Table of Contents

Preface PART I: UNDERSTANDING ASTRONOMY 1. Discovering the Night Sky 2. Gravitation and the Motion of the Planets 3. Light and Telescopes 4. Atomic Physics and Spectra PART II: UNDERSTANDING THE SOLAR SYSTEM 5. Formation of the Solar System and Other Planetary Systems 6. Earth and Moon 7. The Other Terrestrial Planets 8. The Outer Planets 9. Vagabonds of the Solar System 10. The Sun: Our Extraordinary Ordinary Star PART III: UNDERSTANDING THE STARS 11. Characterizing Stars 12. The Lives of Stars from Birth Through Middle Age 13. The Deaths of Stars 14. Black Holes: Matters of Gravity Part IV: UNDERSTANDING THE UNIVERSE 15. The Milky Way Galaxy 16. Galaxies 17. Quasars and Other Active Galaxies 18. Cosmology 19. Astrobiology Appendices Appendices Glossary Answers to Margin Questions and Computational Questions Index

About the Author

Neil F. Comins is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Maine, Orono, USA. William J. Kaufmann III, late of San Diego State University, USA.