| Celestial Mechanics: The Waltz of the Planets Contributor(s): Celletti, Alessandra (Author), Perozzi, Ettore (Author) |
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ISBN: 038730777X ISBN-13: 9780387307770 Publisher: Springer OUR PRICE: $42.74 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: January 2007 Annotation: The common perception of Celestial Mechanics is that of a discipline which needs advanced mathematics and astronomy to be understood. Yet modern Celestial Mechanics has a rather different taste and a truly interdisciplinary nature. The number of celestial objects known to mankind has dramatically increased, the long-awaited presence of extrasolar planets has been eventually detected around other stars, spaceflight dynamics has brought new applications encompassing rocked dynamics, the place-in-orbit of artificial satellites and interplanetary mission design. Solar System exploration has grown as a long term strategy for the construction of a permanent base on the Moon and a manned mission to Mars. The aim of the book is to show to the people at large, as well as to a more skilled audience, the many fascinating aspects of modern celestial mechanics. After giving to the reader the necessary technical tools needed for a basic understanding of the underlying physical phenomena (using only elementary mathematics), facts and figures are provided on historical events, modern discoveries and future applications. Contents are divided into major topics where the three "souls" of modern celestial mechanics (dynamical systems, Solar System & stellar systems, spaceflight dynamics) play a major role. As an example, spin-orbit resonances can be explained using fractional algebra and subsequently described in action as "cosmic spinning tops." Easily observable effects such as the existence of a "dark side of the Moon" (and of many other satellites) can be compared to the "complete synchronous rotation" achieved by a geostationary telecommunication satellite in order to be always in view of thereceiving parabolas on the ground. On longer time scales, the consequences of spin-orbit interaction may dramatically change the evolution of a planet when chaos enters the scene and must be taken into account in searching habitable planets around other stars. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Science | Physics - Astrophysics - Science | Astronomy - Science | Physics - Relativity |
| Dewey: 521 |
| LCCN: 2006926301 |
| Series: Springer-Praxis Books in Popular Astronomy |
| Physical Information: 0.63" H x 6.68" W x 9.54" (1.23 lbs) 248 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: I was delighted to be invited by my colleagues Alessandra Celletti and Ettore Perozzi to provide a foreword to their book, Celestial Mechanics: The Waltz of the Planets. Having known them for many years and long admired their work in the subject so many of us love and are fascinated by, 1 read with great attention and pleasure the text when it arrived. It is a formidable task they have set themselves, to provide a book that describes attempts by successive generations of astronomers from the dawn of history five millennia ago to observe, record and understand the phenomena of the heavens, particularly the intricate and perplexing behaviour of the planets. Sun and Moon. As naked eye astronomy became aided by the telescope and the photographic plate, and since the middle of the twentieth century, by instruments launched on spacecraft into circum- Earth orbit or to the Moon and planets and beyond, the discovery of new satellites, scores of them, and ring systems displaying new and initially perplexing behaviour also demanded explanations for that behaviour. It is also the inspiring story of science itself with special reference to how lonely individuals, impelled by curiosity and dedicated to seeking the truth, and nothing but the truth, about the fascinating phenomena of nature, ultimately became accepted as scientists, those players in the most successful endeavour ever engaged in by the human race. |