Hundred Billion Stars by Mario Rigutti, Mirella Giacconi (Translator)

From the Publisher

Starting from the solar system and shooting outward to the hundred billion stars of our galaxy, Mario Rigutti celebrates the wonder of celestial events by making them understandable to the nonscientist. He underscores the power of the methods of modern science by putting them into the context of our everyday lives.

Among the subjects Rigutti clarifies along the way are the sources and fate of the sun's energy; the measurement of stellar distances, magnitudes, temperatures, and masses; the spectral classification of the stars; the importance of binary stars; the nature of pulsars, supernovae; and planetary nebulae; the interstellar dust and gas; and the life cycles of stars like the sun and of more massive stars.

Mario Rigutti is Professor of Astronomy at the University of Naples and Director of the Naples Astronomical Observatory. The original Italian edition of A Hundred Billion Stars was awarded the European science-writing prize, GLAXO "CEE."

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