds? Red, Cold, and Barren: Uncovering the Mysteries of Mars Where have almost all the air and water gone? (Long time passing) Does Mars support life? Claims about life strike out The search for fossil evidence Differentiating Earth through Comparative Planetology Observing the Terrestrial Planets with Ease Understanding elongation, opposition, and conjunction Viewing Venus and its phases Watching Mars as it loops around Outdoing Copernicus by observing Mercury Be an early riser for Mercury Don’t expect to see surface markings Chapter 7 Rock On: The Asteroid Belt and Near-Earth Objects Taking a Brief Tour of the Asteroid Belt Getting the Dirt on (and off) Asteroids Understanding the Threat That Near-Earth Objects Pose When push comes to shove: Nudging an asteroid Forewarned is forearmed: Surveying NEAs to protect Earth Searching for Small Points of Light Helping to track an occultation Timing an asteroidal occultation Chapter 8 Great Balls of Gas: Jupiter and Saturn The Pressure’s On: Journeying Inside Jupiter and Saturn Almost a Star: Gazing at Jupiter Scanning for the Great Red Spot Shooting for Galileo’s moons Recognizing moon movements Timing your moon gaze Our Main Planetary Attraction: Setting Your Sights on Saturn Ringing around the planet Storm chasing across Saturn Monitoring a moon of major proportions Venting about geysers on Enceladus Chapter 9 Far Out! Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Beyond Breaking the Ice with Uranus and Neptune Bull’s-eye! Tilted Uranus and its features Against the grain: Neptune and its biggest moon Meeting Pluto, the Amazing Dwarf Planet Defining Pluto the geophysical way Getting to the heart of Pluto Counting craters Examining Sputnik Planitia Looking at Pluto’s makeup The moon chip doesn’t float far from the planet Buckling Down to the Kuiper Belt Viewing the Outer Planets Sighting Uranus Distinguishing Neptune from a star Straining to see Pluto Hunting New Planet Number Nine Part 3 Starting with Old Sol: Meeting Stars and Galaxies Chapter 10 The Sun: Star of Earth Surveying the Sunscape The Sun’s size and shape: A great bundle of gas The Sun’s regions: Caught between the core and the corona Solar activity: What’s going on out there? Coronal mass ejections: The mother of solar outbursts Cycles within cycles: The Sun and its spots The solar “constant”: Time to face the changes Solar wind: Playing with magnets Solar CSI: The mystery of the missing solar neutrinos Four billion and counting: The life expectancy of the Sun Don’t Make a Blinding Mistake: Safe Techniques for Solar Viewing Viewing the Sun by projection Using the projection technique with a telescope Making a pinhole camera to project the Sun Viewing the Sun through front-end filters Fun with the Sun: Solar Observation Tracking sunspots Figuring your personal sunspot number Finding official sunspot numbers Experiencing solar eclipses Observing an eclipse safely Seeking shadow bands, Baily’s Beads, and the diamond ring Following the path of totality Surfing solar observatories Chapter 11 Taking a Trip to the Stars Life Cycles of the Hot and Massive Young stellar objects: Taking baby steps Main sequence stars: Enjoying a long adulthood Red giants and supergiants: Big and bigger Closing time: Coming up on the tail end of stellar evolution Central stars of planetary nebulas White dwarfs Supernovas Neutron stars Black holes Star Color, Brightness, and Mass Spectral types: What color is my star? Star light, star bright: Luminosity classifications The brighter they burn, the bigger they swell: Mass determines class Making sense of the H-R diagram Eternal Partners: Binary and Multiple Stars Binary stars and the Doppler effect Two stars are binary, but three’s a crowd: Multiple stars Change Is Good: Variable Stars Go the distance: Pulsating stars Cepheid variable stars RR Lyrae stars Long period variable stars Explosive neighbors: Flare stars Nice to nova: Exploding stars Novas Luminous red novas Supernovas Stellar hide-and-seek: Eclipsing binary stars Hog the starlight: Microlensing events Your Stellar Neighbors How to Help Scientists by Observing the Stars Chapter 12 Galaxies: The Milky Way and Beyond Unwrapping the Milky Way How and when did the Milky Way form? What shape is the Milky Way? Where can you find the Milky Way? Star Clusters: Meeting Galactic Associates A loose fit: Open clusters A tight