Alpha centauri unveiling the secrets of our nearest stellar neighbor

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Martin Beech Alpha Centauri Unveiling the Secrets of Our Nearest Stellar Neighbor www.ebook777.com free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Astronomers’ Universe For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/6960 free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com www.ebook777.com free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Martin Beech Alpha Centauri Unveiling the Secrets of Our Nearest Stellar Neighbor free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Martin Beech Campion College The University of Regina Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada ISSN 1614-659X ISSN 2197-6651 (electronic) ISBN 978-3-319-09371-0 ISBN 978-3-319-09372-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-09372-7 Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London Library of Congress Control Number: 2014951361 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 This work is subject to copyright All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of the Publisher’s location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer Permissions for use may be obtained through RightsLink at the Copyright Clearance Center Violations are liable to prosecution under the respective Copyright Law The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) www.ebook777.com free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com The book is dedicated with appreciation to musician Ian Anderson and to all of the assembled minstrels and vagabonds that have contributed to the making of Jethro Tull Their numerous musical adventures have accompanied, enthralled, and challenged me through many years of listening, and for this, I am grateful free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com www.ebook777.com free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Preface A Call to Adventure! If there is a defining trait of being human, then a need for adventure and a desire to know what lies beyond the horizon’s sweeping arc must surely be it We yearn for adventure, be it within the confines of a favorite book, our hometown, or on some distant exotic island or mountain range Adventure! It fills us with passion It provides us with a reason for action, it builds character, it shakes our assumptions, and it warms us with a sense of achievement Scottish philosopher and Victorian essayist Thomas Carlyle once defined history as being the distillation of rumor, but surely it could better be described as the collective sum of numerous adventures, the comingled expression of journeys made by mind, body, and soul Adventure, it has also been said, brings out the best in us By gritting our teeth, we have triumphed over adversity, and we assimilate wisdom Slightly more than 100 years ago now, just within the time span of living memory, such teeth-gritting mettle saw Roald Amundsen and his Norwegian compatriots first set foot on Earth’s South Pole (it contemporaneously saw the glorious death of Robert Falcon Scott and his companions) It was the same grit and determination that saw New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Norgay Tenzing scale the snow-clad summit of Mount Everest, the top of the world, for the very first time in 1953 It was to be only years after that first great ascent before the deepest depths of Earth’s oceans, the Mariana Trench, were first plumbed by Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard aboard the bathy- vii free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com viii Preface scaphe Trieste.1 Above, below, and all around – humans have literally experienced, perhaps only briefly in many circumstances, all of the topology that Earth has to offer Historically, high adventure has been confined to Earth and its atmosphere This all changed, of course, not quite 50 years ago with the initiation of