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The Essential Cosmic Perspective with MasteringAstronomy™, 5/E
Jeffrey O. Bennett, University of Colorado, Boulder
Megan Donahue, Michigan State University
Nicholas Schneider, University of Colorado, Boulder
Mark Voit, Michigan State University

ISBN-10: 0321566947
ISBN-13: 9780321566942

Publisher: Addison-Wesley
Copyright: 2009
Format: Paper Package; 575 pp
Estimated Availability: 12/12/2008

Suggested retail price: $118.40
This item is not yet available for purchase. See estimated availability date above.

Based on the most up-to-date astronomical research, The Essential Cosmic Perspective, Fifth Edition retains all of the features that have made this text so popular with new features helping students learn about the process of science and how to interpret visual data. The textbook package also includes updated supplements to support the book’s pedagogy, making it the most effective text in the one-semester astronomy market.

 

The Fifth Edition focuses on building student appreciation of science by helping them understand how astronomers know what they know about the universe, and how information can be gleaned from looking at and interpreting images. To support these goals, the book features new See It For Yourself boxes, Process of Science end-of-chapter questions, Check Your Skills activities which help students learn how to read figures and photos, and five new Cosmic Context two-page figures on key topics throughout the text.

 

Offered with The Essential Cosmic Perspective, Fifth Edition is an unparalleled media package designed to help professors and students seamlessly incorporate media into lectures and at-home study. MasteringAstronomy™, the most easy-to-use, yet sophisticated astronomy tutorial and assessment system ever built, provides both instructor-assigned homework and a self-study area with quizzes, Interactive Tutorials™, updated Interactive Figures and Photos™, a brand new eBook, RSS news feeds that provide up-to-date articles from major astronomy news sources, and more. For additional instructor media,The Essential Cosmic Lecture Launcher DVD-ROM includes high resolution JPEGs of all images in the text, Interactive Figures and Photos based on figures from the book, PowerPoint® Lecture Outlines, and Clicker Quizzes based on the book and book-specific interactive media, plus a variety of additional instructor resources. The Astronomy Media Workbook, Sixth Edition, provided on CD and at no extra cost,is now updated to correlate with the latest interactive media on MasteringAstronomy and Voyager: SkyGazer v4.0 planetarium software.

 

Package Includes:

  • MasteringAstronomy with E-book Student Access Kit
  • Voyager: SkyGazer v4.0 College Edition CD-ROM


  • A consistent chapter structure focused on key learning goals features.
    • Motivational learning goals begin each chapter to focus students on the most important concepts.
    •  Section headings correspond to a learning goal from the chapter opener. Each section is written to address one—and only one—learning goal, guiding students through each chapter with a focus on key concepts.
    • Visual summaries at the end of each chapter revisit learning goals with text and key figures to reinforce what students have learned.
  • An integrated media program called out with icons throughout the text directs students to the most widely-used library of purpose-built astronomy media, including Interactive Tutorials, Interactive Figures, and Interactive Photos which focus on the concepts students struggle with most.
  • Annotated figures and photos help students better understand the key concepts presented in complex figures and graphs and build visual interpretation skills.
  • The process of science is integrated seamlessly throughout as a core theme and is reinforced with a new set of end-of-chapter questions.
  • A cosmic framework establishes a solid foundation of understanding by exploring the key themes of our place in the universe and how astronomers know what they know, and fleshes out these themes throughout the text. This approach motivates students to learn, and helps them develop a personal understanding of astronomy and a lasting appreciation of the process of science.
  • A Check Your Skills activity at the end of each chapter asks students to assess their comprehension of key skills needed for the course, such as reading visuals, problem solving skills, interpreting scale, quantitative reasoning, and more. Answers are provided in the back of the book so students can use these activities for self-study and exam review.  

A cohesive, state-of-the art media package includes:

