Home | Amazing | Today | Tags | Publishers | Years | Account | Search 
The Making of History's Greatest Star Map (Astronomers' Universe)

Buy

From prehistoric times, mankind has looked up at the night sky, and puzzled at the changing positions of the stars. How far away they are is a question that has confounded scientists for centuries. Over the last few hundred years, many scientific careers – and considerable resources – have been devoted to measuring their positions and motions with ever increasing accuracy. And in the last two decades of the 20th century, the European Space Agency developed and launched the Hipparcos satellite, around which this account revolves, to carry out these exacting measurements from space.

What has prompted these remarkable developments? Why have governments been persuaded to fund them? What are scientists learning from astronomy's equivalent of the Human Genome Project? This book traces the subject's history, explains why such enormous efforts are considered worthwhile, and interweaves these with a first-hand insight into the Hipparcos project, and how big science is conducted at an international level. The involvement of amateur astronomers, and the Hipparcos contributions to climate research, ‘death stars' passing close to the Sun, and the search for extra-solar planets and even intelligent life itself, are some of the surprising facets of this unusual space mission.

One of the defining points in the creative life of the human mind came about when the ancient Greeks realised that, through a combination of mathematical geometry and the devising of increasingly accurate instruments using 360° scales, it was possible to map the heavens. And from Hipparchus in 150 BC, to ESA's Hipparcos project in the late twentieth century, much of the history of astronomy has been about the increasingly refined measurement of stellar angles, and how we can use them to make sense of the cosmos. This splendid book provides a fascinating account of that intellectual journey, and the defining contribution of a remarkable space mission. Allan Chapman

A fascinating and entertaining account of a unique space adventure. From the prologue, which captures the excitement of the satellite launch through to the final future-looking chapter, the book contains a delightful mixture of historical and technical fact, personal insight and intriguing detail a reading pleasure throughout. Lennart Lindegren

A remarkable book, capturing a unique blend of humanism and science, related through the author's experience of research, technology, management, and human relations. The richness of science unveiled through the precise measurements of very small angles is amazing, and the chronicle is a masterpiece of astronomy. Roger-Maurice Bonnet

For amateur astronomers who delight in exploring the night sky, here is the captivating and highly readable account of history's greatest star-mapping venture. Hipparcos demanded an almost unbelievable effort, scientific and technical. And who better to tell this story than the astronomer who orchestrated it all? Roger Sinnott

The Hipparcos project was hugely important in mapping our Galaxy. This is a fascinating account of an important episode in astronomy, written by the scientist who played a pivotal role in the prolonged and often frustrating series of steps that brought it to fruition, and eventually to a triumphant conclusion.. Sir Martin Rees

(HTML tags aren't allowed.)

Introduction to Reconfigurable Supercomputing (Synthesis Lectures on Computer Architecture)
Introduction to Reconfigurable Supercomputing (Synthesis Lectures on Computer Architecture)

This book covers technologies, applications, tools, languages, procedures, advantages, and disadvantages of reconfigurable supercomputing using Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). The target audience is the community of users of High Performance Computers (HPC) who may benefit from porting their applications into a reconfigurable...

Fundamentals of the New Artificial Intelligence: Neural, Evolutionary, Fuzzy and More (Texts in Computer Science)
Fundamentals of the New Artificial Intelligence: Neural, Evolutionary, Fuzzy and More (Texts in Computer Science)
This book was originally titled “Fundamentals of the New Artificial Intelligence: Beyond Traditional Paradigms.” I have changed the subtitle to better represent the contents of the book. The basic philosophy of the original version has been kept in the new edition. That is, the book covers the most essential and widely employed material...
Management of Acute Pulmonary Embolism (Contemporary Cardiology)
Management of Acute Pulmonary Embolism (Contemporary Cardiology)

This practical volume highlights traditional, novel, and evolving aspects of the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary embolism (PE). The contributors comprise an international team of experts. Important aspects of diagnosis, risk stratification, and differential treatment of patients with PE are presented in a concise, yet comprehensive...


Managing Internetworks With Snmp
Managing Internetworks With Snmp
Managing Internetworks with SNMP, Second Edition, is an invaluable guide for all network managers and administrators who maintain a complex internetwork. This comprehensive reference provides a technical understanding and practical application of SNMP, the protocol developed by the Internet community to simplify the management of...
Ethernet Passive Optical Networks (McGraw-Hill Communications Engineering)
Ethernet Passive Optical Networks (McGraw-Hill Communications Engineering)
THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO EPON
Written by one of the authors of the IEEE802.3ah standard, this is the first book to fully explain the EPON architecture, analyze its performance, and annotate the standard.

Clearly addressing efficiency, performance, and implementation issues, Ethernet Passive Optical Networks...

Google Visualization API Essentials
Google Visualization API Essentials

Make sense of your data: make it visual with the Google Visualization API

Overview

  • Wrangle all sorts of data into a visual format, without being an expert programmer.
  • Visualize new or existing spreadsheet data through charts, graphs, and maps.
  • Full of diagrams, core concept...
©2021 LearnIT (support@pdfchm.net) - Privacy Policy