the American Apollo space program, which ultimately saw Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first walk upon the Moon’s surface on July 21, 1969 Human beings, however, have gone no further into space than the Moon Only robots and spacecraft (proxy human bodies made of aluminum and plastic) have continued the pioneering exploration of the planets and the deep probing of the Solar System And yet, for all of humanity’s technological skills, no spacecraft has to date reached interstellar space.2 Voyager 1, the current long-distance record holder launched in 1977, is now some 18.5 billion kilometers away from the Sun, but this is a minuscule step compared to the 7.4 trillion kilometers outer radius of the Oort Cloud boundary – the zone that gravitationally separates out the Solar System, our current stomping ground, from the rest of the galaxy Ever hungry for adventure and raging against the yawning abyss of interstellar space, humanity has long dreamed of traveling to the stars There may be no reasonable way of achieving such adventure in the present day or even in foreseeable decades, but the journey will assuredly begin one day; we are made of stardust, and to the stars we shall eventually make our way But where to first? The galaxy is unimaginably large and the potential pathways innumerable Surely, however, the first steps to the stars will be Remarkably, as of this writing, four times more people have walked on the surface of the Moon (12 in total – a.k.a The Dusty Dozen) than have seen the ocean floor of the Mariana Trench in situ (3 in total) And although the Apollo program lasted less than 10 years, the human exploration of the deepest abyssal plain has already occupied more than half a century of adventure The 1960 descent of the bathyscape Trieste was the first dive to carry a human cargo to the abyssal depths of the Challenger Deep, and then, 52 years later – on March 6, 2012 – film director and National Geographic explorer James Cameron, ensconced in the Deepsea Challenger submersible, descended the depths to once more cast human eyes over the floor of the Mariana Trench I am using here the gravitational boundary, rather than the edge of the heliosphere, where the solar wind pushes up against the interstellar medium In spite of what you may have otherwise read in press releases, the Voyager spacecraft is still very much inside of our Solar System www.ebook777.com free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Preface ix via our nearest stellar neighbors, and in this case α Centauri offers up a bright and welcoming beacon Why α Centauri Beckons Fortuitously close by galactic standards, α Centauri is not so remote that all hope falters at the thought of one day exploring its new-worldly domain Not only this, but there is much about α Centauri that will be familiar to future travelers – even to our own eyes if we could be somehow transported there this very instant Firstly, it would appear to our visual senses that we had not moved at all, for indeed, the very night sky constellations would be the same Remarkably, as we ultimately explore α Centauri and even the solar neighborhood beyond it, the ancient zodiacal configurations will both follow us and anchor us to the deep past, and they will continue to remind us from where the journey first began Indeed, the memory of our natal domicile will be written bright upon the sky as the Sun, as seen from α Centauri, will become a new star in the constellation of Cassiopeia.3 Certainly, once having arrived at α Centauri, the presence of two progenitrix stars would be odd to our sense of heritage, but these two stars up close are barely different from our familiar Sun Indeed, they illustrate what the Sun could so easily have been, and they bookend with respect to their physical characteristics what the Sun will become in about a billion years from now.4 An instantaneous trip to α Centauri today would not only whisk us through a great cavern