  • MasteringAstronomy™ is the most sophisticated astronomy tutorial and assessment system ever built. It provides both instructor-assigned homework as well as a self-study area with all of the popular Interactive Tutorials, Interactive Figures and Photos™, quizzes and more. The enhanced Media Update site includes new tutorial problems on the process of science, an eBook, RSS news feeds that provide up-to-date articles from major astronomy news sources, and new Interactive Figures and Photos.
  • Voyager: SkyGazer v4.0, the latest edition of this purpose-built planetarium software, now comes packaged with the book.
  • The Astronomy Media Workbook on CD, available as a bundling option at no extra cost, includes a wide selection of in-depth activities using resources from MasteringAstronomy, Voyager: SkyGazer, College Edition v4.0 planetarium software. These thought-provoking projects are suitable for the lab or as assignable homework assignments.
  • Enhanced visual pedagogy makes this already student-friendly text even more accessible through the use of Visual Activities, Cosmic Context process and summary figures, carefully crafted annotations, stepped zoom-in figures, and multiwavelength images.
  • Cosmic Context Figures combine text and illustrations into accessible and coherent visual summaries that will help improve your students’ understanding of essential topics. Fives figures have been added to the Fifth Edition, covering the Copernican revolution, seasons, the greenhouse effect, the HR diagram, and dark matter and dark energy,
  • Expanded end-of-chapter problem sets include reading Review Questions, conceptual Does It Make Sense? questions, Quick Quizzes, Short Answer questions, Quantitative Problems, and brand new Process of Science questions which ask students to think more deeply about how we know what we know about astronomy today. Check Your Skills activities have also been added at the end of each chapter to help students test their understanding of key skills needed in astronomy.
  • Thorough coverage of new discoveries includes the IAU dwarf planet debate and the status of Pluto and Eris, the accelerating universe/cosmological constant, the detection of new planets around other stars, the potential of water flows on Mars, and the latest theories on the very early universe.
  • The Essential Cosmic Lecture Launcher v5.0 DVD-ROM includes high resolution JPEGs of all images from the book, Interactive Figures and Photos™ based on figures from the book, PowerPoint® Lecture Outlines, and Clicker Quizzes based on the book and book-specific interactive media, plus a variety of additional instructor resources.

I. DEVELOPING PERSPECTIVE

1. Our Place in the Universe

2. Discovering the Universe for Yourself

3. The Science of Astronomy

 

II. KEY CONCEPTS FOR ASTRONOMY

4. Making Sense of the Universe: Understanding Motion, Energy, and Gravity

5. Light: The Cosmic Messenger

 

III. LEARNING FROM OTHER WORLDS

6. Formation of Planetary Systems: Our Solar System and Beyond

7. Earth and the Terrestrial Worlds

8. Jovian Planet System

9. Asteroids, Comets, and Dwarf Planets: Their Nature, Orbits, and Impacts

 

IV. STARS

10. Our Star

11. Surveying the Stars

12. Star Stuff

13. The Bizarre Stellar Graveyard

 

V. GALAXIES AND BEYOND

14. Our Galaxy

15. Galaxies and the Foundation of Modern Cosmology

16.  Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Fate of the Universe

17. The Beginning of Time

 

VI. LIFE ON EARTH AND BEYOND

18. Life in the Universe

    Built from the ground up on our new understanding of the universe, The Essential Cosmic Perspective, Fourth Edition Media Update retains all of the features that have made this text so popular, and includes updated supplements that enhance the book’s pedagogy to make it the most effective text in the one-semester astronomy market.

     

    This edition features optional quantitative reasoning boxes, basic equations throughout the text, new end-of-chapter problems, and a consolidated math appendix for professors who want to emphasize quantitative understanding in their course. Key figures have been annotated to guide student interpretation of difficult concepts. New two-page Cosmic Context illustrations  throughout the text, visually tie together key concepts from across chapters and put them in context, driving home main ideas in a meaningful way.

     

    The Essential Cosmic Perspective, Fourth Edition Media Update provides an unprecedented media package.  MasteringAstronomy™, the most easy-to-use, yet sophisticated astronomy tutorial and assessment system ever built, provides both instructor-assigned homework as well as a self-study area with Bennett's popular Interactive Tutorials, Interactive Figures and Photos™, quizzes and more. An updated Essential Cosmic Lecture Launcher CD-ROM includes high resolution JPEGs of all images in the text for improved in-class projection, Interactive Figures and Photos™  based on figures from the book, PowerPoint® Lecture Outlines, and Clicker Quizzes based on the book and book-specific interactive media, plus a variety of additional instructor resources. The Astronomy Media Workbook, Fifth Edition is now updated to correlate with  MasteringAstronomy™ and Voyager: SkyGazer v3.7 planetarium software.

