Making Stars Physical

Making Stars Physical offers the first extensive look at the astronomical career of John Herschel, son of William Herschel and one of the leading scientific figures in Britain throughout much of the nineteenth century. Herschel’s astronomical career is usually relegated to a continuation of his father, William’s, sweeps for nebulae. However, as Stephen Case argues, John Herschel was pivotal in establishing the sidereal revolution his father had begun: a shift of attention from the planetary system to the study of nebulous regions in the heavens and speculations on the nature of the Milky Way and the sun’s position within it. Through John Herschel’s astronomical career—in particular his work on constellation reform, double stars, and variable stars—the study of stellar objects became part of mainstream astronomy. He leveraged his mathematical expertise and his position within the scientific community to make sidereal astronomy accessible even to casual observers, allowing amateurs to make useful observations that could contribute to theories on the nature of stars. With this book, Case shows how Herschel’s work made the stars physical and laid the foundations for modern astrophysics.

The Bosscha Observatory in Lembang, Java, Indonesia, celebrated in 1983 its 60th anniversary. Since its foundation, the physical properties of binary systems have formed a major research topic of this observatory. Until 1970, the study of visual binaries and the determination of orbits received most emphasis. Since then, also the evolution of close binary systems, such as X-ray binaries, Wolf-Rayet binaries and binary pulsars, has been researched with priority in Lembang. It seemed thus appropriate that a Colloquium devoted to the study of binary systems be held in Lembang at the time of the Observatory's anniversary. In the Colloquium, the role of wide double (and multiple) systems received special emphasis - not only because of the long tradition of visual binary research at Lembang; but also because their role in documenting stellar evolution has been largely overlooked in recent decades, and needs to be brought into focus with the information forthcoming from close binaries. The Colloquium covered the physical properties of visual as well as close binary systems, and their generic relations, in the broadest possible sense. It was sponsored by the International Astronomical Union as IAU Colloquium No. 80 ('Double Stars, Physical Properties and Generic Relations'). After the official opening ceremony, the meeting started with a discussion on the future of astronomy in Asia. The scientific sessions began with the 'V. Bappu Memorial Lecture on the Evolution of Binary Systems', presented by Z. Kopal.

More than half of all stars in the universe formed and evolved as binary systems and their study is essential for understanding stellar and galactic evolution. The six lectures in this book give both a readable introduction and an up-to-date review of nearly all aspects of research into binary stars, including the range from common binaries to more exotic systems composed of white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes.

Mountaineers, Rock Climbers, and Science Educators Around the 1920s, rock climbing separated from mountaineering to become a separate sport. At that time European climbers developed new equipment and techniques, enabling them to ascend mountain faces and to climb rocks, which were considered unassailable up to that time. American climbers went further by expanding and improving on the equipment. They even developed a system of quantification where points were given for the degree of difficulty of an ascent. This system focused primarily on the pitch of the mountain, and it even calculated up to de- mals to give a high degree of quantification. Rock climbing became a technical system. Csikszentmihaly (1976) observed that the sole interest of rock climbers at that time was to climb the rock. Rock climbers were known to reach the top and not even glance around at the scenery. The focus was on reaching the top of the rock. In contrast, mountaineers saw the whole mountain as a single “unit of perc- tion. ” “The ascent (to them) is a gestalt including the aesthetic, historical, personal and physical sensations” (Csikszentmihaly, 1976, p. 486). This is an example of two contrasting approaches to the same kind of landscape and of two different groups of people. Interestingly, in the US, Europe, and Japan a large segment of the early rock climbers were young mathematicians and theoretical physicists, while the mountaineers were a more varied lot.

Circumstellar disks are vast expanses of dust that form around new stars in the earliest stages of their birth. Predicted by astronomers as early as the eighteenth century, they weren’t observed until the late twentieth century, when interstellar imaging technology enabled us to see nascent stars hundreds of light years away. Since then, circumstellar disks have become an area of intense study among astrophysicists, largely because they are thought to be the forerunners of planetary systems like our own—the possible birthplaces of planets. This volume brings together a team of leading experts to distill the most up-to-date knowledge of circumstellar disks into a clear introductory volume. Understanding circumstellar disks requires a broad range of scientific knowledge, including chemical processes, the properties of dust and gases, hydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics, radiation transfer, and stellar evolution—all of which are covered in this comprehensive work, which will be indispensable for graduate students, seasoned researchers, or even advanced undergrads setting out on the study of planetary evolution.

From the latest scientific advances to observation advice for amateur astronomers, a beautifully illustrated exploration of one of Earth’s closest neighbors. This book is a new, beautifully illustrated account of Venus, taking in the most recent research into this mysterious, inhospitable world. The book looks at the history of our observations of the planet, from early astronomy to future space missions, and seeks to shed light on many of the questions that remain unanswered, such as why Venus and the Earth—so similar in size and mass—evolved in such different directions, and how Venus acquired its dense carbon-dioxide atmosphere. Above all, Venus assesses whether life might have escaped from the oven-like temperatures at the surface and evolved to become perpetually airborne—in which case Venus may not be lifeless after all.

Recent years have witnessed the expansion and multiplication of the observations of star formation and fragmentation accompanied by a consequent growth in the study of the underlying physical processes, the chemistry, the sites, the times, etc. Moreover, recent studies have shown that the formation of stars is likely to share many features with the formation of other self-gravitating objects. The present volume, therefore, discusses the formation of such objects in a systematic and comparative manner.