Cosmic Perspective, The

Jeffrey Bennett, a recipient of the American Institute of Physics Science Communication Award, holds a B.A. in biophysics (UC San Diego) and an M.S. and Ph.D. in astrophysics (University of Colorado). He specialises in science and math education and has taught at every level from preschool through graduate school. Career highlights including serving 2 years as a visiting senior scientist at NASA headquarters, where he developed programs to build stronger links between research and education, and proposing and helping to develop the Voyage scale model solar system on the National Mall (Washington, DC). Megan Donahue is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Michigan State University and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Her current research is mainly about using X-ray, UV, infrared, and visible light to study clusters of galaxies: their contents-dark matter, hot gas, galaxies, active galactic nuclei-and what they reveal about the contents of the universe and how galaxies form and evolve. She has a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Colorado. Her Ph.D. thesis on theory and optical observations of intergalactic and intracluster gas won the 1993 Trumpler Award from the Astronomical Society for the Pacific for an outstanding astrophysics doctoral dissertation in North America. She continued postdoctoral research as a Carnegie Fellow at Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California, and later as an STScI Fellow at Space Telescope. Megan was a staff astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute until 2003, when she joined the MSU faculty. 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. One research focus is the odd case of Jupiter's moon Io. Another is the mystery of Mars's lost atmosphere, which he hopes to answer by serving as science lead on the Imaging UV Spectrograph on NASA's MAVEN mission. Mark Voit is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies in the College of Natural Science at Michigan State University. He earned his A.B. in astrophysical sciences at Princeton University 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 a research fellow in theoretical astrophysics, and then moved on to Johns Hopkins University as a Hubble Fellow. Before going to Michigan State, Mark worked in the Office of Public Outreach at the Space Telescope, where he developed museum exhibitions about the Hubble Space Telescope and helped design NASA's award-winning HubbleSite.

PART I. DEVELOPING PERSPECTIVE
1. A Modern View of the Universe
2. Discovering the Universe For Yourself
3. The Science of Astronomy
S1. Celestial Timekeeping and Navigation
PART II. KEY CONCEPTS FOR ASTRONOMY
4. Making Sense of the Universe: Understanding Motion, Energy, and Gravity
5. Light and Matter: Reading Messages from the Cosmos
6. Telescopes: Portals of Discovery
PART IV. A DEEPER LOOK AT NATURE
S2. Space and Time
S3. Spacetime and Gravity
S4. Building Blocks of the Universe
PART V. STARS
14. Our Star
15. Surveying the Stars
16. Star Birth
17. Star Stuff
18. The Bizarre. Stellar Graveyard
PART VI. GALAXIES AND BEYOND
19. Our Galaxy
20. Galaxies and the Foundation of Modern Cosmology
21. Galaxy Evolution
22. The Birth of the Universe
23. Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Fate of the Universe
PART VII. LIFE ON EARTH AND BEYOND
24. Life In the Universe
Appendixes
Glossary
Credits
Index