of space, it would also transport us something like 10,000 centuries into the Sun’s future Remarkably, therefore, the present-day study of α Cen A and B helps us understand the deep-time and innermost workings of our Sun Not only this, as we shall see later on in the text, the fate and demise of life in our Solar System will be mirrored at almost the very same epoch three to four billion years hence by any life forms that Not only will the Sun appear as a new star in Cassiopeia, it will also be the brightest star in that constellation, far outshining Schedar (α Cassiopeia), the erstwhile brightest member as seen from Earth It is estimated, as will be seen later, that the α Centauri system formed about six billion years ago free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Appendix 2â•… 283 1.E+14 r = 100 AU Encounter time (years) 1.E+12 Age of Universe 1.E+10 Age of Solar System 1.E+08 2000 AU 1.E+06 Oort Cloud 1.E+04 1.E+02 1.E+00 0.0001 0.001 0.01 0.1 Distance (pc) Fig A.3╇ Tenc versus miss-distance r as given by Eq.€A.7 when VS↜=↜25€km/s The two horizontal lines correspond to interval times given by the age of the Universe (13.7 billion years) and the age of the Solar System (4.56 Â�billion years) The time interval between encounters closer than r↜=↜100 au is currently greater than the age of the universe, and since the Solar System formed no encounter closer than r↜~↜2,000 au is likely to have happened The time interval between successive passages of a star through the outer boundary of the Oort Cloud (r↜~↜10,000 au) is order 665,000€years www.ebook777.com free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com )>> free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Appendix 1.1╇ The Orbit and€Location of€α Cen B A total of seven parameters are required in order to describe the sky position of α Cen B relative to α Cen A.€These parameters are summarized in Table€A.2 The basic shape of the orbit is determined by the size of the semi-major axis a, and the eccentricity e The orientation of the orbit to our line of sight is additionally described by the inclination i, the longitude of the ascending node Ω, and the argument of periastron Ω The final parameter T0 provides the time during which the last periastron passage of α Cen B occurred Without going into specific derivations,7 the equations that describe the position of α Cen B at any time t relative to the time of periastron passage T0, are: 2p ( t - T0 ) P )>> (A.8) )>> M = E - e sin E )>> (A.9) )>> r = a (1 - e cos E ) (A.10) )>> M= )>> where M is the so-called mean anomaly, E is the eccentric Â�anomaly, P is the orbital period, a is the semi-major axis, e is the eccentricity and r is the radial distance of α Cen B from α Cen A Equation€A.9 corresponds to what is known as Kepler’s equation, and it has no simple analytic solution (except when e↜=↜0, which corresponds to the case of a perfectly circular orbit) Accordingly an iterative solution to Eq.€A.9 must be found, but this can be done ↜A detailed review of Keplerian orbits and dynamics, and specifically the solution to€Kepler’s problem, is provided by C.€D Murray and A.€C M.€Correia€– see arXiv:1009.1738v1 M Beech, Alpha Centauri: Unveiling the Secrets of Our Nearest Stellar Neighbor, Astronomers’ Universe, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-09372-7, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 www.ebook777.com 285 free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 286â•… Alpha Centauri 286 Table A.2╇ Orbital parameters (and their Â�associated uncertainties) for α Cen B.€The data is taken from Pourbaix et€al.a Element Value a (arc seconds) 17.57↜±â†œ0.02 e 0.5179↜±â†œ0.0008 i (degrees) 79.20↜±â†œ0.04 Ω (degrees) 231.65↜±â†œ0.08 Ω (degrees) 204.85↜±â†œ0.08 T0 (year) 1,875.66↜±â†œ0.01 P (years) 79.91↜±â†œ0.01 a D.