Created through a "student-tested, faculty-approved" review process, ASTRO 2 is an engaging and accessible solution to accommodate the diverse lifestyles of today's learners. ASTRO 2 employs the same engaging writing style that has become a hallmark of Mike Seeds and Dana Backman's introductory astronomy texts.
1. Scale of the Cosmos
2. User's Guide to the Sky
3. Origin of Modern Astronomy
4. EM Radiation & Telescopes
5. Sun Light & Sun Atoms
6. Origin of the Solar System & Exoplanets
7. The Terrestrial Planets
8. The Jovian Planets
9. The Family of Stars
10. Structure & Formation of Stars
11. Deaths of Stars
12. The Milky Way Galaxy
13. A Universe of Galaxies
14. Modern Cosmology
15. Life on Other Worlds
Dana Backman works for the SETI Institute of Mountain View, California, as director of outreach for the SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) mission at NASA's Ames Research Center. He also teaches introductory astronomy, astrobiology, and cosmology courses in Stanford University's Continuing Studies Program. From 1991 to 2003, he taught in the physics and astronomy department at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he invented and taught a Life in the Universe course in the interdisciplinary Foundations program. Dr. Backman's research interests focus on infrared observations of planet formation, models of debris disks around nearby stars, and evolution of the solar system's Kuiper Belt. With Mike Seeds, he also coauthored Horizons: Exploring the Universe, Twelfth Edition (2012); Universe: Solar Systems, Stars and Galaxies, Seventh Edition (2012); and Foundations of Astronomy (2013), all published by Cengage Learning. Dr. Backman earned his bachelor's degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. from the University of Hawai'i.
Michael A. Seeds has been Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, since 1970. In 1989, he received F&M College's Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching. Seeds's love for the history of astronomy led him to create upper-level courses on Archaeoastronomy and Changing Concepts of the Universe. His research interests focus on variable stars and the automation of astronomical telescopes. Mike is coauthor with Dana Backman of Horizons: Exploring the Universe, Twelfth Edition (2012); Universe: Solar Systems, Stars and Galaxies, Seventh Edition (2012); and Foundations of Astronomy (2013), all published by Cengage Learning.