Astrofysik

Albert Einstein knew already in the early 1900s, when he first published his famous paper about the constancy of the speed of light, that not only did this constancy imply that mass contains energy (E = m c squared), but that faster-than-light motion could lead to paradoxes -- some that seemed to involve backwards time travel.What are these paradoxes? Why is light and its speed relevant? This book will lead you through an obstacle course of conundrums and oddities, building up your understanding of how light's speed creates simple but mind-expanding paradoxes -- one conceptual riddle at a time.This is not your average popular science book. This is also not a textbook. This book takes one theme -- the universally constant speed of light -- and shows how it may appear compromised on scales from the quantum mechanics of the very small to the cosmology of the very large, and the resulting surprising implications can result.

NOMBRADO MEJOR LIBRO DE 2022 POR PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Y MEJOR AUDIOLIBRO DE 2022 POR BOOKPAGE«TODOS USTEDES EXISTEN GRACIAS A MÍ».Con miles de millones de años de ser testigo de la vida en la Tierra, de ver a cien mil millones de humanos en su vida cotidiana, de sentirse increíblemente sola y de escuchar su propia historia contada por otros, a la Vía Láctea (con sus cien mil millones de estrellas y cincuenta undecillones de toneladas de gas) le gustaría hablar por sí misma.Todo comenzó hace unos trece mil millones de años, cuando las nubes de gas esparcidas por el plasma primordial del universo sucumbieron a su atracción gravitacional y nació la Vía Láctea. Desde entonces, la galaxia ha visto cómo la energía oscura alejó a sus primeros amigos, cómo los humanos mitificaron su nombre y propósito, y cómo los arqueólogos galácticos trabajaron para determinar su verdadera edad. La Vía Láctea ha absorbido agujeros negros supermasivos, se ha convertido en enemiga de algunos vecinos galácticos y ha llorado la muerte de innumerables estrellas, incluso se ha enamorado.La Vía Láctea siente que ya acumuló suficiente experiencia como para relatarnos su historia y el futuro del universo desde su punto de vista, haciendo gala de un conocimiento astronómico fuera de este mundo.

Known for his breakthroughs in theoretical physics and his ability to make complex concepts accessible for all, Hawking was working on a final project at the time of his death: a book compiling his answers to the "big" questions that he was so often posed--questions that ranged beyond his academic field. Within these pages, he provides his personal views on our biggest challenges as a human race, and where we, as a planet, are heading next.

Multi-messenger science has a long history in solar astronomy, as direct measures of "in-situ" particles emanating from the Sun, like the solar wind, have long been used alongside remote observations to shape our understanding of the heliosphere. Still, the recent advent of several major observational facilities, such as Parker Solar Probe, Solar Orbiter, and the Inouye Solar Telescope, among many others, is now heralding an exciting new era of scientific opportunities within multi-messenger solar physics. This volume collects the proceedings of IAU Symposium 372 held during the XXXIst IAU General Assembly in Busan, Republic of Korea. Its main goal is to highlight how these facilities can address many of the pressing questions facing contemporary solar physics, with a special emphasis on their coordinated operation and the resulting synergies. Graduate students and researchers in solar physics will benefit from the many new results presented within.

Winds form an integral part of astronomy ¿ from regulating rotation of stars through enriching galaxies with fresh materials. Outflowing winds persist during the entire lives of stars and play a key role in shaping the exoplanet demographics we observe. In massive stars, their winds are a vital ingredient of their evolution, from the main sequence to the pre-supernova stage, determining black hole masses as measured from gravitational waves. In the case of low-mass stars, their winds dictate rotational evolution, which affect angular momentum distribution within the stellar interior and thus the generation of magnetic fields. In the case of planets, winds take the form of atmospheric escape, which can strongly affect their atmospheric evolution. IAU Symposium 370 brings together researchers on winds of exoplanets and stars, including the solar wind, to share insights into the physics and modelling tools used by these different communities.

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton Observatory have been the pioneering satellites for studying the Universe with X-rays and the cornerstone of X-ray spectroscopy since their launches more than 20 years ago. The onboard gratings provide us a unique opportunity to distinguish individual spectral lines from different atoms thanks to their high energy resolutions. Enormous discoveries have been achieved by these two missions when observing a variety of X-ray-emitting astronomical objects, such as black holes, supernova remnants, clusters of galaxies, and stars. However, the data are limited to fairly bright X-ray sources. The recent JAXA's mission Hitomi opened a new window of high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy thanks to its onboard X-ray calorimeter. Although this mission was shortly terminated due to a mishap, Hitomi left behind a few sets of observations awaiting more data mining. The first half of this book introduces the history of high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy and different generations of X-ray spectrometers. A tutorial guide on how to reduce, analyze, and understand the astronomical data from Chandra, XMM-Newton, and Hitomi is also included. The second half of the book reviews past results obtained by the high-resolution spectrometers on these missions on multiple topics and discusses possible discoveries by upcoming missions in the next decade.

