Download or read book New Light on Dark Stars written by Neill I. Reid and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-27 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perhaps the most common question that a child asks when he or she sees the night sky from a dark site for the first time is: 'How many stars are there?' This happens to be a question which has exercised the intellectual skills of many astronomers over the course of most of the last century, including, for the last two decades, one of the authors of this text. Until recently, the most accurate answer was 'We are not certain, but there is a good chance that almost all of them are M dwarfs. ' Within the last three years, results from new sky-surveys - particularly the first deep surveys at near infrared wavelengths - have provided a breakthrough in this subject, solidifying our census of the lowest-mass stars and identifying large numbers of the hitherto almost mythical substellar-mass brown dwarfs. These extremely low-luminosity objects are the central subjects of this book, and the subtitle should be interpreted accordingly. The expression 'low-mass stars' carries a wide range of meanings in the astronomical literature, but is most frequently taken to refer to objects with masses comparable with that of the Sun - F and G dwarfs, and their red giant descendants. While this definition is eminently reasonable for the average extragalactic astronomer, our discussion centres on M dwarfs, with masses of no more than 60% that of the Sun, and extends to 'failed stars' - objects with insufficient mass to ignite central hydrogen fusion.
Download or read book Very Low Mass Stars and Brown Dwarfs written by Rafael Rebolo and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-11-27 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a state-of-the-art review of our current knowledge of brown dwarfs and very low-mass stars. The hunt for and study of these elusive objects is currently one of the most dynamic areas of research in astronomy for two reasons. Brown dwarfs bridge the gap between stars and planets, and they may constitute an important part of the 'dark matter' of the Universe. This volume presents review articles from a team of international authorities who gathered at a conference in La Palma to assess the spectacular progress that has been made in this field in the last few years.
Download or read book 50 Years of Brown Dwarfs written by Viki Joergens and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-27 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The years 2012/2013 mark the 50th anniversary of the theoretical prediction that Brown Dwarfs, i.e. degenerate objects which are just not massive enough to sustain stable hydrogen fusion, exist. Some 20 years after their discovery, how Brown Dwarfs form is still one of the main open questions in the theory of star formation. In this volume, the pioneers of Brown Dwarf research review the history of the theoretical prediction and the subsequent discovery of Brown Dwarfs. After an introduction, written by Viki Joergens, reviewing Shiv Kumar's theoretical prediction of the existence of brown dwarfs, Takenori Nakano reviews his and Hayashi's calculation of the Hydrogen Burning Minimum Mass. Both predictions happened in the early 1960s. Jill Tarter then writes on the introduction of the term 'Brown Dwarf', before Ben Oppenheimer, Rafael Rebolo and Gibor Basri describe their first discovery of Brown Dwarfs in the 1990s. Lastly, Michael Cushing and Isabelle Baraffe describe the development of the field to the current state of the art. While the book is mainly aimed at the Brown Dwarf research community, the description of the pioneering period in a scientific field will attract general readers interested in astronomy as well.
Download or read book Protostars and Planets V written by Bo Reipurth and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 994 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Protostars and Planets V' builds on the latest results from recent advances in ground and space-based astronomy and in numerical computing techniques to offer the most detailed and up-to-date picture of star and planet formation - including the formation and early evolution of our own solar system.
Download or read book The New Cosmos written by Albrecht Unsöld and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2001 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new edition of the classic textbook The New Cosmos presents a comprehensive introductory survey of the whole field of astronomy and astrophysics. Among the topics covered are: - Classical astronomy and the Solar System - Instruments and observational methods - The Sun and the stars - The Milky Way and other galaxies - Cosmology - The origin of the Solar System - The evolution of the Earth and of life The observational methods and results of astronomical research as well as their theoretical foundations and interrelations are presented in an understandable format. The rapid progress of observational techniques and of theoretical understanding in the past decade are introduced and summarized in this timely and readable volume. This revised and extended new printing demonstrates the rapid advances in astronomical research and observation in the three years since the appearance of the 5th edition. The most important new results can be found within, providing in particular up-to-date information on our solar system, neutrino radiation from the Sun, the farthest galaxies and quasars and the development of the Universe.