     

  • 0321505689The Essential Cosmic Perspective Media Update, 4/E
    Bennett, Donahue, Schneider & Voit
    © 2008 | Addison-Wesley | Paper Package; 550 pages | Instock
    ISBN-10: 0321505689 | ISBN-13: 9780321505682
    Brief Description | Buy from myPearsonStore

Jeffrey Bennett

Jeffrey Bennett holds a B.A. (1981) in biophysics from the University of California, San Diego, and an M.S. and Ph.D.(1987) in astrophysics from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has taught at every level from preschool through graduate school, including more than 50 college classes in astronomy, physics, mathematics, and education. He served 2 years as a visiting senior scientist at NASA headquarters, where he created NASA’s “IDEAS” program, started a program to fly teachers aboard NASA’s airborne bservatories (including the hopefully soon-to-be-flying SOFIA), and worked on numerous educational programs

for the Hubble Space Telescope and other space science missions. He also proposed the idea for and helped develop

both the Colorado Scale Model Solar System on the CU-Boulder campus and the VoyageScale Model Solar System on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. (He is pictured here with the model Sun.) In addition to this astronomy textbook, he has written college-level textbooks in astrobiology, mathematics, and statistics; two books for the general public, On the Cosmic Horizon (Pearson Addison-Wesley, 2001) and Beyond UFOs (Princeton University Press, 2008); and an award-winning series of children’s books that includes Max Goes to the Moon, Max Goes toMars, Max Goes to Jupiter (coming soon), and Max’s Ice Age Adventure. When not working, he enjoys participating in masters swimming and in the daily adventures of life with his wife, Lisa; his children, Grant and Brooke; and his dog, Cosmo. His personal Website is www.jeffreybennett.com.

 

Megan Donahue

Megan Donahue is an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Michigan State University. Her current research is mainly on clusters of galaxies: their contents—dark matter, hot gas, galaxies, active galactic nuclei—and what they reveal about the contents of the universe and how galaxies form and evolve. She grew up on a farm in Nebraska and received a B.A. in physics from MIT, where she began her research career as an X-ray astronomer. She has a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Colorado, for a thesis on theory and optical observations of intergalactic and intracluster gas. That thesis won the 1993 Trumpler Award from the Astronomical Society for the Pacific for an outstanding astrophysics doctoral dissertation in North America. She continued postdoctoral research in optical and X-ray observations as a Carnegie Fellow at Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California, and later as an STScI Institute Fellow at Space Telescope. Megan was a staff astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute until 2003, when she joined the MSU faculty. Megan is married to Mark Voit, and they collaborate on many projects, including this textbook and the raising of their children,Michaela, Sebastian, and Angela. Between the births of Sebastian and Angela, Megan qualified for and ran the Boston Marathon. These days,Megan runs, orienteers, and plays piano and bass guitar whenever her children allow it.

 

Nicholas Schneider

Nicholas Schneider is an associate professor in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University

of Colorado and a researcher in the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. He received his B.A. in physics and astronomy from Dartmouth College in 1979 and his Ph.D. in planetary science from the University of Arizona in 1988. In 1991, he received the National Science Foundation’s Presidential Young Investigator Award. His research interests include planetary atmospheres and planetary astronomy, with a focus on the odd case of Jupiter’s moon Io. He enjoys teaching at all levels and is active in efforts to improve undergraduate astronomy education. Off the job, he enjoys exploring the outdoors with his family

and figuring out how things work.

 

Mark Voit

Mark Voit is an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Michigan State University. He earned his B.A. in astrophysical sciences at Princeton University and his Ph.D. in astrophysics at the University of Colorado in 1990. He continued his studies at the California Institute of Technology, where he was a research fellow in theoretical astrophysics, and then moved on to Johns Hopkins University as a Hubble Fellow. Before going to Michigan State,Mark worked in the Office of Public Outreach

at the Space Telescope, where he developed museum exhibitions about the Hubble Space Telescope and was the scientist behind NASA’s HubbleSite. His research interests range from interstellar processes in our own galaxy to the clustering of galaxies in the early universe. He is married to coauthor Megan Donahue, and they try to play outdoors with their three children whenever possible, enjoying hiking, camping, running, and orienteering.Mark is also author of the popular book Hubble Space Telescope: New Views of the Universe.

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  • 0321580885The Essential Cosmic Perspective, 5/E
    Bennett, Donahue, Schneider & Voit
    © 2009 | Addison-Wesley | Paper Bound w/CD-ROM; 624 pages | Estimated Availability: 12/12/2008
    ISBN-10: 0321580885 | ISBN-13: 9780321580887

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  • 0321598164Essential Cosmic Perspective, The, CourseSmart eTextbook, 5/E
    Bennett, Donahue, Schneider & Voit
    © 2009 | Addison-Wesley | Electronic Book; 575 pages | Estimated Availability: 12/12/2008
    ISBN-10: 0321598164 | ISBN-13: 9780321598165
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