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Hardcover. Actual size of book: over 9" x 12"; all photographs in full color. Color on every page.
A Society of School Librarians International Honor Book
Age Level: 9 and Up
Now in its Second Printing
Bad Reviews: 0
Read an excerpt from THE LIVES OF STARS!
Description--THE LIVES OF STARS
A huge cloud of gas and dust...The Orion Nebula is a nursery where thousands of stars have been born.
A brilliant blue-white star...Rigel will live fast and die young.
A wispy cloud of beautiful colors....The Crab Nebula is where a huge star has exploded.
An invisible black hole, tearing apart a nearby star...Nothing can escape Cygnus X-1, not even light.
The wonders of the stars are yours in this spectacular explosion of deep space. Using the most beautiful photographs available, Harvard-trained astronomer Ken Croswell leads a tour of the stars--the young, the living, the aging, and the dead. He also describes how the stars made life possible on Earth--and perhaps on planets throughout the cosmos.
"Ken Croswell's THE LIVES OF STARS is a wonderful astronomy book
for young people--for anyone, for that matter. Well written,
beautifully illustrated, it takes sophisticated modern
concepts and makes them clearly accessible. I wish I could have
had a book like this one when I was young."
--Dr. James Kaler, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
author of Stars and Stars and Their Spectra
"A terrific book. I am enjoying The Lives of Stars
immensely. It is very well written, aimed with precision at
young readers, and is filled with inspiration to get these
readers to enjoy the stars. I would not be surprised if a
whole generation gets inspired to study astronomy after
reading this wonderful book."
--David Levy, discoverer of 22 comets
"This is a great book for the astronomy enthusiast. If
you're beyond the basics and want to talk about astronomy
the way astronomers do, then this is the book for you."
--Dennis Schatz, Senior Vice President, Pacific Science Center
Award-winning astronomy educator and children's book author
CHAPTER | PAGE |
---|---|
The Lives of Stars | 4 |
Star Light, Star Bright | 6 |
The Birthplace of Stars | 8 |
A Star Is Born | 14 |
The H-R Diagram | 16 |
Main-Sequence Stars | 20 |
Brown Dwarfs | 22 |
Red Giants | 24 |
Planetary Nebulae | 26 |
White Dwarfs | 32 |
Supergiants and Supernovae | 34 |
Cepheids | 40 |
Neutron Stars and Pulsars | 42 |
Black Holes | 44 |
Double Stars | 46 |
When Little Stars Explode | 48 |
Star Clusters | 50 |
Origin of the Elements | 54 |
Extrasolar Planets | 58 |
Life in Space? | 60 |
Glossary | 62 |
Index | 72 |
Large, outstanding images--all in color:
NGC 346 in Small Magellanic Cloud
Galactic Bulge
Orion Nebula
Horsehead Nebula
Lagoon Nebula
Eagle Nebula
Cone Nebula
T Tauri
Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram
SCR 1845-6357 (red dwarf and brown dwarf)
Mira
Ring Nebula
Helix Nebula
Dumbbell Nebula
Eskimo Nebula
Cat's Eye Nebula
Sirius
Orion
NGC 3370 (spiral galaxy)
Crab Nebula
Cassiopeia A
Veil Nebula
Crab Pulsar
Cygnus X-1
Albireo
SN 1994D in galaxy NGC 4526
Pleiades star cluster
Quintuplet cluster
M80 (globular cluster)
Extrasolar planet around red dwarf
Earth
Good Reviews--THE LIVES OF
STARS
If you have a similarly precocious pre-teen in your life, you might want to give them a copy of The Lives of Stars. This is a big, beautiful, full-color book chock full of gorgeous Hubble images and in-depth text that should be easily accessible to any bright third- or fourth-grader. The book discusses (and illustrates) the life cycle of stars, from nebulae to main sequence to supernova, neutron star, or black hole. This is all the latest state-of-the-art information, as up-to-date as any book can be.
The Lives of Stars doesn’t shy away from hardcore science: it explains the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, Cepheid variables, and the origin of elements, and is full of all sorts of interesting facts (for example, the Milky Way Galaxy gives birth to about ten new stars per year, and tin is primarily formed in red giants rather than supernovae). In addition, there are a few chapters that lead nicely into science fiction territory, discussing extrasolar planets and extraterrestrial life.
