Download or read book The Black Hole at the Center of Our Galaxy written by Fulvio Melia and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With this superbly illustrated, elegantly written, nontechnical account of the most enigmatic astronomical object yet observed, Melia captures all the excitement of the growing realization that humans are on the verge of actually seeing this exotic black hole object within the next few years. 39 illustrations.
Download or read book The Black Hole at the Center of Our Galaxy written by Fulvio Melia and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Could Einstein have possibly anticipated directly testing the most captivating prediction of general relativity, that there exist isolated pockets of spacetime shielded completely from our own? Now, almost a century after that theory emerged, one of the world's leading astrophysicists presents a wealth of recent evidence that just such an entity, with a mass of about three million suns, is indeed lurking at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way--in the form of a supermassive ''black hole''! With this superbly illustrated, elegantly written, nontechnical account of the most enigmatic astronomical object yet observed, Fulvio Melia captures all the excitement of the growing realization that we are on the verge of actually seeing this exotic object within the next few years. Melia traces our intellectual pilgrimage to the ''brooding behemoth'' at the heart of the Milky Way. He describes the dizzying technological advances that have recently brought us to the point of seeing through all the cosmic dust to a dark spot in a clouded cluster of stars in the constellation Sagittarius. Carefully assembling the compelling circumstantial evidence for its black hole status, he shows that it is primed to reveal itself as a glorious panorama of activity within this decade--through revolutionary images of its ''event horizon'' against the bright backdrop of nearby, radiating gas. Uniquely, this book brings together a specific and fascinating astronomical subject--black holes--with a top researcher to provide both amateur and armchair astronomers, but also professional scientists seeking a concise overview of the topic, a real sense of the palpable thrill in the scientific community when an important discovery is imminent.
Download or read book Revealing the Heart of the Galaxy written by Robert H. Sanders and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An insider's view of how the massive black hole was discovered at the Galactic Center.
Download or read book The Black Hole at the Center of the Milky Way written by Andreas Eckart and published by Imperial College Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reviewing the fundamental instrumental techniques and current observational results, this book unveils the mysteries of the physical processes in the central parsec of our Milky Way: the super-massive black hole embedded in a central stellar cluster as well as the gas and dust in the circumnuclear region. The observations described cover the entire electromagnetic spectrum from decimeter radio-waves to high energy X-ray and ?-rays, and a comprehensive summary of up-to-date astrophysical interpretations is given. The emphasis is put on observational techniques, image processing aspects, and a detailed presentation of the most cutting-edge work carried out in the near-infrared wavelength regime. These recent results include both the first orbits of stars around the central black hole and the multiwavelength variability of the central source.
Download or read book The Galactic Supermassive Black Hole written by Fulvio Melia and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here, one of the world's leading astrophysicists provides the first comprehensive and logically structured overview of the many ideas and discoveries pertaining to the supermassive black hole at the galactic center known as Sagittarius A*. By far the closest galactic nucleus in the universe, Sagittarius A* alone can provide us with a realistic expectation of learning about the physics of strong gravitational fields, and the impact of such fields on the behavior of matter and radiation under severe physical conditions. Its proximity may even provide the opportunity to directly test one of general relativity's most enigmatic predictions--the existence of closed pockets of space-time hidden behind an event horizon. The plethora of research on Sagittarius A* since its discovery in 1974 has long seemed an interwoven pattern of loose threads. No one has successfully synthesized this growing body of work into a manageable, coherent book both for professional researchers and for students taking courses focusing on black holes and galactic nuclei--until now. With Fulvio Melia's The Galactic Supermassive Black Hole, readers finally have at their disposal a one-volume crucible of essential ideas, logically streamlined but with thorough references for those wishing to explore the various topics in greater depth.