Download or read book Ultracool Dwarfs written by Hugh R.A. Jones and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once you have looked at the night sky on a moonless night it is not hard to realise why so much of our science and religion has its roots in the stars. Yet it took until 1850 to realise that fainter stars were not necessarily further away, nor the brighter ones closer. In fact within the magnitude range observable to the naked eye it is probable that the brighter star is in fact further away. Even today the measurement of stellar distances is relatively difficult and is gener ally only done using dedicated telescopes. In the early years of the 20th century Hertzsprung and Russell developed a powerful classification diagram which al lows stars to be distinguished using a plot of their colour versus magnitude. The construction of this diagram involved the use of spectroscopy which has become the cornerstone of modern astronomy. As telescopes become more powerful, de tectors more sensitive and more physics is added to astrophysics, astronomical spectroscopy becomes a more powerful tool. The concern of this book is the spectral classification of stars. With a single spectrum of a star it is possible to uniquely classify an object and find its place on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. This spectrum is thus equivalent to having the colour and the magnitude of the object which can in turn be related to mass and other quantities.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Astrobiology written by Muriel Gargaud and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-07-27 with total page 3376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in its third edition the Encyclopedia of Astrobiology serves as the key to a common understanding in the extremely interdisciplinary community of astrobiologists. Each new or experienced researcher and graduate student in adjacent fields of astrobiology will appreciate this reference work in the quest to understand the big picture. The carefully selected group of active researchers contributing to this work are aiming to give a comprehensive international perspective on and to accelerate the interdisciplinary advance of astrobiology. The interdisciplinary field of astrobiology constitutes a joint arena where provocative discoveries are coalescing concerning, e.g. the prevalence of exoplanets, the diversity and hardiness of life, and its chances for emergence. Biologists, astrophysicists, (bio)-chemists, geoscientists and space scientists share this exciting mission of revealing the origin and commonality of life in the Universe. With its overview articles and its definitions the Encyclopedia of Astrobiology not only provides a common language and understanding for the members of the different disciplines but also serves for educating a new generation of young astrobiologists who are no longer separated by the jargon of individual scientific disciplines. This new edition offers ~170 new entries. More than half of the existing entries were updated, expanded or supplemented with figures supporting the understanding of the text. Especially in the fields of astrochemistry and terrestrial extremophiles but also in exoplanets and space sciences in general there is a huge body of new results that have been taken into account in this new edition. Because the entries in the Encyclopedia are in alphabetical order without regard for scientific field, this edition includes a section “Astrobiology by Discipline” which lists the entries by scientific field and subfield. This should be particularly helpful to those enquiring about astrobiology, as it illustrates the broad and detailed nature of the field.
Download or read book Extrasolar Planets written by Hans Deeg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-10-18 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 2007 volume presents the lectures from the sixteenth Winter School of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, which was dedicated to extrasolar planets. Research into extrasolar planets is one of the most exciting fields of astrophysics, and the past decade has seen a research leap from speculations on the existence of planets orbiting other stars to the discovery of around 200 planets to date. The book covers a wide range of issues, from the state-of-the-art observational techniques used to detect extrasolar planets, to the characterizations of these planets, and the techniques used in the remote detection of life. It also looks at the insights we can gain from our own Solar System, and how we can apply them. The contributors, all of high-standing in the field, provide a balanced and varied introduction to extrasolar planets for research astronomers and graduate students, bridging theoretical developments and observational advances.
Download or read book Discovering the Universe written by Neil F. Comins and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-04-25 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discovering the Universe is the bestselling brief text for descriptive one-term astronomy courses (especially those with no mathematics prerequisites). Carried along by the book's vibrant main theme, "the process of scientific discovery," the Ninth Edition furthers the book’s legacy for presenting concepts clearly and accurately while providing all the pedagogical tools to make the learning process memorable.
Download or read book Solar System Evolution written by Stuart Ross Taylor and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-09-06 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book The Origins of Stars and Planets The VLT View written by João F. Alves and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-12-01 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many important observational clues about our understanding of how stars and planets form in the interior of molecular clouds have been amassed using recent technological developments. ESO's Very Large Telescope promises to be a major step forward in the investigation of stellar nurseries and infant stars. This volume collects papers from the leaders in this very timely field of astrophysical research. It presents theoretical and a host of observational results and many papers show the plans for future observations.
