دانلود کتاب فضا از آغاز تا پایان زمان، 250 نقطه عطف در تاریخ فضا و نجوم

Space is vast and ever-changing. In the five years since the first edition of The Space Book was published, new robotic space missions have been launched to a variety of solar system destinations, ongoing missions have made exciting new discoveries, hundreds of new planets have been discovered around nearby Sunlike stars, astrophysicists have discovered new ways to study the distant universe, and a panoply of future space-related missions and experiments have been approved to move forward by space agencies around the world. The landscape of space science and exploration has changed significantly as well, with small entrepreneurial aerospace companies, such as SpaceX and Blue Origin, entering the market as viable producers of their own reusable launch vehicles, and other companies developing or implementing ways to map the Earth or prospect for minerals and water on nearby asteroids using CubeSats— tiny spacecraft no larger than a cereal box. It continues to be a golden age of space exploration, with no end in sight. I’ve tried to keep up with some of those changes in this second edition of the book, although, as in the first edition, it is virtually impossible to capture the full story of space. Given my admitted bias as a planetary scientist who focuses on the study of our solar system, many of the new entries in this edition are geared toward new missions that have recently been launched to study the atmospheres and interiors of Mars and Jupiter and the surface of the largest asteroid, Ceres, as well as those that will soon be launched to study the surface of Mars and Jupiter’s moons, Europa and Ganymede, up close. Other very recent important events and discoveries that are described here now include the enormous meteor/fireball explosion that occurred above Russia in 2013; the launch of the world’s first privately funded, citizen solar-sailing demonstration mission, the Planetary Society’s LightSail-1 CubeSat; the discovery (finally!) of gravitational waves in 2016; and the thrilling announcement of the discovery of seven Earthlike planets orbiting the nearby star, called TRAPPIST-1, in 2017. I’ve also included new entries covering instruments and missions being planned by my astronomy and astrophysics colleagues, such as the new, large, millimeter-wave telescope array in the Atacama Desert of South America; the soon-to-belaunched largest space telescope ever built, named after former NASA administrator James Webb, and a large follow-on telescope being planned after that, called WFIRST; and long-term plans for a possible mission to launch thousands of tiny StarChip spacecraft on a high-speed mission to reconnoiter the star system closest to the Sun: Alpha Centauri. Throughout the rest of the book I have also provided spectacular new photographs and artwork, updates to ongoing missions, as well as details about new developments in space exploration and technology. These include the spectacular results from the New Horizons spacecraft’s 2015 flyby of the Pluto system, the latest results from the still-active Mars rovers Opportunity and Curiosity, the final results and fiery end of the Cassini mission to Saturn, Voyager 1’s historic departure out of the Sun’s magnetic field and into interstellar space, and results from the spectacular total solar eclipse viewed by millions across the United States in 2017. But so much more has happened, and will continue to happen! Follow along, using the many (updated) links and references in the Notes and Further Reading section, and keep your eyes on the skies!