Download or read book Black Hole Survival Guide written by Janna Levin and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed author of Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space—an authoritative and accessible guide to the most alluring and challenging phenomena of contemporary science. "[Levin will] take you on a safe black hole trip, an exciting travel story enjoyed from your chair’s event horizon.” —Boston Globe Through her writing, astrophysicist Janna Levin has focused on making the science she studies not just comprehensible but also, and perhaps more important, intriguing to the nonscientist. In this book, she helps us to understand and find delight in the black hole—perhaps the most opaque theoretical construct ever imagined by physicists—illustrated with original artwork by American painter and photographer Lia Halloran. Levin takes us on an evocative exploration of black holes, provoking us to imagine the visceral experience of a black hole encounter. She reveals the influence of black holes as they populate the universe, sculpt galaxies, and even infuse the whole expanse of reality that we inhabit. Lively, engaging, and utterly unique, Black Hole Survival Guide is not just informative—it is, as well, a wonderful read from first to last.
Download or read book Quasars and Black Holes written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An introduction to quasars and black holes with information about their formation and characteristics. Includes diagrams, fun facts, a glossary, a resource list, and an index"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Science Discovery Files 10 Forgotten Stories Of Incredible Scientists written by Diane Lincoln and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2022-02-18 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science Discovery Files: 10 Forgotten Stories of Incredible Scientists tells real stories of scientific discoveries that you cannot find in textbooks or popular science books. The scientists featured are a diverse group, from female Chinese chemist Tu Youyou to William Beaumont and his handicapped assistant Alexis St. Martin, who helped pioneer studies into the human digestive system. Going beyond history, readers can also learn about the science principles behind each discovery! The backmatter includes additional information and further reading for curious readers.Scientists featured:This book is a 2023 Nautilus Book Awards winner.
Download or read book Gravity s Engines written by Caleb Scharf and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-08-07 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering a sweeping tour of fantastic physics and cosmic history, a view of the most fearsome places in the universe that finally asks what it will take to see the event horizon of a black hole.
Download or read book Mapping the Heavens written by Priyamvada Natarajan and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-28 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A theoretical astrophysicist explores the ideas that transformed our knowledge of the universe over the past century. The cosmos, once understood as a stagnant place, filled with the ordinary, is now a universe that is expanding at an accelerating pace, propelled by dark energy and structured by dark matter. Priyamvada Natarajan, our guide to these ideas, is someone at the forefront of the research—an astrophysicist who literally creates maps of invisible matter in the universe. She not only explains for a wide audience the science behind these essential ideas but also provides an understanding of how radical scientific theories gain acceptance. The formation and growth of black holes, dark matter halos, the accelerating expansion of the universe, the echo of the big bang, the discovery of exoplanets, and the possibility of other universes—these are some of the puzzling cosmological topics of the early twenty-first century. Natarajan discusses why the acceptance of new ideas about the universe and our place in it has never been linear and always contested even within the scientific community. And she affirms that, shifting and incomplete as science always must be, it offers the best path we have toward making sense of our wondrous, mysterious universe. “Part history, part science, all illuminating. If you want to understand the greatest ideas that shaped our current cosmic cartography, read this book.”—Adam G. Riess, Nobel Laureate in Physics, 2011 “A highly readable, insider’s view of recent discoveries in astronomy with unusual attention to the instruments used and the human drama of the scientists.”—Alan Lightman, author of The Accidental Universe and Einstein's Dream
Download or read book Death By Black Hole written by Neil deGrasse Tyson and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2007-01-16 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays on the cosmos, written by an American Museum of Natural History astrophysicist, includes "Holy Wars," "Ends of the World," and "Hollywood Nights."
