Astrophysics

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Title:

Astrophysics

Author:

Phillips, Cynthia, 1973- author.

ISBN:

9781394235049

Physical Description:

xiv, 377 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm.

Series:

--For dummies.

General Note:

Includes index.

Subject Term:

Stars.

Astrophysics.

Added Author:

Priwer, Shana,

Summary:

"Discover the undiscovered with this jargon-free introduction to astrophysics Astronomy is the study of what you see in the sky. Physics is the study of how things work. Astrophysics is the study of how things in the sky work, from large objects to tiny particles. Astrophysics For Dummies breaks it all down for you, making this difficult but fascinating topic accessible to anyone. Tracking the topics covered in a typical undergraduate astrophysics class, this book will teach you the essential pieces to understanding our universe. Get ready to launch into outer space with this ever-changing branch of science"--

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Summary

Discover the undiscovered with this jargon-free introduction to astrophysics

Astronomy is the study of what you see in the sky. Physics is the study of how things work. Astrophysics is the study of how things in the sky work, from large objects to tiny particles. Astrophysics For Dummies breaks it all down for you, making this difficult but fascinating topic accessible to anyone. Tracking the topics covered in a typical undergraduate astrophysics class, this book will teach you the essential pieces to understanding our universe. Get ready to launch into outer space with this ever-changing branch of science.

Discover the latest advances in the world of astrophysics Understand how and why galaxies form and evolve Find out the origins of cosmic rays Get a standalone primer on the science or supplement your astrophysics course

Students in introductory astrophysics courses and would-be astronomy buffs who want to better understand the mechanics of the universe will love Astrophysics For Dummies .

Author Notes

Cynthia Phillips, PhD, is a scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Previously, she worked at the SETI Institute for 15 years.

