Science : Astronomy

This volume presents a multi-disciplinary approach to the physical mechanisms which structure the shape, evolution and fate of the Galaxy. It contains 4 panel sessions (the recording transcripts of the galactic 'tertulias'), an introductory historical overview on the Galaxy research, 17 reviews, and the proceedings of more than 50 oral and poster contributions. This book is not a new edition of a previous volume but it is in some way related to the book "The Formation of the Milky Way" (1995; Cambridge University Press), which contains the proceedings of the first IAA-IAC-University of Pisa meeting, held in Granada ten years ago, on the formation of the Milky Way, (see Shore’s introduction). Where many other books focus their attention on singular galactic components or specific driving forces, this title provides a wide overview on the gaseous and stellar components and on the physical mechanisms which maintain the dynamical equilibrium of such a complex system as the Galaxy. The book, intended for graduate students and researchers, provides a valuable overview on the different physical mechanisms which drive the galactic gas-stars feedback. more...

Price: $199.00

The first handbook that describes how to start observing the sky with a computerized telescope. more...

Price: $34.00

The book deals with Ultra-Low-Frequency (ULF)-electromagnetic waves observed on the Earth and in Space. These are so-called geomagnetic variations or pulsations. Alfv??n's discovery related to the influence of the strong magnetic field on the conducting fluids (magnetohydrodynamics) led to development of the concept that the ULF-waves are magnetospheric magnetohydrodynamic (MHD)-waves. MHD-waves at their propagation gather information about the magnetosphere, ionosphere, and the ground. There are two applied aspects based on using the ULF electromagnetic oscillations. The first one is the ground-based diagnostics of the magnetosphere. This is an attempt to monitor in the real time the magnetosphere size, distance to the last closed field-lines, distribution of the cold plasma, etc. The second one is the deep electromagnetic sounding of the Earth. The basis for these studies is the capability of any electromagnetic wave to penetrate a conductor to a finite depth. The ULF-waves can reach the depth of a few hundred kilometers. Thus, geophysicists now have a unique tool that can be applied to study the solid Earth as well as its gas-plasma shells - the ionosphere and magnetosphere. This book integrates topics pertaining to all scales of the MHD-waves, emphasizing the linkages between the ULF-waves below the ionosphere on the ground and magnetospheric MHD-waves. It will be most helpful to graduate and post-graduate students, familiar with advanced calculus, who study the science of MHD-waves in the magnetosphere and ionosphere. more...

Price: $169.00

Most scientists now agree that some sixty-five million years ago, an immense comet slammed into the Yucatan, detonating a blast twenty million times more powerful than the largest hydrogen bomb, punching a hole ten miles deep in the earth. Trillions of tons of rock were vaporized and launched into the atmosphere. For a thousand miles in all directions, vegetation burst into flames. There were tremendous blast waves, searing winds, showers of molten matter from the sky, earthquakes, and a terrible darkness that cut out sunlight for a year, enveloping the planet in freezing cold. Thousands of species of plants and animals were obliterated, including the dinosaurs, some of which may have become extinct in a matter of hours. In Impact, Gerrit L. Verschuur offers an eye-opening look at such catastrophic collisions with our planet. Perhaps more important, he paints an unsettling portrait of the possibility of new collisions with earth, exploring potential threats to our planet and describing what scientists are doing right now to prepare for this awful possibility. Every day something from space hits our planet, Verschuur reveals. In fact, about 10,000 tons of space debris fall to earth every year, mostly in meteoric form. The author recounts spectacular recent sightings, such as over Allende, Mexico, in 1969, when a fireball showered the region with four tons of fragments, and the twenty-six pound meteor that went through the trunk of a red Chevy Malibu in Peekskill, New York, in 1992 (the meteor was subsequently sold for $69,000 and the car itself fetched $10,000). But meteors are not the greatest threat to life on earth, the author points out. The major threats are asteroids and comets. The reader discovers that astronomers have located some 350 NEAs ("Near Earth Asteroids"), objects whose orbits cross the orbit of the earth, the largest of which are 1627 Ivar (6 kilometers wide) and 1580 Betula (8 kilometers). Indeed, we learn that in 1989, a bus-sized asteroid called more...

Price: $18.95

Scientific Cosmology is clearly one of the most active physics research fields at present, and likely to remain so in the near future. Shortly after the pioneering cosmological work of Einstein, Georges Lemaitre proposed a model which some years later to be known as the big-bang model. In the early fifties an alternative proposal, the so called steady-state (expansion at constant density) model, became the fashionable model in prominent academic circles. The discovery of the cosmic background microwave radiation (Penzias & Wilson, 1965) made the steady-state model almost untenable. A quarter of a century later the inflationary model was proposed, becoming extraordinarily popular almost immediately. For some it seemed to combine attractive features of both the steady-state and the big-bang models, by postulating a very early violent (constant density) expansion during a very tiny fraction of a second. The book makes use of the best and most recent observational data, from the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE, 1992) to the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP, 2003), to discuss the merits and demerits of inflationary cosmology for a general readership acquainted with the basic facts of scientific cosmology. A complete Glossary and a detailed Index help the reader to follow controversial topics, such as dark matter, dark energy, cosmic flatness and accelerated expansion. more...

Price: $65.00