Download or read book Astroquizzical the Illustrated Edition written by Jillian Scudder and published by . This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Einstein s Shadow written by Seth Fletcher and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Einstein’s Shadow follows a team of elite scientists on their historic mission to take the first picture of a black hole, putting Einstein’s theory of relativity to its ultimate test and helping to answer our deepest questions about space, time, the origins of the universe, and the nature of reality Photographing a black hole sounds impossible, a contradiction in terms. But Shep Doeleman and a global coalition of scientists are on the cusp of doing just that. With exclusive access to the team, journalist Seth Fletcher spent five years following Shep and an extraordinary cast of characters as they assembled the Event Horizon Telescope, a worldwide network of radio telescopes created to study black holes. He witnessed the team’s struggles, setbacks, and breakthroughs, and, along the way, Fletcher explored the latest thinking on the most profound questions about black holes: Do they represent a limit to our ability to understand reality? Or will they reveal the clues that lead to the long-sought theory of everything? Fletcher transforms astrophysics into something exciting, accessible, and immediate, taking us on an incredible adventure to better understand the complexity of our galaxy, the boundaries of human perception and knowledge, and how the messy endeavor of science really works. Weaving a compelling narrative account of human ingenuity with excursions into cutting-edge science, Einstein’s Shadow is a tale of great minds on a mission to change the way we understand our universe—and our place in it.
Download or read book The Black Hole War written by Leonard Susskind and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2008-07-07 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happens when something is sucked into a black hole? Does it disappear? Three decades ago, a young physicist named Stephen Hawking claimed it did-and in doing so put at risk everything we know about physics and the fundamental laws of the universe. Most scientists didn't recognize the import of Hawking's claims, but Leonard Susskind and Gerard t'Hooft realized the threat, and responded with a counterattack that changed the course of physics. THE BLACK HOLE WAR is the thrilling story of their united effort to reconcile Hawking's revolutionary theories of black holes with their own sense of reality-effort that would eventually result in Hawking admitting he was wrong, paying up, and Susskind and t'Hooft realizing that our world is a hologram projected from the outer boundaries of space. A brilliant book about modern physics, quantum mechanics, the fate of stars and the deep mysteries of black holes, Leonard Susskind's account of the Black Hole War is mind-bending and exhilarating reading.
Download or read book The Life of the Cosmos written by Lee Smolin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1999-03-04 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lee Smolin offers a new theory of the universe that is at once elegant, comprehensive, and radically different from anything proposed before. Smolin posits that a process of self organization like that of biological evolution shapes the universe, as it develops and eventually reproduces through black holes, each of which may result in a new big bang and a new universe. Natural selection may guide the appearance of the laws of physics, favoring those universes which best reproduce. The result would be a cosmology according to which life is a natural consequence of the fundamental principles on which the universe has been built, and a science that would give us a picture of the universe in which, as the author writes, "the occurrence of novelty, indeed the perpetual birth of novelty, can be understood." Smolin is one of the leading cosmologists at work today, and he writes with an expertise and force of argument that will command attention throughout the world of physics. But it is the humanity and sharp clarity of his prose that offers access for the layperson to the mind bending space at the forefront of today's physics.
Download or read book Einstein s Monsters written by Chris Impey and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[A] skillfully told history of the quest to find black holes.” —Manjit Kumar, Financial Times Black holes are the best-known and least-understood objects in the universe. In Einstein’s Monsters, distinguished astronomer Chris Impey takes readers on a vivid tour of these enigmatic giants. He weaves a fascinating tale out of the fiendishly complex math of black holes and the colorful history of their discovery. Impey blends this history with a poignant account of the phenomena scientists have witnessed while observing black holes: stars swarming like bees around the center of our galaxy; black holes performing gravitational waltzes with visible stars; the cymbal clash of two black holes colliding, releasing ripples in space time. Clear, compelling, and profound, Einstein’s Monsters reveals how our comprehension of black holes is intrinsically linked to how we make sense of the universe and our place within it.
Download or read book Astrophysics Of Gas Nebulae and Active Galactic Nuclei written by Donald E. Osterbrock and published by University Science Books. This book was released on 2006 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thoroughly revised and expanded throughout, the new edition is a graduate-level text and reference book on gaseous nebulae, nova and supernova remnants. Much of the new data and new images are from the Hubble Space Telescope with two wholly new chapters being added along with other new features. The previous edition which was tried and tested for thirty years has now been succeeded by a revised, updated, larger edition, which will be valuable to anyone seriously interested in astrophysics.
