Bookstore

A concise textbook for a one-semester course for science and engineering majors who have taken college-level, calculus-based physics. Filling a niche between introductory astronomy books for non-science majors and advanced texts, it presents a quantitative overview of stars, exoplanets, the interstellar medium, galaxies, and big-bang cosmology.

Fundamentals of Astrophysics

Part I. Stellar Properties: 1. Introduction; 2. Astronomical Distances; 3. Stellar Luminosity; 4. Surface Temperature from a Star's Color; 5. Stellar Radius from Luminosity and Temperature; 6. Composition and Ionization from Stellar Spectra; 7. Surface Gravity and Escape/Orbital Speed; 8. Stellar Ages and Lifetimes; 9. Stellar Space Velocities; 10. Using Binary Systems to Determine Masses and Radii; 11. Stellar Rotation; 12. Light Intensity and Absorption; 13. Observational Methods; 14. Our Sun; Part II. Stellar Structure and Evolution: 15. Hydrostatic Balance between Pressure and Gravity; 16. Transport of Radiation from Interior to Surface; 17. Structure of Radiative vs. Convective Stellar Envelopes; 18. Hydrogen Fusion and the Mass Range of Stars; 19. Post-Main-Sequence Evolution: Low-Mass Stars; 20. Post-Main-Sequence Evolution: High-Mass Stars; Part III. Interstellar Medium and Formation of Stars and Planets: 21. The Interstellar Medium (ISM); 22. Star Formation; 23. Origin of Planetary Systems; 24. Water Planet Earth; 25. Extra-Solar Planets; Part IV. Our Milky Way and Other Galaxies: 26. Our Milky Way Galaxy; 27. External Galaxies; 28. Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) and Quasars; 29. Large Scale Structure and Galaxy Formation and Evolution; Part V. Cosmology: 30. Newtonian Dynamical Model of Universe Expansion; 31. Accelerating Universe with a Cosmological Constant; 32. The Hot Big Bang; 33. Eras in the Evolution of the Universe; Part VI. Appendices.