€Pourbaix et€al., “Constraining the difference€in convective blueshift between the components of α Cen with precise radial velocities” (Astronomy & Astrophysics, 386, 280, 2002) numerically using the Newton–Raphson technique in which an iterative solution for E is found via the scheme Ej+1 = Ej )>> Ej - e sin Ej - M - e cos Ej , j = 0,1,2,3, (A.11) )>> The iteration scheme in Eq.€A.11 starts by assuming some value for E0, any reasonable value will do, so say start with E0↜=↜0.25 With this starting value for j↜=↜0, use Eq.€ A.11 to determine E1, and with E1 use Eq.€A.11 again to determine E2 and so Keeping track of the various Ej terms will reveal that they converge to a constant value as j becomes larger and larger Once the difference between successive iterations for Ej become smaller than say 10−6, a solution is said to have converged This is the value of E that is then used to determine the radial distance r via Eq.€A.10 of α Cen B from α Cen A Rather than using the eccentric anomaly to describe the trajectory of α Cen B, it is generally easier to use the true anomaly f, which can be determined from Eq.€A.9 through the relationship )>> cos f = cos E - e - e cos E )>> (A.12) free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Appendix 3â•… 287 true orbit of α Cen B (1955 - 2055) 20 2050 15 2040 Distance (arc seconds) 10 1995 2035 2000 -5 -10 2010 2030 -15 2020 -20 -25 -30 -35 -35 -30 -25 -20 -15 -10 -5 10 15 20 Distance (arc seconds) Fig A.4╇ The true orbit of α Cen B about α Cen A.€The position of α Cen B is shown for January for various years The scale is in arc seconds, and α Cen A is located at the (0, 0) point Equations€A.10 and A.12 determine the specific location of α Cen B in its elliptical orbit (the so-called true orbit) at time t Â�Figure€ A.4, shows the location of α Cen B at various times in the time interval between 1955 and 2055 Thus far we have shown how to find the position of α Cen B relative to α Cen A with respect to its true orbit From Earth, Â�however, we not see the true orbit; rather we see the apparent orbit€– the latter being different since it includes the geometric orientation of the orbit in our line of sight The apparent orbit is derived from the true orbit (Fig.€A.4) by introducing rotation transformations relating to the orbital inclination (i), the argument of periastron (Ω) and the longitude of the ascending node (Ω) These angles are given in Table€A.1 First, the three-dimensional (that is, true spatial) orbit can be constructed in the X, Y and Z coordinate frame, where the X-axis lies along the orbital major-axis, the Y-axis www.ebook777.com free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 288â•… Alpha Centauri 288 is at right-angles to the X-axis and the Z-axis is perpendicular the XY plane The equations that describe the (X, Y, Z) positions are8: )>> X = r ( cos W cos (w + f ) - sin W cos (w + f ) cos i ) )>> )>> Y = r ( sin W cos (w + f ) + cos W sin (w + f ) cos i ) )>> )>> Z = r sin (w + f ) sin i (A.13) (A.14) (A.15) )>> Although Eqs.€A.13, A.14 and A.15 provide a description of the orbit in three dimensions, the stars are physically observed on the two-dimension plane of the sky, and accordingly a polar coordinate system is introduced In this case the position, in our case, of α Cen B relative to α Cen A, is described according to a position angle θ, and a radius offset ρ (see the inset in Fig.€A.5) The Â�position angle is measured in degrees from the north position and the radial offset, or separation, is given in arc seconds The equations for describing the (θ, ρ) polar coordinate positions are: )>> tan (q - W ) = tan (w + f ) cos ( i ) )>> r = r cos (w + f ) / cos (q - W ) )>> )>> (A.16) (A.17) Figure€A.5 shows the time variation of the position angle and the separation of α Cen B in the time interval of 1995–2075 From Fig.€ A.5 we see that α Cen B will next be due north of α Cen A (θ↜=↜0°) in the year 2023, when the two stars will be separated by about 7€arc sec The two stars will be at their closest approach, just 2€arc sec apart, in 2038; their greatest angular separation, about 22€arc sec, will be achieved in 2060 Table€A.3 indicates the position angle and offset separation for January 1€in each year from 2013 to 2023 ↜A detailed review of Keplerian orbits and dynamics, and specifically the solution to Kepler’s problem, is provided by C.