Astronomy and Cosmology

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Astronomy is something I'm interested in but never got around to actualy read any books about it. Can anyone recommend any good and not too complicated books on the subject?
 
Encyclopedia
Astronomy is something I'm interested in but never got around to actualy read any books about it. Can anyone recommend any good and not too complicated books on the subject?
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One of the best books I've read in recent years is "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking. It covers a lot but in layman terms, thankfully. Great read.
 
Just got back into astronomy now, there are five planets visible this month (Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Mercury) and I want to check out Mars and Jupiter!:)
 
Astronomy is great but till now it has left us with a feeling of solitude.

All the planets we know are made either from hard rock or scattered gases. Our earth on the other hand has LIFE.

I long for the day we see photos and videos of another planet covered in life, like earth. These images quite probably will shadow the man landings of the moon and Mars.
 
AlexGTV
Astronomy is great but till now it has left us with a feeling of solitude.

All the planets we know are made either from hard rock or scattered gases. Our earth on the other hand has LIFE.

I long for the day we see photos and videos of another planet covered in life, like earth. These images quite probably will shadow the man landings of the moon and Mars.
Click to expand...

It'll be the biggest event in mankind's history, no doubt.
 
AlexGTV
Astronomy is great but till now it has left us with a feeling of solitude.
Click to expand...
I can see what you're saying, but I'd disagree. Astronomy has shown us that the likelihood of Earth being the only seat of life in the universe is vanishingly small, even in our own galaxy. Compare that to the days when people believed that the Earth was the centre of the universe and that the stars in the night sky were mere decorations, put there for our entertainment...

I would also question the idea that 'we' are 'alone', even as things stand right now. A ride on the London Underground at rush hour should cure you of any feelings of solitude you might be having :sly: Also, we humans only make up a tiny fraction of life on Earth... but science has already shown us that life can survive in a wide range of different environments, and astronomy has shown us that there is no shortage of environments for life to exist.
 
AlexGTV
Astronomy is great but till now it has left us with a feeling of solitude.

All the planets we know are made either from hard rock or scattered gases. Our earth on the other hand has LIFE.

I long for the day we see photos and videos of another planet covered in life, like earth. These images quite probably will shadow the man landings of the moon and Mars.
Click to expand...


Did you miss this year's huge astronomical discovery of another Earth-like planet? Here.

Not to mention the growing hubbub of highly credible sources calling for disclosure - a break in the truth embargo - saying that we may have already had some kind of contact with life not of this earth. (I know, I know, I'm stretching, and, as of yet, there is no "proof" but even as a skeptic I find myself wondering why so many scientists, archeologists, pilots, air traffic controllers, ex-astronauts, and even former presidents are risking public ridicule to speak out about it.)

If anything, I feel as our understanding of the universe grows and science continues to take massive leaps forward, the human race sheds more of it's false assumptions, maligned theologies and outright bigotries, and we all get a little closer to acceptance and peaceful coexistence - a little less lonely. :)
 
Yes, our understanding is growing, but nothing will warm my heart more than pictures of an alien forest, or better yet cities of another planet. We are visual creatures. I'm still eagerly waiting for the first true images of the environment in Venus.

But guess what, although we will have HD images of the hellish landscape, video and sound of the blistering winds nobody will do a documentary. On the other hand in a land far away, they are watching at their cinemas a living blue-green planet with a few upright apes learning to cause chemical reactions to heat themselves...
 
AlexGTV
Yes, our understanding is growing, but nothing will warm my heart more than pictures of an alien forest, or better yet cities of another planet. We are visual creatures. I'm still eagerly waiting for the first true images of the environment in Venus.

But guess what, although we will have HD images of the hellish landscape, video and sound of the blistering winds nobody will do a documentary. On the other hand in a land far away, they are watching at their cinemas a living blue-green planet with a few upright apes learning to cause chemical reactions to heat themselves...
Click to expand...

There is only one image of the surface of Venus:

images
 
Encyclopedia
Astronomy is something I'm interested in but never got around to actualy read any books about it. Can anyone recommend any good and not too complicated books on the subject?
Click to expand...

'A Brief History of Time' might be a tad too mathematical for newbies to Astronomy.

'Stardust' by John Gribbin might be an interesting place to start. Not too many numbers but gives a good idea about the scales involved and written with the non-academic in mind.
 
Yeah with all the HD video/photo we have now, it would be nice to see these things through newer equipment. Problem is, it takes millions of dollars to send a $2,000 camera to another planet. :(
 
R1600Turbo
Yeah with all the HD video/photo we have now, it would be nice to see these things through newer equipment. Problem is, it takes millions of dollars to send a $2,000 camera to another planet. :(
Click to expand...

Add to that the failure risk involved. A big part of that is signal delay. For the closest distance between Earth and Venus it is it takes about 2.5 minutes to send a signal. Say a problem arises, it takes 2.5 minutes the center control in Earth to learn about it and at least 2.5 minutes to respond. So from the occurence of the problem till response it takes at least 5 minutes.

Certainly AI will greatly advance space travel.
 
Dennisch
If that would be true, the news would be out by now. The discoverer would be knighted in every country in the world, and would have a statue on the moon.

Would be the best news I've ever heard in my life if it's true.
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Well, at best it is equivocal news. It needs to be verified and followed up on. Certainly nothing to get too excited about just yet. It is merely a single data point claimed by an extraordinary interpretation of images. The circular object may be debris from the spacecraft itself. And high velocity/high density Veusian winds may have blown the blurry object - so it had no independent motion and could be another scrap from the rapidly disintegrating lander.

Respectfully submitted,
Steve
 
That would be amazing if it was true. Venus is the last place I'd expect to find life in the Solar System!
 
I dug out this video of extended photography on the Venusian surface, plus Magellan radar imagery. Check out the "mushroom domes" near the end. They may well be volcanic, but there is still something very odd about them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI9flluCsZA


Here are close-ups of the "scorpion". I am not convinced, but make up your own mind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYkvo597An8&feature=related

And some odd spider web formations called arachnoids:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap980120.html

Respectfully,
Steve
 
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Because the makeup of Venus is so different than earth we must not conclude there is not life there, but more narrowly there is not earth-like life there. There could be Venusian life.

A funny story was when a satelite was put into earth orbit (i can't remember from which organization) specifically to test if there is life on earth. So that it was tested on whether it could reckognize life on other planets. But it found 0% life on earth!
 
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM0TLSXXXG_index_0.html

Measurements by Venera, Magellan and Venus Express over a period of years indicate that Venus is slowing its already leisurely rate of rotation.

Venus has unusual retrograde spin, and one day on Venus is equivalent to about 224.7 Earth days.

Perhaps in a million years, Venus will begin to spin in the normal direction?

Respectfully submitted,
Steve
 
@Encyclopedia - I agree with JediRage - leave 'A Brief History of Time' on the coffee table and pick up 'stardust'. Everything we see, touch, breathe and smell, nearly every molecule in our bodies, is the by-product of stars as they live and then die in spectacular explosions, scattering material across the universe which is recycled to become part of us.

This understanding seemed to dawn forcefully on anyone who borrowed the book from me - especially the younger readers.

Another great book - written in the simplest of language but stitched together in the most absorbing of ways is 'Coming of Age in the Milky Way' written by Timothy Ferris. This book purports to tell the story of how, through the workings of science, our species has arrived at its current estimation of the dimensions of cosmic space and time.
Ferris is a master at explaining things clearly, and this book will expand your cosmological knowledge astronomically.

Good Reading!
 

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