Introduction	1
About This Book	2
Foolish Assumptions	3
Icons Used in This Book	3
Beyond the Book	4
Where to Go from Here	4
Part 1 Getting Started with Astrophysics	7
Chapter 1 Welcome to the Universe	9
The Science of Astrophysics	10
The start of astronomy	10
A beautiful connection: Physics, astronomy, and astrophysics	11
Let there be light! The electromagnetic spectrum	11
Making waves	13
Tools of the Trade	15
The nitty-gritty of telescopes and astronomical instruments	15
Viewing from above: Space-based telescopes	17
Stars, Galaxies, and Their Cosmological Friends	18
Chapter 2 The A to Z of Physics	21
Building Blocks of the Universe: Particles	22
The big three: Protons, neutrons, and electrons	22
Elements and molecules	24
(It's) elementary, particles	26
Light it up with photons	26
What Matters About Matter?	27
The water we drink and the air we breathe, or elements and molecules	28
It's all a state of mind with states of matter	29
But sometimes it just doesn't (anti) matter	30
Let the Force(s) Be With You	30
Getting heavy with gravity	31
Thank Maxwell for the electromagnetic force	33
Strong and weak nuclear forces	34
Store It or Use it, But Don't Waste Energy	35
Fall faster into kinetic and potential energy	35
Transferring thermal energy with conduction, convection, and radiation	36
More than the eye can see: The electromagnetic spectrum	37
Light's unending flexibility as both wave and particle	37
It's the Law! (of Physics)	38
Newton's laws of motion	39
Step it up with velocity, acceleration, and momentum	40
Having a conversation about conservation	40
Einstein and the mass energy equivalence	42
Heat and Energy Unite with Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics	42
Learn the laws of thermodynamics	43
Truly being one with the environment: Blackbody radiation	45
Electromagnetic waves do the heavy lifting with radiative transfer	46
When the details matter, zoom in to quantum mechanics	47
Chapter 3 Astronomy in a Nutshell	49
Where to Begin … Or, How It All Began	50
Mapping our Solar System, Galaxy, and the Universe	53
A question of scale	53
A planetary survey	55
Experience nature's light show with meteors, asteroids, and comets	58
Galaxies and beyond	58
Observational Astronomy: What are Those Dots in the Sky?	59
Constellations: Mapping the stars	60
The ecliptic, a year-long journey of the Sun	61
How astronomical objects are named	62
Chapter 4 Bridging the Gap Between Astronomy and Physics	65
More Than the Sum of Its Parts: The Unique Study of Astrophysics	66
One shift, two shift, redshift, blueshift	67
Don't be late to the party when time matters	68
Celestial mechanics and orbits	70
Diving into the Details of Astrophysics	72
Theoretical astrophysics	72
Observational astrophysics	72
Laboratory astrophysics	72
High-energy astrophysics	73
Running the gamut of the universe with cosmology	73
The Nitty-Gritty of Telescopes and Astronomical Instruments	73
Optical telescopes	74
The night life at optical observatories	76
Other types of telescopes	76
Viewing from above; Space-based telescopes	78
The Sun, the Star of Our Solar System	79
Solar flares, solar wind, and other solar activity	80
Hot or cold? The ins and outs of weather in space	81
Studying the Sun	82
Eclipses, or Throwing Shade in a Scientific Way	83
Red Moon: Lunar eclipses	83
Don't look! Solar eclipses	85
Science of eclipses	88
Part 2 When You Wish Upon A	89
Chapter 5 Star Power: Hydrogen, Helium with a Twist of Nuclear Fusion	91
Happy Birthday! A Star Is Born	92
How do we define stars?	92
Two is better than one: Fusion	92
Protostars, star formation regions, and accretion disks	95
Getting to Know Your Stars: Properties, Types, and Characteristics	98
Don't rely on wishing: Understand the brightness, mass, and more about stars	98
Plotting magnitude with the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram	100
Dwarfs and giants	102
The only constant is change with variable stars	103
All Good Things Must Come to an End	104
From flare ups to full-blown explosions: Novae and supernovae	105
Nucleosynthesis and the creation of new elements	106
The life cycle of a star: Heating, cooling, and everything in between	107
Star reincarnation and the next phase of stellar existence	109
Chapter 6 Friends for Life: Star Systems and Dust Clouds	111
The More the Merrier: Binary and Multiple Star Systems	112
The ties that bind: What it means to be gravitationally bound	112
Orbits and the science behind them	114
Formation and evolution of multiple star systems	114
Step into the light; Eclipses in a double star system	116
Binary star orbits and radial velocity	118
Three's not a crowd: Multi-star systems	119
Huddle Up There, Star Clusters	121
Getting sticky with cluster formation	121
Shut the door! Learn about open clusters	121
Get even stickier with globular clusters	122
Pedal to the Metal with Interstellar Gas and Dust	123
The Interstellar medium	123
Dreaming with your head in the (molecular) clouds	124
IR spectroscopy and laboratory astrophysics	124
Adding Structure to That Gas and Dust: Nebulae	125
Diffuse and dark nebulae	126
Who made who? Planetary nebulae and supernova remnants	127
Chapter 7 Exoplanets: The Search for Earth 2.0	129
Beyond beyond Earth	130
Exoplanets explained	131
