The Essential Cosmic Perspective with Mastering Astronomy™ and Voyager SkyGazer Planetarium Software - Softcover

Bennett, Jeffrey O.; Donahue, Megan O.; Schneider, Nicholas; Voit, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805393927 ISBN 13: 9780805393927

Publisher: Pearson, 2006

Synopsis

The Essential Cosmic Perspective, Fourth Edition has been thoroughly revised to include more quantitative coverage, an enhanced illustration and photo program, and an unparalleled new media package. Built from the ground up on our new understanding of the universe, the Fourth Edition retains all of the features that have made this text so popular, while adding new features and supplements that enhance the book’s pedagogy to make it the strongest text in the one-semester astronomy market.

 

The Fourth Edition features optional quantitative reasoning boxes, basic equations throughout the text, new end-of-chapter problems, and a consolidated math appendix for professors who want to emphasize quantitative understanding in their course. Key figures have been annotated  to guide student interpretation of difficult concepts. New two-page illustrations throughout the text, and at the end of every part, visually tie together key concepts from across chapters to drive home main ideas in a meaningful way.

 

The Essential Cosmic Perspective,Fourth Edition’s unprecedented media package now includes MasteringAstronomy™, the most advanced astronomy tutorial, assessment, and self-study system ever built. MasteringAstronomy’s sophisticated analysis of student performance data (including difficulty, time spent, and most common errors) has allowed every item to be systematically refined for quality, educational effectiveness, efficiency of teaching and learning, and assessment accuracy. The Essential Cosmic Lecture Launcher CD-ROM allows professors to integrate animations and interactive tools into classroom lectures, while the Voyager SkyGazer CD-ROM, also included with the text, provides students with the most popular planetarium software to help them learn more about their place in the universe.

 

About this title

About the Author

Jeffrey Bennett received a B.A. in biophysics from the University of California at San Diego in 1981 and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Colorado in 1987. He currently spends most of his time as a teacher, speaker, and writer. He has taught extensively at all levels, including having founded and run a science summer school for elementary and middle school children. At the college level, he has taught more than 50 college courses in astronomy, physics, mathematics, and education. He served two years as a visiting senior scientist at NASA headquarters, where he helped create numerous programs for science education. He also proposed the idea for and helped develop the Voyage Scale Model Solar System, which opened in 2001 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Besides his astronomy textbooks, he has written college-level textbooks in astronomy, mathematics, and statistics, and a book for the general public, On the Cosmic Horizon (Addison-Wesley, 2001). He also recently completed his first children's book, Max Goes to the Moon (Big Kid Science, 2003). When not working, he enjoys participating in masters swimming and in the daily adventures of life with his wife, Lisa, his children Grant and Brooke, and his dog, Max.

Megan Donahue is an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. After growing up in rural Nebraska, she obtained an S.B. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1985 and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Colorado in 1990. Her thesis on intergalactic galaxies won the Robert J. Trumpler Award (1993). She continued her research as a Carnegie Fellow at the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution in Pasadena, California, and later was an Institute Fellow at the Space Telescope Science Institute. She is an active observer, using ground-based telescopes, the Hubble Space Telescope, and orbiting X-ray telescopes. Her research focuses on questions of galaxy evolution, the nature of intergalactic space, large-scale structure formation, dark matter, and the fate of the universe. She married Mark Voit while in graduate school and they are the parents of two children, Michaela and Sebastian.

Nicholas Schneider is an associate professor in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado and a researcher in the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. He received his B.A. in physics and astronomy from Dartmouth College in 1979 and his Ph.D. in planetary science from the University of Arizona in 1988. In 1991, he received the National Science Foundation's Presidential Young Investigator Award. His research interests include planetary atmospheres and planetary astronomy, with a focus on the odd case of Jupiter's moon Io. He enjoys teaching at all levels and is active in efforts to improve undergraduate astronomy education. Off the job, he enjoys exploring the outdoors with his family and figuring out how things work.

Mark Voit is an astronomer in the Office of Public Outreach at the Space Telescope Science Institute. He earned his A.B. in physics at Princeton University in 1983 and his Ph.D. in astrophysics at the University of Colorado in 1990. He continued his studies at the California Institute of Technology, where he was Research Fellow in theoretical astrophysics. NASA then awarded him a Hubble Fellowship, under which he conducted research at the Johns Hopkins University. His research interests range from interstellar processes in our own galaxy to the clustering of galaxies in the early universe. Occasionally he escapes to the outdoors, where he and his wife, Megan Donahue, enjoy running, hiking, orienteering, and playing with their children. Mark is also author of the popular book Hubble Space Telescope: New Views of the Universe.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pearson
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805393927
• ISBN 13: 9780805393927
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 4
• Number of pages: 550