xii A NOTE TO THE STUDENT
Key Content and
Pedagogical Changes
to the Eleventh Edition■ (^) Every chapter has been reviewed and updated with the
latest discoveries and images, such as photos of colliding
galaxies and planets orbiting distant stars. You will read
about methane lakes on Saturn’s moon Titan and the
newest understanding of bursts of gamma rays detected
coming from the most distant galaxies.
■ (^) Some chapters have been reorganized and rewritten to better
present their topics. Chapter 10, “Th e Interstellar Medium,”
and Chapter 11, “Th e Formation and Structure of Stars,”
are completely reorganized to better explain the gas and
dust between the stars and how stars form from that
material.
■ (^) Chapter 4, “Th e Origin of Modern Astronomy,” has been
reorganized to better tell the story of the development of
scientifi c thought at the end of the Renaissance. Chapter 26,
“Astrobiology” Life on Other Worlds,” has a new subsection
on “extremophiles,” life that thrives on Earth in extreme
environments.
■ (^) Guideposts for all of the chapters have been rewritten and
shortened to open each chapter with a short list of ques-
tions that will help you focus your reading on the main
objectives of the chapter.
■ (^) Th roughout the book, the newest images have been
included to keep you up to date with the rapid advances in
modern astronomy.
Special Features
■ (^) What Are We? essays are placed at the end of each chapter
to help you understand your own role in the astronomy
you have just learned.
■ (^) How Do We Know? commentaries appear in every chapter
and will help you see how science works. Th ey will point
out where scientists use statistical evidence, why they think
with analogies, and how they build confi dence in theories.
■ (^) Special two-page art spreads provide an opportunity for you
to create your own understanding and share in the satisfac-
tion that scientists feel as they uncover the secrets of nature.
■ (^) Guided discovery fi gures illustrate important ideas
visually and guide you to understand relationships and
contrasts interactively.
■ (^) Focus on Fundamentals will help you understand fi ve
concepts from physics that are critical to understanding
modern astronomy.
■ (^) Guideposts on the opening page of each chapter help you
see the organization of the book by focusing on a small
number of questions to be answered as you read the
chapter.
■ (^) Scientifi c Arguments at the end of many text sections are
carefully designed questions to help you review and
synthesize concepts from the section. A short answer
follows to show how scientists construct scientifi c argu-
ments from observations, evidence, theories, and natural
laws that lead to a conclusion. A further question then
gives you a chance to construct your own scientifi c
argument on a related issue.
■ (^) End-of-Chapter Review Questions are designed to help
you review and test your understanding of the material.
■ (^) End-of-Chapter Discussion Questions go beyond the text
and invite you to think critically and creatively about
scientifi c questions. You can think about these questions
yourself or discuss them in class.
■ (^) Virtual Astronomy Laboratories. Th ese online labs give
you an exciting, interactive way to learn, putting some of
astronomy’s most useful instruments into your hands—
precise telescope controls to measure angular size, a
photometer to measure light intensity, and a spectrograph
to measure Doppler-shifted spectral lines.
■ (^) Th eSky Student Edition CD-ROM turns a personal
computer into a powerful personal planetarium. Loaded
with data on 118,000 stars and 13,000 deep-sky objects
with images, it allows you to view the universe at any point
in time from 4000 years ago to 8000 years in the future, to
see the sky in motion, to view constellations, to print star
charts, and much more.
New for Instructors
■ (^) WebTutor™ to jump-start your course with customizable
and rich, text-specifi c content, which includes:
■ (^) Integration with your Blackboard®, ANGEL, or WebCT
learning management systems
■ (^) Interactive and gradable study materials, which include
Reading Questions, Active Figures, Guidepost Questions,
Problems from the textbook, and Ranking Task Exercises
■ (^) Instructor supplements, which include PowerPoint®
lectures, digital images from the text, and Test Bank
content
■ (^) Interactive eBook
■ (^) Videos and Animations