Key to understanding planet formation	132
Exoplanets Come in Many Shapes and Sizes	132
Exoplanet properties (mileage may vary)	133
What's in a name?	134
(Non) Flaming giant balls of gas and Neptunian exoplanets	134
They really are super! Super-Earth exoplanets	135
Look no further than Mother Earth for terrestrial exoplanets	135
Looking Under (or Around) Hidden Rocks: Exoplanet Detection	136
Observational techniques and biases	137
Finding the distance between two points with radial velocity	137
Transiting, TTV, and gravitational lensing	138
Ignore the garbage, but know your debris disk	140
Take a picture! The future of exoplanet detection	140
The Nitty-Gritty of Exoplanet Formation	141
Planetary birthrights: Protoplanetary disks	142
Get moving! The dynamics of exoplanet systems	143
What the Hail … Exoplanet Atmospheres	145
Can Life Be Found on Exoplanets?	146
Goldilocks had it right: The "habitable zone," or conditions for life as we know it	147
Twinning: Why haven't we found Earth 2.0?	148
Smells like life: Searching for biosignatures in exoplanet atmospheres	150
The Drake Equation and the search for intelligent life	150
Chapter 8 White Dwarfs, Black Holes, and Neutrinos, Oh My!	153
Snow White and the Seven	154
Pure as the driven snow, but without the snow: White dwarfs	155
So cool and red hot: Red dwarfs	156
Giant stars	157
Evolved Giant Stars	158
There Is No Escape: Black Holes	158
What goes in never comes out: How black holes work	159
The event horizon: The line light cannot cross	160
Seeing the invisible, or the art of detecting black holes	161
Surf's Up! Gravitational Waves	163
A ripple in space-time	163
How to be a wave detective	164
Neutron Stars, or Total Core Collapse	164
Science of the collapse of stars	165
Pulsing radiation from pulsars	165
Quasars, Bursters, and Blazars	166
The XYZ of AGN: Quasars	167
Blazars keep black holes in business	168
Explosions from afar: Burst it out	169
Part 3 Galaxies: Teamwork Makes the Dream Work	171
Chapter 9 From Fuzzy Blobs to Majestic Spirals: The Milky Way and Other Galaxies	173
Where in the World Are We?	174
Galaxy quest	175
Traveling the Milky Way	175
Unraveling the Mystery	177
Galaxies and other fuzzy objects get messier	177
Hubble's puzzle	178
Standard candles and redshifts	178
Galaxy Classification	181
Stars and gas with uncommon beauty: Spiral galaxies	182
Never lose foci: Elliptical galaxies	184
Lenticular galaxies are shaped like … guess what?	185
Last night's leftovers on a universal scale: Irregular galaxies	187
Chapter 10 Quantifying the Unknown, or How Galaxies Work	189
Galaxy Formation Helps Unravel the Cosmos	190
Source matter: No EM radiation for you!	190
The trinity: Gravity dominance, instability, collapse	191
Final push: Gravitational torque with a side of angular momentum	192
Mechanics of a Star System	193
Galactic Structure	194
An inventory of the parts	196
Stellar content of galaxies	197
Excuse you! Emissions of active and inactive galaxies	199
Both large and active: Seyfert and radio galaxies	199
Black Holes and Their Role in Galaxies	201
Black holes, the doughnut holes of the galaxy	201
Dynamics and observation	203
The Hubble Deep Field	204
Chapter 11 Bigger Than Huge: Galaxy Clusters	207
Making Friends: The Basics of Galaxy Clusters	203
The ins and outs of a galaxy cluster	209
Mass estimation: Virial, Sunyaev-Zel'dovich, and more	210
Galaxy distribution throughout space	212
A Galaxy Cluster of Our Very Own: The Local Group	213
Location, location, location	213
Constituent galaxies	214
Galaxy Cluster Structure and Formation	215
The ever-important role of gravity	216
X-rays and the ICM (Intracluster medium)	216
Physics of Galaxy Clusters	218
The unique interactions of dark matter with baryons	219
Shake it up: Gravitational perturbations and shock waves	220
Always under pressure: Radiative gas physics	221
Galaxy and cluster mergers	222
An involuntary story of acquisition: LMC and SMC	223
Prediction via computer modeling	224
Galaxy cluster collisions	225
What Galaxy Clusters Tell You About the Universe	226
Bigger may be better	226
Chemical emissions as prognosticators	227
Change is hard: Slow rates of change in galaxy clusters	228
Chapter 12 Weird and Wacky Galactic Phenomena	231
Not Quite Dinosaurs: Galactic Archaeology	232
What little stars are made of	233
Stellar ages and astroseismology	233
Tracing galactic mergers	234
High Energy Astrophysics	235
Triple E: Extreme energetic events	236
How do we know? ALMA, Hubble, JWST, Chandra, and others	237
Prime examples: Active galactic nuclei, gamma-ray bursts, supernovae	239
Gravitational Lensing	240
The bending of light	241
Strong, weak, and microlensing	244
Heading Down the Wormhole	245
A wormhole by any other name … Einstein-Rosen bridges	246
Making connections between wormholes and string theory	247
Part 4 Cosmology: The Beginning and the End of Everything	249
Chapter 13 The Big Bang: How It All Began	251
What's the Point? A Primer on Cosmology	252
Let's get right to it: The Big Bang	252
Expansion of space, not your grocery bill: Cosmic inflation	254
Creation of fundamental particles	254
Too early to shine or twinkle	255
Scientific Evidence: Why Do We Think There Was a Big Bang?	255
Hubble's Law and the expansion of the universe	256
