Celestial Mechanics (eBook)

The Waltz of the Planets

Alessandra Celletti, Ettore Perozzi (Autoren)

eBook Download: PDF

2007 | 2007
XXIV, 248 Seiten
Springer New York (Verlag)
978-0-387-68577-9 (ISBN)

Infos

The aim of this book is to demonstrate to a wider audience, as well as to a more skilled audience, the many fascinating aspects of modern celestial mechanics. It sets out to do this without the use of mathematics. After giving the reader the technical tools needed for a basic understanding of the underlying physical phenomena (using only elementary mathematics), facts and figures are provided on historical events, modern discoveries and future applications. Contents are divided into major topics where the three 'souls' of modern celestial mechanics (dynamical systems, Solar System and stellar systems, spaceflight dynamics) play a major role.

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I was delighted to be invited by my colleagues Alessandra Celletti and Ettore Perozzi to provide a foreword to their book, Celestial Mechanics: The Waltz of the Planets. Having known them for many years and long admired their work in the subject so many of us love and are fascinated by, 1 read with great attention and pleasure the text when it arrived. It is a formidable task they have set themselves, to provide a book that describes attempts by successive generations of astronomers from the dawn of history five millennia ago to observe, record and understand the phenomena of the heavens, particularly the intricate and perplexing behaviour of the planets. Sun and Moon. As naked eye astronomy became aided by the telescope and the photographic plate, and since the middle of the twentieth century, by instruments launched on spacecraft into circum- Earth orbit or to the Moon and planets and beyond, the discovery of new satellites, scores of them, and ring systems displaying new and initially perplexing behaviour also demanded explanations for that behaviour. It is also the inspiring story of science itself with special reference to how lonely individuals, impelled by curiosity and dedicated to seeking the truth, and nothing but the truth, about the fascinating phenomena of nature, ultimately became accepted as scientists, those players in the most successful endeavour ever engaged in by the human race.

Inhalt

Table of contents 5
Foreword 9
Authors' preface 14
Acknowledgements 16
List of illustrations 17
Around and around 22
Three bodies and no solution 45
Celestial waltz 63
Cosmic spinning tops 78
Our chaotic Solar System 102
Singularities, collisions and threatening bodies 126
Of Moon and man 148
Rock around the planets 168
Lords of the rings 192
At the edge of the Solar System 206
On the road to exolife 218
Planetary data 233
Planetary satellite data 234
Space missions 237
Internet resources 242
Glossary 246
Bibliography 252
Index 254

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 24.6.2007
• Reihe/Serie: Popular Astronomy
• Reihe/Serie: Popular Astronomy
• Reihe/Serie: Springer Praxis Books
• Reihe/Serie: Springer Praxis Books
• Zusatzinfo: XXIV, 248 p. 20 illus.
• Verlagsort: New York
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik ► Weltraum / Astronomie
• Themenwelt: Mathematik / Informatik ► Mathematik
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Physik / Astronomie ► Astronomie / Astrophysik
• Themenwelt: Technik
• Schlagworte: artificial satellite • Astronomy • Celestial • Celestial mechanics • Celletti • Evolution • Mathematics • Mechanics • Natur • Perozzi • Planets • Solar System
• ISBN-10: 0-387-68577-4 / 0387685774
• ISBN-13: 978-0-387-68577-9 / 9780387685779