This book highlights fundamentals and advances in the theories and observations of solar magnetic fields. Solar magnetism is an important part of solar physics and space weather research. It covers the formation, development, and relaxation of the magnetic fields in the solar eruptive process. The book discusses topics ranging from measurement facilities for solar observations to the evolution of solar magnetic fields, the storage of magnetic energy, and the magnetic helicity in the solar atmosphere and its relation with solar cycles. The book also presents recent advances in measurements and observations of solar magnetic shear, currents, magnetic helicity, and solar cycles. The book intends for astronomy-majored students and researchers interested in solar magnetism and its role in astrophysics.

"The Heliosphere in the Local Interstellar Medium", the Proceedings of the First ISSI Workshop 6-10 November 1995, Bern, Switzerland, edited by R. von Steiger, R. Lallement, and M.A. Lee and published in 1996, was the first International Space Science Institute (ISSI) book in the Space Sciences Series. This book covers the knowledge gained in the subsequent 27 years that revolutionized our understanding of the interaction of the heliosphere with the very local interstellar medium (VLISM). Entirely new regions of space have been explored! The Voyagers both crossed the termination shock, passed through the heliosheath, crossed the heliopause, and entered the interstellar medium. New Horizons was launched with more modern instrumentation and explores low-latitude regions of the outer heliosphere. Energetic neutral atoms observed by IBEX and CASSINI allowed exploration of the heliosphere over the whole sky. The initial reconnaissance of the heliosphere and VLISM is complete with in situmeasurements, observations of energetic neutral atoms (ENAs), neutral VLISM H and He, UV emissions, and interstellar dust.This book is a collection reviews from experts in the many aspects of this field that describe the current state of knowledge of the heliosphere¿s interaction with the interstellar medium, puzzles yet to be solved, and future plans to continue these studies.

A graduate-level introduction to the interface between particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmologyThis book explores the exciting interface between the fields of cosmology, high-energy astrophysics, and particle physics, at a level suitable for advanced undergraduate- to graduate-level students as well as active researchers. Without assuming a strong background in particle physics or quantum field theory, the text is designed to be accessible to readers from a range of backgrounds and presents both fundamentals and modern topics in a modular style that allows for flexible use and easy reference. It offers coverage of general relativity and the Friedmann equations, early universe thermodynamics, recombination and the cosmic microwave background, Big Bang nucleosynthesis, the origin and detection of dark matter, the formation of large-scale structure, baryogenesis and leptogenesis, inflation, dark energy, cosmic rays, neutrino and gamma-ray astrophysics, supersymmetry, Grand Unified Theories, sterile neutrinos, and axions. The book also includes numerous worked examples and homework problems, many with solutions. Particle Cosmology and Astrophysics provides readers with an invaluable entrée to this cross-disciplinary area of research and discovery. Accessible to advanced undergraduate to graduate students, as well as researchers in cosmology, high-energy astrophysics, and particle physicsDoes not assume a strong background in particle physics or quantum field theory and contains two chapters specifically for readers with no background in particle physicsBroad scope, covering many topics across particle physics, astrophysics, and particle cosmologyModular presentation for easy reference and flexible useProvides more than 200 homework problems, many with solutionsIdeal for course use or self-study and reference

There is a huge gulf between the real physics of space travel and the way it is commonly portrayed in movies and TV shows. That¿s not because space physics is difficult or obscure ¿ most of the details were understood by the end of the 18th century ¿ but because it can often be bafflingly counter-intuitive for a general audience. The purpose of this book isn¿t to criticize or debunk popular sci-fi depictions, which can be very entertaining, but to focus on how space physics really works. This is done with the aid of numerous practical illustrations taken from the works of serious science fiction authors ¿ from Jules Verne and Arthur C. Clarke to Larry Niven and Andy Weir ¿ who have taken positive pleasure in getting their scientific facts right.