€D Murray and A.€C M.€Correia€– see arXiv:1009.1738v1 free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Appendix 3â•… 289 Polar Coordinates α Cen B Position angle (degrees) 360 315 270 225 180 135 90 45 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 2070 2050 2060 2070 Year Separation (arc seconds) 25 North 20 θ ρ East 15 10 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 Year Fig A.5╇ Time variation of the position angle (top panel) and separation (bottom panel) of α Cen B from α Cen A.€The inset diagram on the bottom panel describes the polar coordinate system www.ebook777.com free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 290â•… Alpha Centauri 290 Table A.3╇ Position angle (in degrees) and offset separation (in arc sec) of α Cen B from α Cen A on January for the years indicated in Column Year 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 Position Angle (°) 265.8 276.2 288.5 302.0 315.4 327.5 337.6 345.8 352.4 357.8 â•…2.1 Separation (arc sec) 4.9 4.4 4.1 4.0 4.2 4.5 4.9 5.5 6.1 6.8 7.5 free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Index A Accretion disk, 112, 119 Acoustic waves, 99 Across the Zodiac, 193–194 Adams, Douglas, 40, 169, 199 Adams, John Couch, 42, 123 Adventures of Baron Munchausen, 203 Airy, George Biddell, 19, 30 Alden, Harold, 40 Aldrin, Buzz, vii Alien, 63, 77, 80, 136, 137, 196, 210, 214 Allegheny Observatory, 59 Alpha Centauri or Die!, 178 Al Riji al Kentauris, 4–5 Amazing Stories, 196 American Interplanetary Society, 196–197 Amundsen, Roald, vii Anderson, Ian, 236 Andromeda Galaxy, 264 Argon (Ar), 133, 230 Armstrong, Niel, vii Asimov, Isaac, 178, 195, 219, 265, 267 Asteroseismology, 100–102 Aston, Francis, 85 Astro-engineering, 234–235, 237, 249 Astrometry, 59, 128–130, 144, 171 Astronomy for Everybody, 71 A Text-book of General Astronomy, 70 Aurora, 97, 115 Avatar, 179 B Babcock, Horace, 96 Babson, Roger, 265, 267 Badescu, Viroel, 208, 209, 231 Barnard, Edward, 57 Baron Munchausen, 203 Benton, Willam, 71 Bermann, Ludwig, 97 Bessel, Friedrich, 29, 33, 59–60, 70 Beyond the Observatory, 230 Big Bang, 88, 200, 232, 265–266 Big Rip, 264 Blink comparator, 37 Bohr atom, 167 Botanic Garden, 180 Bradley, Rev James, 27, 28 British Interplanetary Society, 57, 178, 196–197, 208, 212–213, 226, 231, 260 Brown dwarfs Luhman 16AB, 46, 224–227 WISE 0855-0714, 227, 228 WISE 1828+2650, 275 Bruno, Giordano, 127, 128 Bussard, Robert, 214 Butterfly effect, 167–168 By Rocket to the Moon, 197 C Calton Hill Observatory, 31 Cape Observatory, 29, 31–33, 43 Carlyle, Thomas, vii Carrington, Richard, 92, 93, 96, 115 Cathcart, Richard B., 208, 209, 231 Cavorite, 194, 195, 265, 267 Celestial sphere, 9–10, 12, 36, 123 Centaur, 2–6, 9, 14–18, 35, 36, 38–40, 101, 144, 169, 178, 180, 181, 184, 187, 188, 264, 275, 277, 278 Ceres, 125, 178, 180, 214 Cerro Paranal Observatory, 115 Chandra X-ray telescope, 99 Characterising exoplanets satellite (CHEOPS), 171, 172 Chiron, 2–6 Chronicles of Narnia, Churchill, Winston, 262 M Beech, Alpha Centauri: Unveiling the Secrets of Our Nearest Stellar Neighbor, Astronomers’ Universe, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-09372-7, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 www.ebook777.com 291 free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 292 Index Clarke, Arthur C., 178, 214 CN-cycle, 88–91, 101, 201 Comets 1689, 18 Biela, 31 C/1910 A1, 43 Churyumov-Gerasimenko, 183 C/2013 Siding Spring, 184 Encke, 30, 31, 183 1927 f (Gale), 44 Hale-Bopp, 183 Halley, 43, 124, 183, 184 ISON, 182, 183 Shoemaker-Levy 9, 182 Comte, Auguste, Cooke, Thomas, 44 Cooper, Edmund, 178, 197–198, 219 Copernican Principle, 231 Copernicus, Nicolaus, CoRoT spacecraft, 135, 171, 172 