Edited and with an Introduction by Marcia Bartusiak

Preface

I. The Ancient Sky
1 Mayan Venus Tables
2 Proof That the Earth Is a Sphere
3 Celestial Surveying
4 Measuring the Earth’s Circumference
5 Precession of the Equinoxes
6 Ptolemy’s Almagest

II. Revolutions
7 Copernicus and the Sun-Centered Universe
8 Tycho Brahe and the Changing Heavens
9 Johannes Kepler and Planetary Motion
10 Galileo Initiates the Telescopic Era
11 Newton’s Universal Law of Gravity
12 Halley’s Comet
13 Binary Stars

III. Taking Measure
14 The Speed of Light
15 The Solar System’s Origin
16 Discovery of Uranus
17 Stars Moving and Changing
18 The First Asteroid
19 Distance to a Star
20 Discovery of Neptune
21 The Shape of the Milky Way
22 Spiraling Nebulae

IV. Touching the Heavens
23 Spectral Lines
24 Deciphering the Solar Spectrum
25 Gaseous Nebulae
26 Doppler Shifts and Spectroscopic Binaries
27 Classification of the Stars
28 Giant Stars and Dwarf Stars
29 Hydrogen: The Prime Element
30 Stellar Mass, Luminosity, and Stability
31 Sunspot Cycle, Sun/Earth Connection, and Helium
32 Origin of Meteors and Shooting Stars
33 Cosmic Rays
34 Discovery of Pluto

V. Einsteinian Cosmos
35 Special Relativity and E = mc2
36 General Relativity and the Solar Eclipse Test
37 Relativistic Models of the Universe
38 Big Bang Versus Steady State
39 White Dwarf Stars
40 Beyond the White Dwarf
41 Supernovae and Neutron Stars
42 Black Holes
43 Source of Stellar Power
44 Creating Elements in the Big Bang
45 Cosmic Microwave Background Predicted
46 Creating Elements in the Stars
47 A Star’s Life Cycle

VI. The Milky Way and Beyond
48 Cepheids: The Cosmic Standard Candles
49 Sun’s Place in the Milky Way
50 Dark Nebulae and Interstellar Matter
51 Discovery of Other Galaxies
52 Expansion of the Universe
53 Stellar Populations and Resizing the Universe
54 Mapping the Milky Way’s Spiral Arms
55 Source and Composition of Comets

VII. New Eyes, New Universe
56 Radio Astronomy
57 Interstellar Hydrogen
58 Molecules in Space
59 Van Allen Radiation Belts
60 Geology of Mars
61 Extrasolar X-Ray Sources
62 Quasars
63 Evidence for the Big Bang
64 Pulsars
65 The Infrared Sky and the Galactic Center
66 Neutrino Astronomy
67 Gamma-Ray Bursts
68 Binary Pulsar and Gravity Waves

VIII. Accelerating Outward
69 Dark Matter
70 Gravitational Lensing
71 Inflation
72 The Bubbly Universe
73 Galaxy Evolution and the Hubble Deep Field
74 Extrasolar Planets
75 The Accelerating Universe

Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index