Embark on your own personal journey into the night sky. Stardate: Today! Ever catch yourself staring up at the night sky and wondering just what the heck is out there? While no one book can answer all your questions, Astronomy For Dummies will take you on a tour through the Milky Way (and beyond!) that describes some of the most fascinating objects in the universe. This book comes complete with online access to chapter quizzes and downloadable full-color astronomical photos of our universe, as well as easy-to-follow explanations of the eye-popping wonders and gorgeous interstellar objects that populate our solar system, galaxy, and universe. You’ll find: Brand-new star charts for the northern and southern hemispheres, as well as descriptions of the latest tech tools for amateur astronomers Lists of the most recently discovered exoplanets, exomoons, and exocomets hurtling through the cosmos The latest timelines for dazzling solar events and maps to the best places to see them live and in-person Filled with discussions of the biggest and greatest new breakthroughs and an 8-page color insert packed with unbelievable, full-color photographs, Astronomy For Dummies is a can’t-miss book that will ignite a passion for understanding the mysteries of the universe in children and adults alike!

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1 About This Book 2 Foolish Assumptions 2 Icons Used in This Book 3 Beyond the Book 3 Where to Go from Here 4 Part 1: Getting Started with Astronomy 5 Chapter 1: Seeing the Light: The Art and Science of Astronomy 7 Astronomy: The Science of Observation 8 What You See: The Language of Light 10 They wondered as they wandered: Understanding planets versus stars 10 If you see a Great Bear, start worrying: Naming stars and constellations 12 The smaller, the brighter: Getting to the root of magnitudes 19 What do I spy? Spotting the Messier Catalog and other sky objects 20 Looking back on light-years 22 Keep on moving: Figuring the positions of the stars 23 Gravity: A Force to Be Reckoned With 26 Space: A Commotion of Motion 27 Chapter 2: Join the Crowd: Skywatching Activities and Resources 29 You’re Not Alone: Astronomy Clubs, Websites, Smartphone Apps, and More 30 Joining an astronomy club for star-studded company 30 Checking websites, magazines, software, and apps 31 Visiting Observatories and Planetariums 35 Ogling the observatories 35 Popping in on planetariums 39 Vacationing with the Stars: Star Parties, Eclipse Trips, Dark Sky Parks, and More 39 Party on! Attending star parties 40 Getting festive at an astro fest 42 Tapping into Astronomy on Tap 42 To the path of totality: Taking eclipse cruises and tours 42 Motoring to telescope motels 44 Chapter 3: Terrific Tools for Observing the Skies 47 Seeing Stars: A Sky Geography Primer 48 As Earth turns 48 keep an eye on the North Star 51 Beginning with Naked-Eye Observations 53 Using Binoculars or a Telescope for a Better View 56 Binoculars: Sweeping the night sky 56 Telescopes: When closeness counts 60 Planning Your First Steps into Astronomy 70 Chapter 4: Just Passing Through: Meteors, Comets, and Artificial Satellites 73 Meteors: Wishing on a Shooting Star 74 Spotting sporadic meteors, fireballs, and bolides 75 Watching meteor showers: No umbrella needed 77 Comets: Dirty Ice Balls or Icy Dirt Balls? 81 Making heads and tails of a comet’s structure 82 Waiting for the “comets of the century” 86 Hunting for the next great comet 87 Artificial Satellites: Enduring a Love–Hate Relationship 90 Skywatching for artificial satellites 91 Finding satellite viewing predictions 92 UFOs: Could some be aliens? 94 Part 2: Going Once Around the Solar System 95 Chapter 5: A Matched Pair: Earth and Its Moon 97 Putting Earth under the Astronomical Microscope 98 One of a kind: Earth’s unique characteristics 98 Spheres of influence: Earth’s distinct regions 100 Examining Earth’s Time, Seasons, and Age 102 Orbiting for all time 102 Tilting toward the seasons 104 Estimating Earth’s age 106 Making Sense of the Moon 107 Get ready to howl: Identifying phases of the Moon 108 In the shadows: Watching lunar eclipses 110 Cultivating an interest in the occult(ations) 112 Hard rock: Surveying lunar geology 113 Quite an impact: Considering a theory about the Moon’s origin 119 Chapter 6: Earth’s Near Neighbors: Mercury, Venus, and Mars 121 Mercury: Weird, Hot, and Mostly Metal 122 Dry, Acidic, and Hilly: Piercing the Veil of Venus 123 Dropping the ball: Probing Venus with DAVINCI+ and EnVision 125 Something in the air: Life in Venus’s clouds? 