"Jeremiah P. Ostriker, Co-Winner of the 2015 Gruber Cosmology Prize for Theoretical and Experimental Explorations of the Universe (with John Carlstrom and Lyman Page), The Gruber Foundation" "One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles Top 25 Academic Books for 2013" "Honorable Mention for the 2013 PROSE Award in Cosmology & Astronomy, Association of American Publishers" Jeremiah P. Ostriker is professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University....

A behind-the-scenes look at the training, basic rules, lessons, and procedures of space travel by the former astronaut, space-shuttle pilot and International Space Station commander covers the realities of living long-term in space.

"This illustrated narrative explains the universe from the solar system to the farthest reaches of space"--

Radio telescopes are so large because radio waves contain such a small amount of energy. For example, the signal from a standard cell phone measured one kilometer away is five million billion times stronger than the radio signals received from a bright quasar. Learn how each of these fascinating instruments is designed to meet a specific scientific goal.

Investigate 51 Pegasi b, the first planet detected around a Sun-like star, which shocked astronomers by being roughly the size of Jupiter but in an orbit much closer to its star than Mercury is to the Sun. Probe the strange characteristics of these “hot Jupiters,” which have turned up around many stars..

In the mid-1960s, astronomers discovered signals with predictable periodicity but no known source. In case these signals indicated extraterrestrial life, they were initially labeled LGM, Little Green Men. But research revealed the source of the pulsing radiation to be neutron stars.

Using the laws of physics and electromagnetic radiation, astronomers can "weigh" a galaxy by studying the distribution of its rotating hydrogen. But when they do this, it soon becomes clear something is very wrong: A huge proportion of the galaxy's mass has simply gone missing. Welcome to the topsy-turvy world of dark matter - which we now believe accounts for 90 percent of our own Milky Way.

A pulsar's spin begins with its birth in a supernova and can be altered by transfer of mass from a companion star. Learn how pulsars, these precise interstellar clocks, are used to confirm Einstein's prediction of gravitational waves by observations of a double-neutron-star system, and how we pull the pulsar signal out of the noise.

With an array of 66 radio antennas located in the high Chilean desert above much of the earth's atmosphere, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is a radio telescope tuned to the higher frequencies of radio waves. Designed to examine some of the most distant and ancient galaxies ever seen, ALMA has not only revealed new stars in the making, but planetary systems as well.