Astronomy Today

With Astronomy Today, Seventh Edition, trusted authors Eric Chaisson and Steve McMillan communicate their excitement about astronomy and awaken you to the universe around you.

This textbook emphasizes critical thinking and visualization, and it focuses on the process of scientific discovery, making "how we know what we know" an integral part of the text.

The revised edition has been thoroughly updated with the latest astronomical discoveries and theories, and it has been streamlined to keep you focused on the essentials and to develop an understanding of the "big picture."

This textbook provides readers with innovative and interactive tools to learn and test their understanding of astronomy concepts. Topics covered include Astronomy and the Universe, Our Planetary System, Stars and Stellar Evolution, Galaxies and Cosmology, and more.

Alternate Versions

Astronomy Today, Volume 1: The Solar System, Seventh Edition: Focuses primarily on planetary coverage for a 1-term course. Includes Chapters 1-16, 28.

Eric Chaisson received his Ph.D. from and taught at Harvard for a number of years in Astrophysics. He is now associated with Tufts and Harvard. Eric has written nine books and received a number of literary awards along the way. Steve McMillan, a former Ph.D. candidate of Eric Chaisson’s, is a professor of Physics at Drexel University.

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?

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