125 Red, Cold, and Barren: Uncovering the Mysteries of Mars 125 Where have almost all the air and water gone? (Long time passing) 126 Does Mars support life? 128 Differentiating Earth through Comparative Planetology 131 Observing the Terrestrial Planets with Ease 132 Understanding elongation, opposition, and conjunction 133 Viewing Venus and its phases 135 Watching Mars as it loops around 137 Outdoing Copernicus by observing Mercury 139 Chapter 7: Rock On: The Asteroid Belt and Near-Earth Objects 141 Taking a Brief Tour of the Asteroid Belt 141 Getting the Dirt on (and off) Asteroids 145 Understanding the Threat That Near-Earth Objects Pose 146 When push comes to shove: Nudging an asteroid 148 Forewarned is forearmed: Surveying NEAs to protect Earth 149 Searching for Small Points of Light 150 Helping to track an occultation 151 Timing an asteroidal occultation 152 Chapter 8: Great Balls of Gas: Jupiter and Saturn 153 The Pressure’s On: Journeying Inside Jupiter and Saturn 153 Almost a Star: Gazing at Jupiter 154 Scanning for the Great Red Spot 156 Shooting for Galileo’s moons 157 Our Main Planetary Attraction: Setting Your Sights on Saturn 161 Ringing around the planet 162 Storm chasing across Saturn 164 Monitoring a moon of major proportions 164 Venting about geysers on Enceladus 166 Chapter 9: Far Out! Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Beyond 169 Breaking the Ice with Uranus and Neptune 169 Bull’s-eye! Tilted Uranus and its features 170 Against the grain: Neptune and its biggest moon 171 Meeting Pluto, the Amazing Dwarf Planet 173 Defining Pluto the geophysical way 174 Getting to the heart of Pluto 174 Looking at Pluto’s makeup 177 The moon chip doesn’t float far from the planet 177 Buckling Down to the Kuiper Belt 178 Viewing the Outer Planets 180 Sighting Uranus 180 Distinguishing Neptune from a star 180 Straining to see Pluto 181 Hunting New Planet Number Nine 182 Part 3: Starting with Old Sol: Meeting Stars And Galaxies 185 Chapter 10: The Sun: Star of Earth 187 Surveying the Sunscape 188 The Sun’s size and shape: A great bundle of gas 189 The Sun’s regions: Caught between the core and the corona 189 Solar activity: What’s going on out there? 192 Solar wind: Playing with magnets 196 Solar CSI: The mystery of the missing solar neutrinos 197 Four billion and counting: The life expectancy of the Sun 198 Don’t Make a Blinding Mistake: Safe Techniques for Solar Viewing 199 Viewing the Sun by projection 199 Viewing the Sun through front-end filters 204 Fun with the Sun: Solar Observation 206 Tracking sunspots 206 Experiencing solar eclipses 208 Surfing solar observatories 212 Chapter 11: Taking a Trip to the Stars 215 Life Cycles of the Hot and Massive 216 Young stellar objects: Taking baby steps 217 Main sequence stars: Enjoying a long adulthood 218 Red giants and supergiants: Big and bigger 219 Closing time: Coming up on the tail end of stellar evolution 220 Star Color, Brightness, and Mass 226 Spectral types: What color is my star? 227 Star light, star bright: Luminosity classifications 228 The brighter they burn, the bigger they swell: Mass determines class 229 Making sense of the H-R diagram 230 Eternal Partners: Binary and Multiple Stars 232 Binary stars and the Doppler effect 232 Two stars are binary, but three’s a crowd: Multiple stars 234 Change Is Good: Variable Stars 235 Go the distance: Pulsating stars 236 Explosive neighbors: Flare stars 238 Nice to nova: Exploding stars 238 Stellar hide-and-seek: Eclipsing binary stars 241 Hog the starlight: Microlensing events 242 Your Stellar Neighbors 242 How to Help Scientists by Observing the Stars 245 Chapter 12: Galaxies: The Milky Way and Beyond 247 Unwrapping the Milky Way 248 How and when did the Milky Way form? 249 What shape is the Milky Way? 249 Where can you find the Milky Way? 251 Star Clusters: Meeting Galactic Associates 252 A loose fit: Open clusters 