Peter Leroy recalls an episode from his grade-school years, an episode that he would really rather forget, one of the dark, gritty bits that one finds at the bottom of the chowder bowl of life. It involves the Young Tars, an organization originally intended to raise the morale of students at the new Babbington Central Upper Elementary School, and the treacherous Mr. Summers, a teacher whose armamentarium of instructional techniques featured "humility sessions" and a toy weapon that fired ping-pong balls.

Circumstellar disks are vast expanses of dust that form around new stars in the earliest stages of their birth. Predicted by astronomers as early as the eighteenth century, they weren’t observed until the late twentieth century, when interstellar imaging technology enabled us to see nascent stars hundreds of light years away. Since then, circumstellar disks have become an area of intense study among astrophysicists, largely because they are thought to be the forerunners of planetary systems like our own—the possible birthplaces of planets. This volume brings together a team of leading experts to distill the most up-to-date knowledge of circumstellar disks into a clear introductory volume. Understanding circumstellar disks requires a broad range of scientific knowledge, including chemical processes, the properties of dust and gases, hydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics, radiation transfer, and stellar evolution—all of which are covered in this comprehensive work, which will be indispensable for graduate students, seasoned researchers, or even advanced undergrads setting out on the study of planetary evolution.

CORETTA SCOTT KING AWARD WINNER • CALDECOTT HONOR BOOK • A NEW YORK TIMES BEST ILLUSTRATED BOOK Acclaimed artist Faith Ringgold seamless weaves fiction, autobiography, and African American history into a magical story that resonates with the universal wish for freedom, and will be cherished for generations. Cassie Louise Lightfoot has a dream: to be free to go wherever she wants for the rest of her life. One night, up on “tar beach,” the rooftop of her family’s Harlem apartment building, her dreams come true. The stars lift her up, and she flies over the city, claiming the buildings and the city as her own. As Cassie learns, anyone can fly. “All you need is somewhere to go you can’t get to any other way. The next thing you know, you’re flying among the stars.”

This volume offers a background in modern high spatial resolution techniques, illustrating how such methods have impacted on our understanding of young stars. It provides hands-on insight into observing from space as well as the ground, the use of interferometers at millimeter and infrared wavelengths, image analysis and spectral diagnostic techniques, and High Angular Resolution studies of the inner regions of circumstellar disks that play a fundamental role in jet launching.

This is a treatment of the fundamentals of cosmology and galaxies discussed from theoretical, experimental and observational perspectives and providing a basic reference source for both specialists and non-specialists. Articles from non-equilibrium relativistic cosmology to the evolution of galaxies are included.

Whre do stars come from and how do they form? These are profound questions which link the nature of our Universe to the roots of mankind. Yet, until a recent revolution in understanding, the proposed answers have been raw speculation. Now, accompanying penetrating observations, a new picture has come into prominence. This book presents the latest astounding observations and scientific ideas covering star formation, star birth and early development. It encompasses all aspects, from the dramatic stories of individual objects, to the collective influence of entire stellar systems. The very first stars to come into existence and the nurturing of planets are discussed to provide the reader with a comprehensive overview. Presenting background information with only the essential mathematics, this book will appeal to scientists wishing to expand their horizons, students seeking solid foundations, and general readers with enquiring minds.