Download or read book The Labyrinth of Star Formation written by Dimitris Stamatellos and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2014-04-03 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains the proceedings from the conference "The Labyrinth of Star Formation" that was held in Crete, Greece, in June 2012, to honour the contributions to the study of star formation made by Professor Anthony Whitworth of Cardiff University. The book covers many aspects of theoretical and observational star formation: low-mass star formation; young circumstellar discs; computational methods; triggered star formation; the stellar initial mass function; high-mass star formation and stellar clusters. Each section starts with a review paper, followed by papers discussing recent theoretical and observational work. This volume summarises our current understanding of star formation and is useful for both graduate students and researchers alike.
Download or read book Life in the Cosmos written by Manasvi Lingam and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-29 with total page 1089 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rigorous and scientific analysis of the myriad possibilities of life beyond our planet. “Are we alone in the universe?” This tantalizing question has captivated humanity over millennia, but seldom has it been approached rigorously. Today the search for signatures of extraterrestrial life and intelligence has become a rapidly advancing scientific endeavor. Missions to Mars, Europa, and Titan seek evidence of life. Laboratory experiments have made great strides in creating synthetic life, deepening our understanding of conditions that give rise to living entities. And on the horizon are sophisticated telescopes to detect and characterize exoplanets most likely to harbor life. Life in the Cosmos offers a thorough overview of the burgeoning field of astrobiology, including the salient methods and paradigms involved in the search for extraterrestrial life and intelligence. Manasvi Lingam and Avi Loeb tackle three areas of interest in hunting for life “out there”: first, the pathways by which life originates and evolves; second, planetary and stellar factors that affect the habitability of worlds, with an eye on the biomarkers that may reveal the presence of microbial life; and finally, the detection of technological signals that could be indicative of intelligence. Drawing on empirical data from observations and experiments, as well as the latest theoretical and computational developments, the authors make a compelling scientific case for the search for life beyond what we can currently see. Meticulous and comprehensive, Life in the Cosmos is a master class from top researchers in astrobiology, suggesting that the answer to our age-old question is closer than ever before.
Download or read book The Exoplanet Handbook written by Michael Perryman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-30 with total page 973 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete and in-depth review of exoplanet research, covering the discovery methods, physics and theoretical background.
Download or read book Cores to Clusters written by M.S. Nanda Kumar and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-04-07 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was with pleasure that CAUP became for three days the core to the cloud of star formation experts all over the world. Close to the celebration of its 15th anniversary – therefore still in the early stages of institutional evolution – we are proud of our multiple activities in Astronomy: a productive research centre, classi?ed as “Institution of excellence” within the Portuguese research units, but also an “Institution of Public Utility” as recognised by the Government. Fifteen years ago we choose to play a role not only in research, as expected from any research centre but also in the training of the future astronomers and the promotion of science and scienti?c culture. This choice is clearly stated in our by-laws and also in the multiple activities we have carried out since. Along the years we have organized on a regular basis international Workshops similar to “Cores to Clusters”. Sometimes we have chosen to organize int- national conferences of a larger size. On other occasions the choice has been for smaller and more informal discussion meetings. Or even doctoral schools with very different objectives. In common all those meetings have always had, besides the formal registered participants, a group of informal participants, our undergraduate students of Astronomy, so eager to be in touch with the real world.
Download or read book Planet Quest written by Ken Croswell and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1999 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are we alone? In 1995 planet hunters discovered the first alien solar system around a star like our own Sun. Ken Croswell tells the fascinating story of this discovery and the people who made it, then explores the possibility that one day we may have the technology to travel to different solar systems and find life.
Download or read book Open Issues in Local Star Formation written by Jacques Lépine and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-04-18 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The international colloquium Open Issues in Local Star Formation and Early Stellar Evolution was focused on: the physics of young stellar objects, which are observed with increasing angular resolution by the new generation of telescopes; and the processes that triggered large scale star formation in the solar neighbourhood. The scientific presentations were not limited to these two main topics as many new and interesting results related to star formation have been obtained.; The participants presented new findings in the fields of stellar groups and associations; young stellar objects; disks; outflows and jets; the ISM conditions for star formation; and early stages of star formation. The discussions on open issues, representing problems and unanswered questions, should make this book particularly useful for researchers and PhD students.