Quantum computers over a completely different computing paradigm than classical computers. Harnessing the fundamental properties of quantum mechanics,quantum computers promise to solve certain classes of problems that are impossibleor intractable with modern classical computers. In some sense, quantum computers are unavoidable, as the Moore's law scaling of classical transistors eventually envisions that bits are reduced to the size of atoms, where quantum mechanics becomes the dominating principle. One of the first envisioned applications of quantum computers is to simulate and solve important physical processes that operate under the laws of quantum mechanics, including molecular structure and chemical reactionmechanisms [1, 2, 3, 4]. The key idea is that because nature is fundamentally quantum, a quantum computer will be more efficient at modeling these systems

This book treats the subject of gravitational waves (GWs) production in binary stars or black-holes and in the early universe, using tools of quantum field theory which are familiar to graduate students and researchers in particle physics. A special focus is given to the generation of templates of gravitational wave signals from Feynman diagram calculations of transition amplitudes, which interests active researchers in GWs. The book presents field theory concepts, like supersymmetry realized in spinning binaries and soft-graviton theorems, that can have practical applications in novel GW signals, like the memory effect. The book also aims at specialists in both GWs and particle physics addressing cosmological models of phase transition and inflation that can be tested in observations at terrestrial and space based interferometers, pulsar timing arrays, and the cosmic microwave anisotropy observations.

This book discusses analytic and asymptotic methods relevant to radiative transfer in dilute media, such as stellar and planetary atmospheres.  Several methods, providing exact expressions for the radiation field in a semi-infinite atmosphere, are described in detail and applied to unpolarized and polarized continuous spectra and spectral lines. Among these methods, the Wiener-Hopf method, introduced in 1931 for a stellar atmospheric problem, is used today in fields such as solid mechanics, diffraction theory, or mathematical finance. Asymptotic analyses are carried out on unpolarized and polarized radiative transfer equations and on a discrete time random walk. Applicable when photons undergo a large number of scatterings, they provide criteria to distinguish between large-scale diffusive and non-diffusive behaviors, typical scales of variation of the radiation field, such as the thermalization length, and specific descriptions for regions close and far from boundaries. Its well organized synthetic view of exact and asymptotic methods of radiative transfer makes this book a valuable resource for both graduate students and professional scientists in astrophysics and beyond.

Nearly every school district has one. A place for teenagers to go to school after thetraditional high school determines there is nothing further they could do to bring youth withrisk factors across the finish line to graduation. Alternative Education; where those kids go toschool. The ones who learn differently, have attendance and/or behavioral issues, are behindfrom failing high school courses, pregnant, or have been bullied to the point of despair,impacting their ability to concentrate on learning and succeed in high school. Sometimesthese adolescents are stereotyped as the bad kids, and high school staff (not all) give up ontrying any longer to serve their needs.The stigma or stereotyping of alternative education students is an issue of social justice.

"An eye-opening account of the inexplicable phenomena that science has only recently glimpsed, and that could transform our understanding of the fundamental nature of reality"--

Assumptions of Cosmology blows away the hypotheses of Dark Energy, Dark Matter, and Inflation. A remarkable outline of an experiment to verify the cause of the CMB.Unravels the arcane descriptions of Dark Energy, Dark Matter, and Inflation. Solves the problems of the current Big Bang Theory. Reveals how the large-scale structure of the universe, galaxy formation and the CMB are natural consequences of the Big Bang.

The thesis tackles two distinct problems of great interest in gravitational mechanics ¿ one relativistic and one Newtonian. The relativistic one is concerned with the "first law of binary mechanics", a remarkably simple variational relation that plays a crucial role in the modern understanding of the gravitational two-body problem, thereby contributing to the effort to detect gravitational-wave signals from binary systems of black holes and neutron stars. The work reported in the thesis provides a mathematically elegant extension of previous results to compact objects that carry spin angular momentum and quadrupolar deformations, which more accurately represent astrophysical bodies than mere point particles. The Newtonian problem is concerned with the isochrone problem of celestial mechanics, namely the determination of the set of radial potentials whose bounded orbits have a radial period independent of the angular momentum. The thesis solves this problem completely ina geometrical way and explores its consequence on a variety of levels, in particular with a complete characterisation of isochrone orbits. The thesis is exceptional in the breadth of its scope and achievements. It is clearly and eloquently written, makes excellent use of images, provides careful explanations of the concepts and calculations, and it conveys the author¿s personality in a way that is rare in scientific writing, while never sacrificing academic rigor.

How planets form is one of the long-standing questions in astrophysics. In particular, formation scenarios of planetesimals which are kilometer-sized bodies and a precursor of planets are still unclear and under debate although some promising mechanisms have been proposed.This book highlight disk instabilities that have the potential to explain the origin of planetesimals. Using linear analyses and numerical simulations, it addresses how a disk evolves through the development of instabilities, and also presents a new instability driven by dust coagulation. As a result, the simulation demonstrates a scenario of planetesimal formation: A successive development of multiple instabilities triggers planetesimal formation in resulting dusty rings.