Cortés, Hernán, 92 Cosmic rays, 57, 217, 220, 269 Crux, 2, 7, 13 Cryogenic infrared echelle spectrograph (CRIRES), 174 Curtis, Heber, 265 D Dangerous Voyage to Alpha Centauri, 179 Dark matter, 164, 269 Darwin, Erasmus, 180 De Bergerac, Cyrano, 192, 193 Degenerate gas, 111 Descartes, René, 127, 128 Destination Universe, 167 Disraeli, Benjamin, 234 Distant Worlds, 122, 128, 177, 178, 180, 195 Doberck, William, 20 Doppler effect, 128, 279–281 Draco Volans, 181 Drake equation, 74, 75 Drake, Frank, 64, 74, 75 Dumusque, Xavier, 146–151 Dynamical equilibrium, 81, 82, 84, 85, 238–239 α2 dynamo, 117, 118 αΩ dynamo, 115–117 Dyson, Frank, 41 Dyson, Freeman, 204, 211, 212, 214 Dyson sphere, 231 E ECHo spacecraft, 173 Eddington, Arthur, 71, 81–86, 88 Eddington number, 86 Einstein, Albert, 85, 124, 156, 164, 175–176, 198, 200 Elvis, 63 Epicurus, 127 ESPRESSO, 170–171 Europa, 104, 248, 249 Exoplanets α Cen Bb, 122, 123, 137, 140, 148, 149, 151, 152, 159, 168–169, 229, 255, 257, 264 55 Cnc Af, 142 Cold Jupiter, 121, 143, 186 Earth Mark II, 137, 149, 160–161 Formalhaut b, 186 Free-floating, 45, 112, 169, 179 HD 189733b, 173, 174 Hot Jupiter, 121, 173, 174, 253, 254 Kapteyn b, 225 Kepler-16ABb, 142 Kepler-56b, 250 Kepler-186f, 160 OGLE-2003-BLG-235, 153 51 Peg b, 131–134 β Pictoris b, 119, 120, 223 Extremophiles, 247 F Fallows, Fearon, 22, 31, 32 Far Centaurus, 178, 198, 200 Fasti, Fermi Paradox, 214 Feuillée, Louis, 20 Finsen, William, 23 First Ark to Alpha Centauri, 179 First Men in the Moon, 194 Flare star, 62, 63, 77, 113, 114, 185–186 Flying to Valhalla, 178, 202 Fogg, Martyn, 208 Forgan, Duncan, 209 Forrest, Mabel, Forward, Robert, 203, 204 Foundation and Earth, 178, 195, 219 G Gaia spacecraft, 171 Gail, Otto, 197 Galactic habitability zone (GHZ), 232–235 free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Index Gale, Walter, 42, 44 Galilei, Galileo, 92 Gatewood, George, 59, 61 Geneva Observatory, 131 Gill, David, 42 Gliese, Wilhelm, 58 Goddard, Robert, 196 Godwin, Francis, 192 Gravitational collapse, 83, 84, 109, 110, 169 Gravitational microlensing, 152–154 Gravity Research Foundation, 265, 267 Great Debate, 265 Greenhouse heating, 160, 244, 245, 247 Greenwich Observatory, 43 Greg, Percy, 193–194 Groombridge, Stephen, 58 Gulliver’s Travels, 176 Gylden-Meshcherskii problem, 258 H Habitability zone (HZ), 75, 104, 126, 138, 141, 142, 144, 145, 149, 150, 157–161, 170, 172, 174, 178–180, 225, 226, 231–234, 237, 242, 243, 248, 254–257, 262–263 Hale, George Ellery, 93, 94 Halley, Edmund, 19, 20, 27, 124 Harriot, John, 92 Harry Potter, Harvard College Observatory, 70, 114 Heisenberg uncertainty principle (HUP), 111 Helioseismology, 100 Henderson, Thomas, 29–36 Herschel, John, 22–23, 30, 276 Herschel, William, 21, 59, 62, 124, 271 Hertzsprung, Ejnar, 71, 113 Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram, 71, 78, 79, 239, 241, 242, 262, 266, 276–278 Highly Accurate Radial-velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS), 43, 133, 134, 146, 147, 170 Hillary, Edmund, vii Hind, John Russell, 22, 23 Hipparchus, 271 Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, The, 169, 199 H-K Project, 97, 98 Hodgson, Richard, 115 Homo Erraticus, 236 293 Hubble, Edwin, 265 Hubble’s law, 265 Huffington Post, 122 I Incessant obsolescence postulate, 199 Innes, Robert, 2, 23, 37–44 Internal Constitution of the Stars, The, 81 Interstellar medium, 41, 55–57, 66, 105–106, 116, 220, 230, 232, 241, 265, 267 Interstellar travel, 8, 179, 206, 207, 210, 211, 213, 214, 218, 230 Island universe, 265 J Jacob, William, 22–23, 61, 113, 143 Johnson, Manuel, 32 K Kapteyn, Jacobus, 225, 265 Kardashev, Nickolai, 208, 231 Kepler, Johannes, 135, 190–192 Kepler spacecraft, 134, 135, 254 Kuiper Belt, 63, 77, 80, 115, 138, 169, 178, 179, 182, 184, 220, 223, 224, 279, 282 L La Caille, Abbé, 20, 22, 32, 59 Lalande, Jerôme, 59, 61 Laputa, 178, 203 La Verrier, Urban, 42 Leighton, Robert, 99–100 Leinster, Murray, 178, 180, 197 Lewis, C S., 3, 69, 191, 192 