Turn Right At OrionBasic Books, 7 de jan. de 2008 - 272 páginas This ingenious book is the account of an epic astronomical journey, a tale told by an early-twenty-first-century human sailor among the stars. The account is discovered, as an alien "translator's note" reveals, sixty million years in earth's future -- the product of one man's amazing, revelatory, and occasionally perilous space odyssey. Astrophysicist Mitchell Begelman takes the reader to far-distant shores, across a vast ocean of time, in a narrative that zips along at just below light speed. We travel to the center of the Milky Way, witness the births and deaths of stars, almost perish in the crushing forces at the perimeter of a black hole -- and all the while Begelman explains in clear and vibrant prose the way things work in the cosmos. A powerful imaginative work that is thoroughly grounded both in history and in the latest in astrophysical thinking and observation, Turn Right at Orion is serious science that reads like fiction. |
Conteúdo
9 | |
14 | |
18 | |
23 | |
A Ballet | 31 |
Ground Zero | 37 |
MOTION | 39 |
The Cannibal | 46 |
Trapezium | 117 |
Points of Darkness Shafts of Light | 124 |
The Dust Storm | 133 |
The Shepherd | 143 |
Finishing Touches | 149 |
The Blob | 163 |
Divining the Interior | 169 |
The Dumbbell | 177 |
Black Hole with a Mission 5 I | 51 |
SS 433 | 60 |
EQUILIBRIUM | 70 |
ShangriLa | 73 |
The SoftShell Crab | 77 |
Crab II | 81 |
Strange Light | 86 |
The Ends of Equilibrium | 96 |
BIRTH | 105 |
Orion | 106 |
By the Back Door | 109 |
Leaving Home | 186 |
Outposts in the Halo | 192 |
Aftermath | 203 |
Afterthoughts | 210 |
Really Leaving Home | 217 |
A City of Galaxies | 223 |
Brobdingnag | 230 |
On the Brink | 241 |
Acknowledgments | 247 |
Index | 255 |
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Termos e frases comuns
astronomers atmosphere atoms Betelgeuse black hole body bright bulge carbon cavity close collapse collisions colors cool core Crab Nebula craft Cygnus X-1 debris dense distance Dumbbell dust Earth electrons ellipticals encountered energy envelope equilibrium explosion filaments fuel Galactic Center galaxies Galaxy's center gaseous glow grains gravitational field gravity heat helium hole's hot stars hydrogen inside interior interstellar space jets kilometers per second knew layer light-years looked luminosity luminous Magellanic Clouds magnetic field mass massive stars matter Milky Way's disk Milky Way's halo million molecular cloud molecules motion nearly neutron star nucleus orbit Orion Nebula oxygen particles planetary nebula pressure pull pulsar radiation red giant regions Rocinante Rocinante's rotation seemed seen shepherd planet Solar speed of light spiral arms star formation star's stars and gas stellar structure supergiant supernova surface surrounding swirling Tarantula Nebula temperature thousand tion Trapezium ultraviolet Virgo Cluster visited wind X-rays
Passagens mais conhecidas
Página 248 - Without research support from organizations like the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, there would have been little to write about.
Página 248 - The initial draft of this book was written while I was on sabbatical at the University of Arizona and the University of Minnesota during the academic year 19g2-19g3.
Página 14 - Moon in orbit around the Earth, the Earth around the Sun, and the Sun around the Galaxy.
Página 248 - I am grateful to the many friends and colleagues who read and criticized drafts in various stages of completion.