Not for popcorn: Cosmic microwave background radiation	257
The Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) era	258
Disproving the steady-state mode!	259
Making Sense of the Unimaginable with the Theory of Inflation	260
The flatness problem	260
CMB and uniform temperature	261
Where galaxy clusters fit in	262
Radiation Dominance in the Radiation Era	262
Nothing Matters More Than Matter in the Matter Era	266
Metric Expansion of Space: The Cosmological Principle	268
We're really not all that special: The Copernican Principle	269
Multi-directional spreading with Hubble universal expansion	269
Big Bang radiation and temperature fluctuation	270
Constant expansion, but of an inconsistent rate	271
The future of direct measurement	272
Chapter 14 First Light in the Universe, or How a Star is Born	273
The Cosmic Dark Age	274
The Big Bang cooled the heat	274
Formation of neutral hydrogen atoms and cosmic background radiation	275
A ripple in the universe led to galaxies	276
End of an era: The cosmic dawn	276
Early Star Formation	277
Origins in primordial gas	277
Nuclear fusion to the rescue	278
Star Classification; Population III	278
No room for diets: Very early stars = massive, low metal content	279
Supernova explosions created heavier elements	280
More metal: Next-gen stars had carbon, oxygen, iron, and heavier elements	281
Star Classification: Population II and I	281
Population II: Oldest observed stars formed 1 to 15 billion years ago	282
Population I: Young stars formed 1 million to 10 billion years ago	283
The Epoch of Reionization	284
Energy bubbles and the leaching of ionized radiation	285
Let there be light	286
Formation of the First Galaxies	287
Opposites (or not) attract!	287
Continued evolution and creation of new galaxies	288
Chapter 15 And Then St Gets Weirder: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and Relativity	289
General Facts about General Relativity	290
Keeping it special	290
Einstein's explanation of gravity's interaction with space-time	291
Space-time curvature and total forces	293
The three tests for general relativity	294
Advancing Theories Require Advancing Models	296
Holes and waves	296
First general relativity models: A stable universe and its challengers	297
Einstein's "greatest mistake" and its reinterpretation	298
Galactic Glue: Dark Matter	299
Detecting the darkness	300
Don't be a WiMP(s): Weakly interacting massive particles	302
Some like it hot, some like it cold	302
Dark Energy in Review	304
Why do we need dark energy?	304
A story of accelerating expansion	305
Where Did Dark Energy Come From?	306
Origins of dark energy 1: Einstein (again!) and the Cosmoiogical Constant	307
Origins of dark energy 2: Quantum theory	308
Origins of dark energy 3: Quintessence	308
Origins of dark energy 4: Tachyons moving faster than light	309
Origins of dark energy 5: Questioning Einstein and gravity	310
The standard of cosmology: The Lambda-Cold Dark Matter (ACDM) model	310
Chapter 16 The End of It All	313
No Refunds: What Happens When the Sun Explodes	314
Running out of (hydrogen) gas	314
Goodbye, life on Earth	315
Omega Value of the Universe	316
It's critical: The critical density parameter	318
How do we calculate Omega?	319
WMAP and Planck missions	320
Future work on critical density	321
The Big Freeze: An End of the Universe Theory	323
The last stars burn out	323
Over the horizon: Galaxies beyond view	325
Such a degenerate era	326
Heat death of the universe	326
The Big Rip: Another End of the Universe Theory	327
Dynamics: Dark energy changing over time	328
Phantom dark energy	328
The Big Crunch: Yet Another End of the Universe Theory	329
Expanding, then shrinking	329
Spoilers: Dark energy could get in the way	330
Something Before Nothing: Did Anything Come before the Big Bang?	331
Anthropic principle: Why do the laws of physics even allow matter and life?	331
Before and after: The cyclic universe theory	332
Now That We're at the End - How Will It End?	333
Getting Higgy with it: Vacuum decay and the Higgs boson and field	334
Future observations of cosmic microwave background radiation and dark energy	335
Clues from JWST and the earliest galaxies	336
Part 5 The Part of Tens	337
Chapter 17 Ten Scientists Who Paved the Way for Astrophysics	339
Albert Einstein: 1879-1955	339
Edwin Hubble: 1889-1953	340
Cecelia Payne-Gaposchkin: 1900-1979	340
Karl Jansky: 1905-1950	340
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar: 1910-1995	341
Vera Rubin: 1928-2016	341
Kip Thorne: 1940-	342
Stephen Hawking: 1942-2018	342
Jocelyn Bell Bunnell: 1943	342
Alan Guth: 1947-	343
Chapter 18 Ten Important Space Missions for Astrophysics	345
Hubble Space Telescope (1990-present)	345
James Webb Space Telescope (2021-present)	346
Kepler and TESS (2009-2018 and 2018-present)	347
SOFIA (2010-2022)	348
Chandra X-Ray Observatory (1999-present)	349
Spitzer Space Telescope (2003-2020)	349
Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (1991-2000)	350
Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope (2008-present)	351
Herschet Space Observatory (2009-2013)	351
Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (planned 2027 launch)	352
Glossary	353
Index	359

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