Ken Croswell is a Ph.D. in astronomy who has written other
astronomy books for kids; your precocious pre-teen will be
in good hands. But before you give this book to the kid
(or kids) in your life, take some time to look through it
yourself--you’re sure to enjoy it, and you will probably
learn something you didn’t know. Much fun indeed.
--Don Sakers
The highlight of the book is the collection of large and colorful pictures of these deep space objects. The photos are compelling examples of nebulae from which stars develop. The written material is in-depth and comprehensive. It begins with a description of how distances to stars are calculated and how temperature and brightness of a star is determined; it also explains the inverse square law, giving good examples of how it applies to the Sun. It continues with the idea of nebulae and the origin of stars.
Text material describes the concept of balancing gravity with outward pressure to form stable stars. The H-R diagram is explained and illustrated with a two-page spread showing the way the graph develops. Subsequent chapters address the concepts of main sequence, red giant, white dwarf, brown dwarf, supernova explosions, planetary nebulae, Cepheid variables, pulsars, and of course black holes. Other concepts covered include double stars and star clusters.
Each section describes a star in detail and gives plenty of
examples of them in the sky, and they are illustrated with
great, full-color pictures. The book concludes with a
discussion of extrasolar planets and the possibility of life
in space. There is a full glossary and an index. The author
maintains a rigorous approach to the material but keeps the
jargon to a minimum, making it an easy and interesting book
to read.
--Claudia Fetters
As the title suggests, The Lives of Stars, after first introducing readers to the nature of stars, traces the various evolutionary stages that stars of different original mass can pass through, from star birth to star death, ending with the inevitable link between the creation of heavy elements and life in space. Nothing appears to have been missed, and I was delighted to find that even Cepheids are included, both as a post-red-supergiant stage (perhaps not in the case of Polaris?) and as distance indicators to other galaxies. Included are a variety of historical snippets woven into the text to provide both background and inspiration regarding the manner in which scientific ideas are generated, following careful observational studies. The age level for potential readers is indicated as nine or older, but the writing is also suitable for "more senior" astronomers.
The Lives of Stars contains many glorious color views of objects related to stellar evolution: the Horsehead Nebula, T Tauri stars, young and old star clusters, H II regions, planetary nebulae, the Crab Nebula, the Veil Nebula in Cygnus, and even an extragalactic supernova. Also included are faithful schematics of planets and brown dwarfs, as well as an all-color Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, with all stars identified and the various stellar characteristics described in exciting fashion in an accompanying two-page chapter. Nothing is neglected, and the contents might easily substitute for the appropriate chapters of an introductory textbook on astronomy for non-science specialists. It is similar in some respects to table-top books designed to show off the best astronomical images, but the writing is what makes it more than worth its small list price. Boyds Mills Press has done an excellent job in producing The Lives of Stars, and there is very little to criticize in the finished product.
The descriptive portions of The Lives of Stars are what
make the book special. A number of quotes are reproduced in the
publicity blurb for the book as well as in the online site, to
which I refer interested readers. My personal favorites are his
comparison of the present rate of the Sun's expansion from
evolutionary effects as "about as fast as your fingernails grow," his
manner of describing absorption lines in stellar spectra by
"different elements remove different wavelengths of light, thereby
imprinting themselves on the star's spectrum," and his comparison
of the properties of Cepheid pulsation with "musical instruments
in an orchestra." Copyright restrictions limit the
number of words from Croswell's books that can be quoted directly,
so you will have to purchase your own copies to enjoy them to the
full. The Lives of Stars, only 72 pages from title page to
the end of the index, can be read easily in one evening, including
time spent in rereading those delightful passages that describe
well-known concepts from a fresh and evocative perspective.
--David G. Turner
Read an Excerpt from THE LIVES OF STARS!
KEN HOME | THE ALCHEMY OF THE HEAVENS | PLANET QUEST | MAGNIFICENT UNIVERSE | SEE THE STARS | THE UNIVERSE AT MIDNIGHT | MAGNIFICENT MARS | TEN WORLDS | THE LIVES OF STARS | DONATE |
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