FROM THE REVIEWS "An excellent guide to present-day studies of the Sun and our stars impact on Earths space environmentcolorful (and useful) images and a thoughtful organization.A great read, written with enthusiasm and knowledge. " "An excellent guidea serious yet broadly accessible account of what science has learned about the Sun to date. With quotes from songs and poems, pictures ranging from impressionistic paintings to state-of-the-art photographs to computer graphics, this book is a delight."
Tara, an Indian-American junior at Brierly prep school, feels her world dramatically change when a mirror planet to Earth is discovered and she, in this new era of scientific history, reconsiders her self and possible selves.
Marvel at the wonders of the universe, from stars and planets to black holes and nebulae, in this exploration of our solar system and beyond. Universe opens with a look at astronomy and the history of the Universe, using 3D artworks to provide a comprehensive grounding in the fundamental concepts of astronomy, including the basic techniques of practical astronomy. The core of the book is a tour of the cosmos covering the Solar System, the Milky Way, and galaxies beyond our own. Explanatory pages introduce different celestial phenomena, such as galaxies, and are followed by catalogs that profile the most interesting and important examples. A comprehensive star atlas completes the picture, with entries on each of the 88 constellations and a monthly sky guide showing the night sky as it appears throughout the year as viewed from both the northern and southern hemispheres.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
"In the last hundred years or so, most of the firmament has been taken from us. We are Less for our loss of the sky, but Norman Davidson has given us the boot straps we need to pull ourselves back up to heaven...or at least for a good look at it" E.C. Krupp (from the foreword). Sky Phenomena leads readers from the stars as seen from Earth, through the Sun, Moon, and various planets to the Copernican revolution, to comets and meteors, and to the sky of the Southern Hemisphere. The text includes mythological and historical aspects of the subject and has numerous exercises for the student. The final chapter is a unique collection of poetry related to the stars from ancient India to modern times.
By the late nineteenth century, engineers and experimental scientists generally knew how radio waves behaved, and by 1901 scientists were able to manipulate them to transmit messages across long distances. What no one could understand, however, was why radio waves followed the curvature of the Earth. Theorists puzzled over this for nearly twenty years before physicists confirmed the zig-zag theory, a solution that led to the discovery of a layer in the Earth’s upper atmosphere that bounces radio waves earthward—the ionosphere. In Probing the Sky with Radio Waves, Chen-Pang Yeang documents this monumental discovery and the advances in radio ionospheric propagation research that occurred in its aftermath. Yeang illustrates how the discovery of the ionosphere transformed atmospheric science from what had been primarily an observational endeavor into an experimental science. It also gave researchers a host of new theories, experiments, and instruments with which to better understand the atmosphere’s constitution, the origin of atmospheric electricity, and how the sun and geomagnetism shape the Earth’s atmosphere. This book will be warmly welcomed by scholars of astronomy, atmospheric science, geoscience, military and institutional history, and the history and philosophy of science and technology, as well as by radio amateurs and electrical engineers interested in historical perspectives on their craft.
This is a story of real people, who lived many of the adventures told within, over the period 1937 to 1969. It is a story of human dedication, tremendous perseverance, and heroic achievement. You will read about a news broadcast team, Frank and Laura Marshall, in the early days of radio. You will go with them as they travel around the globe seeking to document the turbulent days of World War II, the atomic age cold war, and the conflicts that followed. Their joys and heartaches will be yours to experience as they deal with the greatest technological project of history and the spy that gave it all away. One of Laura's younger brothers, Jamie, becomes a key factor in the development of aircraft engines for the Navy. His talents are enormous and lead him into dangerous situations that are unique, but were all too real. His involvement with the Navy's Special Operations, leads him behind enemy lines more than once. His missions are simple, ferret out the secrets of the German engine technology and the scientists responsible for their successes. Jamie represents many unsung heroes of our nation. His experiences will fascinate you. Jamie's wife, Betty, was the emerging business woman during this tumultuous period in our history. She and Jamie built a successful motorcycle business in response to the war needs of America's allies. Her journey was made with frustration and difficulty as her tenacity and her capability overcame the obstacles which a male-oriented society had created. Her rise to success was in response to America's needs of the time. You will live the life of a fighter pilot on both sides of the world as you meet and travel the adventures of Charles, Laura's youngest brother who joined the Navy on his seventeenth birthday and on the eve of catastrophe. Through Charles's eyes you will learn the history of naval aviation from the beginnings of World War II and through the development of the jet age. You will fly with him in crisp, exciting major air battles of The Battle of Britain, WWII and the conflicts that followed, Korea and Vietnam. His maturity, both as a pilot and as a human, will be both your joy and sorrow. That he put all on the line for his nation is so typical of our nation's ideals. The disappointment he feels at the change in direction of our nation after the Korean conflict will be yours as well.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth Extinction returns to humanity’s transformative impact on the environment, now asking: After doing so much damage, can we change nature, this time to save it? RECOMMENDED BY PRESIDENT OBAMA AND BILL GATES • SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR WRITING • ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, Esquire, Smithsonian Magazine, Vulture, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal • “Beautifully and insistently, Kolbert shows us that it is time to think radically about the ways we manage the environment.”—Helen Macdonald, The New York Times That man should have dominion “over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” is a prophecy that has hardened into fact. So pervasive are human impacts on the planet that it’s said we live in a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. In Under a White Sky, Elizabeth Kolbert takes a hard look at the new world we are creating. Along the way, she meets biologists who are trying to preserve the world’s rarest fish, which lives in a single tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave; engineers who are turning carbon emissions to stone in Iceland; Australian researchers who are trying to develop a “super coral” that can survive on a hotter globe; and physicists who are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere to cool the earth. One way to look at human civilization, says Kolbert, is as a ten-thousand-year exercise in defying nature. In The Sixth Extinction, she explored the ways in which our capacity for destruction has reshaped the natural world. Now she examines how the very sorts of interventions that have imperiled our planet are increasingly seen as the only hope for its salvation. By turns inspiring, terrifying, and darkly comic, Under a White Sky is an utterly original examination of the challenges we face.
Clouds are simple enough, just a collection of ice crystals or water droplets visible to everyone. Yet they are a source of endless wonder. They appear in an infinite number of shapes and forms. Some are beautiful, some awe inspiring, and some, like the whirling funnel cloud, are terrifying. Clouds inspire artists, poets, songwriters. They have reminded astronauts, looking down from space, that Earth, a seemingly abstract orb, is a place of life and movement. those great swirls of white-as they change shape, swell, evaporate into wisps, disappear and come back, glow with sunlight or darken with rain-are a constant reminder of how dynamic our planet is.