Local Bubble, 55, 56 Local Group, 264, 265, 267 Longfellow, Henry, x Long Now Foundation, 215 Lucian of Samosata, 203 Luyten, Willem, 57, 58, 113 M Maclear, Thomas, 33–35 Macpherson, Hector, 70–71 Mader, Friedrich, 177, 178, 195 www.ebook777.com free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 294 Index Main sequence, 62, 79, 80, 102, 109, 185, 201, 207–208, 237, 238, 240, 241, 245, 250, 254, 256, 257, 261–265, 274, 276, 278 Malthus, Thomas, 217, 237 Man in the Moone, The, 192 Maori, 6–7 Marcy, Geoffrey, 107 Mariana Trench, vii Maskelyne, Nevil, 20 Matariki, 6–7 Maunder, Edward, 93, 97 Maunder minimum, 97, 99 Mayor, Michel, 131–133 McCollum, Michael, 210 Meadows, William, 33 Méliès, George, 193 Metallicity, 65, 66 Meteor showers α Centaurid, 4, Eta Aquarids, 184 Leonids, 184 Orionids, 184 Milton, John, 151 Mira variable, 240, 257 Mitchell, John, 21 Mixing-length, 102 Modified Newtonian dynamic (MOND), 164–166, 260 Mount Willson Observatory, 96–98 Mt Everest, 41 Mythopeia, 69 N Nature of the Physical Word, The, 71 Newcomb, Simon, 71 Newton, Isaac, 164, 165, 195, 200 Novy, Rick, 179, 200 Nuclear timescale, 86, 87 O Occultation disk, 120, 135 Off on a Comet, 218 O'Neill cylinder, 198 On Fairy-Stories, 191 Oort cloud, 50, 57, 115, 169, 182, 184–187, 220, 279, 281–283 Öpik, Ernst, 214 Outlines of Astronomy, 70 Out of a Silent Planet, 191 Ovid, P Packed Planetary System (PPS), 126, 138–140 Pale Blue Dot, The, 210 Paris Observatory, 34, 59 Pellegrino, Charles, 178, 202 Perelandra, 191 Philolaus, 123, 124 Photosphere, 82, 92, 94–96, 99, 129, 185, 274 Piazzi, Giuseppe, 125 Piccard, Jacques, vii Pioneer 6, 217 Planck, Max, 71, 144, 273–274 Planetesimals, 53–54, 119, 121, 177 Planet migration, 109, 121, 126, 138, 155, 258 Planets Jupiter, 41, 43, 45, 46, 53, 59, 60, 77, 80, 109 Mars, 31, 53, 64, 103, 123, 125, 160, 169, 176, 177, 181, 184, 191, 194, 206, 218–219, 248 Mercury, 31, 93, 123–126, 138, 150, 159, 177, 218–219, 250, 251, 253, 255, 257, 264 Neptune, 25, 59, 123–126, 137–138, 171, 182, 250 Saturn, 25, 120, 123–125, 142, 169, 180, 196, 211, 248, 250 Uranus, 59, 123–125 Venus, 20, 104, 123, 126, 136, 142, 158, 173, 177, 180, 184, 191, 250, 251, 253, 255, 257, 258, 264 Plasma frequency, 265, 267 Playing With Planets, 214 Pluto, 63, 125, 126, 179 Pogson, Norman, 270–272 Powell, Eyre, 22, 23 Powell, James, 202 PP-chain, 88–91, 101, 112, 201 Principia Mathematica, 164 Principles of Population, 217 Project Daedalus, 57, 212–213, 221, 226 Project Icarus, 213 Project Longshot, 212 Project Orion, 198, 211–213 Project Ozma, 64 Proper motion, 15–18, 29, 32–34, 36–39, 41, 43, 50, 57–61, 113, 128, 129, 155, 156, 161, 225, 236, 265, 279–281 Ptolemy, Claudius, 2, Purcell, Edward, 214 free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Index Q Quantum telescope, 174–176 Queloz, Didier, 131, 132 R Reflex motion, 128, 129, 131, 132, 146, 147, 150 Rejuvenating the Sun and Avoiding Other Global Catastrophes, 88, 208, 237, 249 Research Consortium On Nearby Stars (RECONS), 72–74, 76 Richaud, Jean, 18–20 Richer, Jean, 19 Rigel Kentaurus, 5, 179, 200 Rogue planets, 45, 155, 169, 179 Romance of Modern Astronomy, 70 ROSAT, 99 Rosetta spacecraft, 183 Rossby number, 117, 118 Ross, Frank, 58 Ross, John, 31 Rowe, Henry, 92 Rowling, J K, Royal Observatory, 38–39, 42 Russell, Henry Norris, 71 S Sagan, Carl, 174, 210, 232, 236 Sagittarius A*, Sails of Tau Ceti, The, 210 Saturn V, 196, 211 Savary, Félix, 21 Scheiner, Christoph, 92 Schwabe, Heinrich, 93 Science Wonder Stories, 196 Sco-Cen association, 36 Scott, Robert Falcon, vii Searle, Arthur, 70 Seed of Light, 178, 198, 219 SETI, 64, 65, 142, 231 Shapley, Harlow, 114, 230, 265 Shkadov, Leonid, 208 S-index, 96, 97, 117 Sloan Digital Sky Survey, 45 Solar dynamo, 95, 96, 101 Solar flares, 96, 97, 115 Somnium, 190, 192, 218 Songs of Distant Earth, The, 178 Southern Cross, 2, 7, 9, 13, 15 295 South, James, 30 Spitzer infrared telescope, 174 Spörer, Gustave, 93 Sproul Observatory, 60 