"Yes, the Universe is beautiful. And, despite all our scientific progress, it's still pretty mysterious. But you know what? The Universe is also kind of an asshole. Consider that you are just a group of atoms structured in a specific way that you can try to understand this thing we call existence. Those same atoms could have just as easily been used to make the dog shit you are cleaning off your shoes. The fact is, when you zoom out and look at the Universe and how it functions, you'll see that it's usually not in our favor. Many of the laws of physics are just kind of... dick-ish. In this book, you'll discover why: You're an aging mutant Most water will kill you The Universe could be deleted any second And 39 more reasons to hate the Universe-along with the one reason we have to love it despite all the shit it throws our way"--

If you are curious to enjoy complex astrophysics concepts and want to skip math in between and rather enjoy physical illustrations then you are at the right place. Don't let complex differential calculus, tensors, coordinate transformations, etc hinder your curiosity to know our universe (at least at some scale!). The book will fulfill your non-physicist level of curiosity to learn astrophysics concepts like black holes, wormholes, gravitational lensing, spacetime cutoffs, and many moreThis book combines established astrophysics results and the author's lens to look at this universe being illustrated by pure imagination. The difficulty level of this book is medium and it strongly focuses on making concepts imaginative and understandable enough. And surely it would astound you as imagining astrophysics is another level of feeling.

This book provides a complete overview of the development of cosmic ray physics, with historical and educational considerations, from early evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial radiation up to the most recent applications of cosmic ray muons in different aspects of daily life.Many of the original results that contributed to the study of cosmic radiation are presented and discussed, accompanied by bibliographic references, numerous in-depth appendices, about 200 illustrations and a large chapter dedicated to the overall impact of cosmic rays.The book includes sections on, among other topics: the debate on the corpuscular or radiative nature of cosmic radiation; the development of early techniques for detecting cosmic particles; the properties and composition of primary and secondary radiation; and the interaction of cosmic muons in matter and a long list of their recent applications, ranging from the muon tomography techniques to the investigation of the stability of civil buildings. The book is addressed to a wide audience, and thus, while it is used for introductory cosmic ray physics courses at the bachelor's or master's level, high school students and teachers involved in educational projects around cosmic rays also benefit from its many historical and educational aspects.

The attempt to understand the physics of the structure of stars and their change in time - their evolution - has been bothering many physicists and astronomers ever since the last century. This long chain of successful research is well documented not only by numerous papers in the corresponding journals but also by a series of books. Some of them are so excellently written that despite their age they can still be recommended, and not only as documents of the state of the art at that time. A few outstanding examples are the books of R. Emden (1907), A. S. Eddington (1926), S. Chandrasekhar (1939), and M. Schwarzschild (1958). But our science has rapidly expanded in the last few decades, and new aspects have emerged which could not even be anticipated, say, 30 years ago and which today have to be carefully explored. This does not mean, however, that our ambition is to present a complete account of the latest and most refined numerical results. This can well be left to the large and growing number of excellent review articles. The present book is intended rather to be a textbook that will help students and teachers to understand these results as far as possible and present them in a simple and clear manner. We know how difficult this is since we ourselves have tried for the largest part of our scientific career to understand "e;how the stars work"e; - and then to make others believe it.

Charge-coupled Devices (CCDs) have revolutionised astronomy. Even affordable CCD cameras can be ten times a sensitive as photographic film, and they deliver a digitised image that is easy to enhance using a personal computer. David Ratledge has brought together contributions from twelve leading amateurs from around the world, people who are routinely producing astronomical images of a quality that rivals those of professional observatories only of 10 years ago. These experts describe their techniques and solutions, and offer essential tips and advice for anyone who is choosing or using a CCD camera. Now glance through the Colour Gallery at the back of this book to see just what they have done!

Black holes are one of the most fascinating predictions of general relativity. They are the natural product of the complete gravitational collapse of matter and today we have a body of observational evidence supporting the existence of black holes in the Universe. However, general relativity predicts that at the center of black holes there are spacetime singularities, where predictability is lost and standard physics breaks down. It is widely believed that spacetime singularities are a symptom of the limitations of general relativity and must be solved within a theory of quantum gravity. Since we do not have yet any mature and reliable candidate for a quantum gravity theory, researchers have studied toy-models of singularity-free black holes and of singularity-free gravitational collapses in order to explore possible implications of the yet unknown theory of quantum gravity. This book reviews all main models of regular black holes and non-singular gravitational collapses proposed in the literature, and discuss the theoretical and observational implications of these scenarios.