253 A tight squeeze: Globular clusters 255 Fun while it lasted: OB associations 256 Taking a Shine to Nebulas 257 Picking out planetary nebulas 259 Breezing through supernova remnants 261 Enjoying Earth’s best nebular views 261 Getting a Grip on Galaxies 264 Surveying spiral, barred spiral, and lenticular galaxies 265 Examining elliptical galaxies 266 Looking at irregular, dwarf, and low surface brightness galaxies 267 Gawking at great galaxies 268 Discovering the Local Group of galaxies 271 Checking out clusters of galaxies 272 Sizing up superclusters, cosmic voids, and great walls 272 Chapter 13: Falling for Black Holes and Quasars 275 Black Holes: Keeping Your Distance 275 Looking over the black hole roster 276 Poking around the black hole interior 277 Surveying a black hole’s surroundings 280 Warping space and time 281 Detecting black hole collisions 283 Watching stars get swallowed by black holes 284 Quasars: Defying Definitions 285 Measuring the size of a quasar 286 Getting up to speed on jets 287 Exploring quasar spectra 287 Active Galactic Nuclei: Welcome to the Quasar Family 288 Sifting through different types of AGN 288 Examining the power behind AGN 290 Questioning what ORCs are 291 Part 4: Pondering the Remarkable Universe 293 Chapter 14: Planets of Other Suns: Is Anybody Out There? 295 Discovering Alien Worlds 296 Changing ideas on exoplanets 296 Finding exoplanets 298 Meeting the (exo)planets 302 Catching Proxima fever: Focusing on red dwarfs 305 Finding Earth-class planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1 307 Checking out planets for fun and science 308 Astrobiology: How’s Life on Other Worlds? 309 Extremophiles: Living the hard way 309 Seeking life in the solar system 310 Using Drake’s Equation to Discuss SETI 313 SETI Projects: Listening for E.T. 316 The flight of Project Phoenix 317 Space scanning with other SETI projects 318 Hot targets for SETI 320 SETI@home 321 Chapter 15: Delving into Dark Matter and Antimatter 323 Dark Matter: Understanding the Universal Glue 323 Gathering the evidence for dark matter 324 Debating the makeup of dark matter 328 Taking a Shot in the Dark: Searching for Dark Matter 329 Looking for WIMPs and other microscopic dark matter 329 MACHOs: Making a brighter image 331 Mapping dark matter with gravitational lensing 331 Dueling Antimatter: Proving That Opposites Attract 333 Chapter 16: The Big Bang and the Evolution of the Universe 335 Evidence for the Big Bang 336 Inflation: A Swell Time in the Universe 337 Something from nothing: Inflation and the vacuum 339 Falling flat: Inflation and the shape of the universe 339 Dark Energy: The Universal Accelerator 340 Universal Info Pulled from the Cosmic Microwave Background 341 Finding the lumps in the cosmic microwave background 342 Mapping the universe with the cosmic microwave background 342 In a Galaxy Far Away: Standard Candles and the Hubble Constant 344 Standard candles: How do scientists measure galaxy distances? 344 The Hubble constant: How fast do galaxies really move? 345 The Fate of the Universe 346 Part 5: the Part of Tens 347 Chapter 17: Ten Strange Facts about Astronomy and Space 349 You Have Tiny Meteorites in Your Hair 349 A Comet’s Tail Often Leads the Way 350 Earth Is Made of Rare and Unusual Matter 350 High Tide Comes on Both Sides of Earth at the Same Time 350 On Venus, the Rain Never Falls on the Plain 350 Rocks from Mars Dot Earth 351 Pluto Was Discovered from the Predictions of a Wrong Theory 351 Sunspots Aren’t Dark 351 A Star in Plain View May Have Exploded, But No One Knows 352 The Same Supernova or Quasar May Be Seen in Different Places 352 Chapter 18: Ten Common Errors about Astronomy and Space 353 “The Light from That Star Took 1,000 Light-Years to Reach Earth” 353 There’s No Gravity in Space 354 Summer Comes When Earth Is Closest to the Sun 354 The Back of the Moon Is Dark 354 The “Morning Star” or “Evening Star” Is a Star 355 The Asteroid Belt Is Crowded 355 Nuking a “Killer Asteroid” on a Collision Course for Earth Will Save Us 355 The Sun Is an Average Star 356 The Hubble Space Telescope Gets Up Close and Personal 356 The Big Bang Is Dead 356 Part 6: Appendixes 357 Appendix A: Star Maps 359 Appendix B: Glossary 367 Index 373