Stability zone, 141, 144, 170, 255, 257 Stapleton, Olaf, 218 Stardome Observatory, Starmaker, 218 Stars Abell 39, 243 Achener, 219 Agena, 6, 8, 15, 17, 18, 35, 36, 276, 278 Aldebaran, 30 υ Andromeda, 137 Antares, Arcturus, 219 Argelander’s, 98 Barnard star's, 15, 57, 60, 61, 66, 168, 188, 225, 226, 229 Betelgeuse, 55 55 Cancri, 138, 142 Canopus, 1, 7–9 Capella, 219 δ Centauri, 275 ε Centauri, 16, 276 γ Centauri, 276 ι Centauri, 16, 36 θ Centauri, 6, 16, 36, 276, 278 ζ Centauri, 275 61 Cygni, 29, 33, 57, 70 DENIS 1048-39, 227 DX Cancri, 227, 229 Eltanin, 28 ε Eridani, 64, 224, 225, 229 EZ Aquarii C, 112 Formalhaut, 186, 219, 223 Gliese 445, 48, 58, 63 Gliese 710, 49, 50, 282 Groombridge 34, 58 Hadar, HD 9562, 98 HD 10180, 138, 139 HD 69830, 137 HD 101501, 98 HD 102152, 107 HD 136202, 98 HD 158576, 49 HD 304043, 43 ε Indi, 52, 62, 64, 224, 227–229 Innes's star, 39, 43 Kapteyn's star, 66, 159, 225 Kepler-11, 138–140 www.ebook777.com free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 296 Index Stars (cont.) Kepler-42, 159 Kepler-56, 250, 253 Kepler-186, 160 L 143-23, 227 L 789-6, 224 L 1159-16, 229 Lacaille 9352, 58–59, 229 Lalande 21185, 59, 61, 227 LHS 40, 43 LL 145-141, 227 Luyten's star, 57, 62, 227, 229 Menkent, 6, 16, 278 Methusela, 58 Muhlifain, 276 Murzim, xiv σ Octantis, 13 51 Pegasi, 131 β Pictoris, 119, 120, 223 Polaris, 12, 14, 15, 277 Pollux, 219 Procyon, 60, 62, 219, 224, 227, 229 R Corona Australis, 50 Regulus, 219 ζ2 Reticuli, 77, 80 RHD 1, 18 Ross 128, 48, 49, 58, 227, 229 Ross 154, 229 Ross 248, 48, 49, 58, 63 RR Caeli, 142 Schedar, ix 18 Scorpii, 107 SCR 1845-6357, 229 Sirius, 1, 7–9, 35, 56, 60, 62, 63, 66, 128, 219, 223, 224, 227, 278 Sirius B, 60, 223, 278 Tau, τ Ceti, 52, 62, 64, 66, 210, 223, 224, 226–229 Teegarden's star, 168, 229 ξ Ursae Majoris, 21 UV Ceti, 62, 63, 113, 229 Van Maanen's star, 229 Vega, 29, 70, 73, 219, 223 V838 Monocerotis, 253, 254 V374 Pegasi, 116, 117 VW Ophiuchi, 50 Wolf 359, 58, 112, 227 Wolf 424AB, 229 YZ Ceti, 62, 229 Star Trek, 201 Star Wars, 142, 201 Starwisp, 203–205 Struve, Friedrich, 29, 70 Sunspots, 92–97, 99, 107, 115, 188 Supernova Type I, 54 Type II, 53, 54 Swift, Jonathan, 4, 176, 177 T Tachocline, 101, 115, 116 Tatooine, 142 Tebbutt, John, 42 Tenzing, Norgay, vii The Other World, 192 The Pointers, 1, 9, 13, 15, 16, 36 The Time Machine, 249 Tidal locking, 151, 158–160 Titius-Bode law, 124–128, 138–140 Toliman, Tolkien, J.R.R., 69, 191, 192 Transit method, 135, 152 Transvaal Observatory, 41–43 Trieste, viii True History, 203 Tsiolkovsky, Konstantin, 196 Turner, Henry Hall, 27 U Union Observatory, 23, 24, 37–39, 41, 43, 44 V Valier, Max, 197 Valkyrie spacecraft, 202 Van der Kamp, Peter, 60, 61 Van Vogt, A E., 168, 178, 190, 198–200 Verne Jules, 177, 193, 218, 219 Vogt-Russell theorem, 80, 81, 238 Voltaire, 262 Von Braun, Wernher, 196, 211 Voûte, Joan, 38–40, 161, 276 Voyage dans la Lune, 193 Voyager 1, 63, 218 Voyager 2, 63, 218 Vulcan, 93, 124 W Walsh, Don, vii War of the Worlds, The, 193 Wells, H G, 193–195, 249, 250, 265, 267 free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Index Whitman, Walt, 51 Wide field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft, 169, 275 Wilson, Olin, 96 Wolf, Rudolf, 93 X XMM-Newton spacecraft, 114, 115 Y Yerkes Observatory, 58 Young, Charles, 70 Z ZAMS, 240, 242 Zeeman splitting, 94 Zwicky, Fritz, 206–210 www.ebook777.com 297 ... aid, with the helical rising of Matariki (the asterism of the Pleiades) near the time of the mid-winter solstice, setting the beginning of each new year At this moment the largest of the Maori... FIG 1.10 A superposition of the orbit of α Cen B and the planetary realm of our Solar System The circle at the very center of the diagram represents Earth’s orbit The idea of using a parallax shift... is delineated by the curve of stars in the tail of Scorpio, and its anchor (te punga) is symbolized by the constellation of the Southern Cross (Crux) – which at the time of the Maori New Year