squeeze: Globular clusters Fun while it lasted: OB associations Taking a Shine to Nebulas Picking out planetary nebulas Breezing through supernova remnants Enjoying Earth’s best nebular views Getting a Grip on Galaxies Surveying spiral, barred spiral, and lenticular galaxies Examining elliptical galaxies Looking at irregular, dwarf, and low surface brightness galaxies Gawking at great galaxies Discovering the Local Group of galaxies Checking out clusters of galaxies Sizing up superclusters, cosmic voids, and great walls Chapter 13 Falling for Black Holes and Quasars Black Holes: Keeping Your Distance Looking over the black hole roster Poking around the black hole interior The photon ring The event horizon The singularity Surveying a black hole’s surroundings Warping space and time Detecting black hole collisions Watching stars get swallowed by black holes Quasars: Defying Definitions Measuring the size of a quasar Getting up to speed on jets Exploring quasar spectra Active Galactic Nuclei: Welcome to the Quasar Family Sifting through different types of AGN Examining the power behind AGN Questioning what ORCs are Part 4 Pondering the Remarkable Universe Chapter 14 Planets of Other Suns: Is Anybody Out There? Discovering Alien Worlds Changing ideas on exoplanets Finding exoplanets Meeting the (exo)planets Catching Proxima fever: Focusing on red dwarfs Finding Earth-class planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1 Checking out planets for fun and science Astrobiology: How’s Life on Other Worlds? Extremophiles: Living the hard way Seeking life in the solar system The ongoing search for Martians Venus: Does life hang by a thread? Europa, we hardly know thee Titan: Perhaps a primeval Earth The Enceladus plume You can keep up with astrobiology Using Drake’s Equation to Discuss SETI SETI Projects: Listening for E.T. The flight of Project Phoenix Space scanning with other SETI projects Hot targets for SETI SETI@home Chapter 15 Delving into Dark Matter and Antimatter Dark Matter: Understanding the Universal Glue Gathering the evidence for dark matter Dark matter makes stars orbit oddly Dark matter traps gas in galaxy clusters Dark matter causes gravitational lensing Cold dark matter makes the universe take its lumps Dark matter is critical to the universal density Debating the makeup of dark matter Baryonic dark matter: MACHO lumps in space Oddball dark matter: Stranger still Taking a Shot in the Dark: Searching for Dark Matter Looking for WIMPs and other microscopic dark matter MACHOs: Making a brighter image Mapping dark matter with gravitational lensing Celebrating Dark Matter Day Dueling Antimatter: Proving That Opposites Attract Chapter 16 The Big Bang and the Evolution of the Universe Evidence for the Big Bang Inflation: A Swell Time in the Universe Something from nothing: Inflation and the vacuum Falling flat: Inflation and the shape of the universe Dark Energy: The Universal Accelerator Universal Info Pulled from the Cosmic Microwave Background Finding the lumps in the cosmic microwave background Mapping the universe with the cosmic microwave background In a Galaxy Far Away: Standard Candles and the Hubble Constant Standard candles: How do scientists measure galaxy distances? The Hubble constant: How fast do galaxies really move? The Fate of the Universe Part 5 The Part of Tens Chapter 17 Ten Strange Facts about Astronomy and Space You Have Tiny Meteorites in Your Hair A Comet’s Tail Often Leads the Way Earth Is Made of Rare and Unusual Matter High Tide Comes on Both Sides of Earth at the Same Time On Venus, the Rain Never Falls on the Plain Rocks from Mars Dot Earth Pluto Was Discovered from the Predictions of a Wrong Theory Sunspots Aren’t Dark A Star in Plain View May Have Exploded, But No One Knows The Same Supernova or Quasar May Be Seen in Different Places Chapter 18 Ten Common Errors about Astronomy and Space “The Light from That Star Took 1,000 Light-Years to Reach Earth” There’s No Gravity in Space Summer Comes When Earth Is Closest to the Sun The Back of the Moon Is Dark The “Morning Star” or “Evening Star” Is a Star The Asteroid Belt Is Crowded Nuking a “Killer Asteroid” on a Collision Course for Earth Will Save Us The Sun Is an Average Star The Hubble Space Telescope Gets Up Close and Personal The Big Bang Is Dead Part 6 Appendixes Appendix A Star Maps Appendix B Glossary Index EULA