PART I

DEVELOPING PERSPECTIVE

1 Our Place in the Universe

1.1 Our Modern View of the Universe

1.2 The Scale of the Universe

1.3 Spaceship Earth

1.4 The Human Adventure of Astronomy

2 Discovering the Universe for Yourself

2.1 Patterns in the Night Sky

2.2 The Reason for Seasons

2.3 The Moon, Our Constant Companion

2.4 The Ancient Mystery of the Planets

3 The Science of Astronomy

3.1 The Ancient Roots of Science

3.2 Ancient Greek Science

3.3 The Copernican Revolution

3.4 The Nature of Science

3.5 Astrology

S1 Celestial Timekeeping and Navigation

S1.1 Astronomical Time Periods

S1.2 Celestial Coordinates and Motion in the Sky

S1.3 Principles of Celestial Navigation

 

PA R T I I

KEY CONCEPTS FOR ASTRONOMY

4 Making Sense of the Universe: Understanding Motion, Energy, and Gravity

4.1 Describing Motion: Examples from Daily Life

4.2 Newton’s Laws of Motion

4.3 Conservation Laws in Astronomy

4.4 The Universal Law of Gravitation

4.5 Orbits, Tides, and the Acceleration of Gravity

5 Light and Matter: Reading Messages from the Cosmos

5.1  Light in Everyday Life

5.2 Properties of Light

5.3  Properties of Matter

5.4 Learning from Light

5.5 The Doppler Shift

6 Telescopes: Portals of Discovery

6.1  Eyes and Cameras: Everyday Light Sensors

6.2 Telescopes: Giant Eyes

6.3  Telescopes and the Atmosphere

6.4  Telescopes And Technology

 

PART IV

S2 Space and Time

S2.1 Einstein’s Revolution

S2.2 Relative Motion

S2.3 The Reality of Space and Time

S2.4 Toward a New Common Sense

S3 Spacetime and Gravity

S3.1 Einstein’s Second Revolution

S3.2 Understanding Spacetime

S3.3 A New View of Gravity

S3.4 Testing General Relativity

S3.5 Hyperspace, Wormholes, and Warp Drive

S4 Building Blocks of the Universe

S4.1 The Quantum Revolution

S4.2 Fundamental Particles and Forces

S4.3 Uncertainty and Exlcusion in the Quantum Realm

S4.4 Key Quantum Effects in Astronomy

 

PART V

STARS

14 Our Star

14.1 A Closer Look at the Sun

14.2 The Cosmic Crucible

14.3 The Sun-Earth Connection

15 Surveying the Stars

15.1 Properties of Stars

15.2 Patterns Among Stars

15.3 Star Clusters

16 Star Birth

16.1 Stellar Nurseries

16.2 Stages of Star Birth

16.3 Masses of Newborn Stars

17 Star Stuff

17.1 Lives in the Balance

17.2 Life as a Low-Mass Star

17.3 Life as a High-Mass Star

17.4 The Roles of Mass and Mass Exchange

18 The Bizarre Stellar Graveyard

18.1 White Dwarfs

18.2 Neutron Stars

18.3 Black Holes: Gravity’s Ultimate Victory

18.4 The Mystery of Gamma-Ray Bursts

 

PART VI

GALAXIES AND BEYOND

19 Our Galaxy

19.1 The Milky Way Revealed

19.2 Galactic Recycling

19.3 The History of the Milky Way

19.4 The Mysterious Galactic Center

20 Galaxies:  And the Foundation of Modern Cosmology

20.1 Islands of Stars

20.2 Measuring Galactic Distances

20.3 Hubble’s Law

21 Galaxy Evolution

21.1 Looking Back Through Time

21.2 The Lives of Galaxies

21.3 Quasars and other Active Galactic Nuclei

22 Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Fate of the Universe

22.1 Unseen Influences in the Cosmos

22.2 Evidence for Dark Matter

22.3 Structure Formation

22.4 The Fate of the Universe

23 The Beginning of Time

23.1 The Big Bang

23.2 Evidence for the Big Bang

23.3 The Big Bang and Inflation

23.4 Observing the Big Bang for Yourself

 

PART VI

LIFE ON EARTH AND BEYOND

24 Life in the Universe

24.1 Life on Earth

24.2 Life in the Solar System

24.3 Life Around other Stars

24.4 The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

24.5 Interstellar Travel and Its Implications to Civilization

 

 

 

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This title is a member of the MasteringAstronomy Series, which also contains the titles below . You can also visit the MasteringAstronomy Series page.

Built from the ground up on our new understanding of the universe, The Essential Cosmic Perspective, Fourth Edition Media Update retains all of the features that have made this text so popular, and includes updated supplements that enhance the book’s pedagogy to make it the most effective text in the one-semester astronomy market.

 

This edition features optional quantitative reasoning boxes, basic equations throughout the text, new end-of-chapter problems, and a consolidated math appendix for professors who want to emphasize quantitative understanding in their course. Key figures have been annotated to guide student interpretation of difficult concepts. New two-page Cosmic Context illustrations  throughout the text, visually tie together key concepts from across chapters and put them in context, driving home main ideas in a meaningful way.

 

The Essential Cosmic Perspective, Fourth Edition Media Update provides an unprecedented media package.  MasteringAstronomy™, the most easy-to-use, yet sophisticated astronomy tutorial and assessment system ever built, provides both instructor-assigned homework as well as a self-study area with Bennett's popular Interactive Tutorials, Interactive Figures and Photos™, quizzes and more. An updated Essential Cosmic Lecture Launcher CD-ROM includes high resolution JPEGs of all images in the text for improved in-class projection, Interactive Figures and Photos™  based on figures from the book, PowerPoint^® Lecture Outlines, and Clicker Quizzes based on the book and book-specific interactive media, plus a variety of additional instructor resources. The Astronomy Media Workbook, Fifth Edition is now updated to correlate with  MasteringAstronomy™ and Voyager: SkyGazer v3.7 planetarium software.

 

• The Essential Cosmic Perspective Media Update, 4/E
  Bennett, Donahue, Schneider & Voit
  © 2008 | Addison-Wesley | Paper Package; 550 pages | Instock
  ISBN-10: 0321505689 | ISBN-13: 9780321505682
  Brief Description | Buy from myPearsonStore
  
  

Pearson Higher Education offers special pricing when you choose to package your text with other student resources. If you're interested in creating a cost-saving package for your students contact your Pearson Higher Education representative.