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This newly revised and updated edition of Foundations of Astronomy shows students their place in the universe — not just their location, but also their role as planet dwellers in an evolving universe. Fascinating and engaging, the textbook illustrates how science works, and how scientists depend on evidence to test hypotheses. Seeds provides not just a series of facts, but also a conceptual framework for understanding the logic of astronomical knowledge. ?? ?? The textbook conveys the author's love of the subject, shows students how the universe can be described by a small set of physical laws, and illustrates how they can comprehend their place in the universe by understanding these laws, not through memorization of facts.

Table of contents

1	The Scale of the Cosmos	1
Unit I	The Sky	17
2	The Earth and Sky	18
3	Lunar Phases, Tides, and Eclipses	41
4	The Origin of Modern Astronomy	65
5	Newton, Einstein, and Gravity	91
6	Light and Telescopes	113
Unit II	The Stars	139
7	Starlight and Atoms	140
8	The Sun - Our Star	163
9	Measuring Stars	185
10	Binary Stars	207
11	The Formation of Stars	225
12	Stellar Evolution	253
13	The Deaths of Stars	277
14	Neutron Stars and Black Holes	299
Unit III	The Universe	323
15	The Milky Way	324
16	Galaxies	349
17	Peculiar Galaxies	373
18	Cosmology	397
Unit IV	The Solar System	421
19	The Origin of the Solar System	422
20	Planet Earth	443
21	The Moon and Mercury: Airless Worlds	459
22	Venus and Mars	485
23	Jupiter and Saturn	513
24	Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto	545
25	Meteorites, Asteroids, and Comets	573
Unit V	Life	605
26	Life on Other Worlds	606
27	Afterword	627