Cosmic Collisions - The Hubble Atlas of Merging Galaxies

Cosmic Collisions – The Hubble Atlas of Merging Galaxies by Lars Lindberg Christensen, Raquel Yumi Shida & Davide De Martin
(ISBN-10: 0387938532. ISBN-13: 978-0387938530)

Kosmische Kollisionen: Der Hubble-Atlas der Galaxien by Lars Lindberg Christensen, Raquel Yumi Shida & Davide De Martin. Translated by Achim Weiss
(ISBN-10: 3827425557. ISBN-13: 978-3827425553)

The Hubble Space Telescope, a joint project of the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA, has made some of the most important discoveries in the history of science. From its vantage point 600 km above Earth’s surface, freed of the distorting effects of Earth’s atmosphere, Hubble’s “eyes” can see five times more sharply than those of ground-based telescopes and look deep into space to probe the profound mysteries that are still buried in the mists of time.

Among the most fascinating and dramatic events that Hubble has been able to show in high resolution are the cosmic collisions between galaxies. These gigantic encounters create phenomena that give rise to strange features involving clusters bursting with new stars, twisting lanes of gas and dust, and tidal tails extending over hundreds of thousands of light-years.

The importance of these cosmic encounters reaches far beyond the aesthetic Hubble images. These collisions may be some of the most important processes shaping the universe we inhabit today. Colliding galaxies very likely hold some of the most important clues to our galactic ancestry and to our destiny. It now seems clear that the galaxy we all live in, the Milky Way, is still continuously undergoing merging events, both major and minor, and that this process is much more important in the lives of galaxies than previously thought.

Hubble’s images are snapshots in time and have caught the individual stages of intergalactic collisions. These different stages can be put together into a movie showing how these monumental collisions progress.

In this book, we will give a brief and up-to-date introduction to the lives of galaxies — how they were born, evolve over time, and collide — using the best pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Many of these images are from a huge investigation of luminous infrared galaxies called the GOALS project (Great Observatory All-sky LIRG Survey, goals.ipac.caltech.edu). The Hubble observations were led by Aaron S. Evans from Stony Brook University (U.S.).

Features

English version
- Hardcover
- 142 pages
- Publisher: Springer; 1st edition (October, 2009)
- More than 80 high-resolution photographs
- Dimensions: approximately 30 x 25 x 2 cm
- Aimed at laypeople
German version
- Hardcover
- 140 pages
- Publisher: Spektrum Akademischer Verlag; 1st edition (September 30, 2010)
- More than 80 high-resolution photographs
- Aimed at laypeople

Editorial reviews

“This field is now highly active, attracting observers and theorists … . This book is well positioned to profit from all this. … The authors have chosen well in both scientific and visual terms. They give a clear account of current thinking about galaxy evolution, and have selected superb images to illustrate this. The production of the images on the page is exemplary. … ensuring that your library has a copy can hardly fail to pay dividends in terms of student interest.” (Andrew King, The Observatory, Vol. 130 (1214), June, 2010)

“The layout … is very good with a clean easily read font printed on satin paper so it feels and looks a quality publication. As its name suggest it is a book about colliding galaxies … . entertaining, user-friendly explanations of concepts without using jargon. The real pleasure is in the photographs … of all types of galaxy taken with the Hubble Space Telescope are stunning. … thoroughly recommend it. A fabulous book for the coffee table and a pleasure to browse … .”
(Darren Bushnall, Popular Astronomy, January-March, 2010)

“This large format book … is a collection of galaxy pictures courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope. Over eighty images, all full colour and many blown up to a full page, easily make this one of the more beautiful books of the year. The text follows the evolution of galaxies … their properties and different types, and their eventual coalescence in mergers. … Cosmic Collisions is a decent read and you will come back to it time and time again to look at the pictures.”
(Keith Cooper, Astronomy Now, February, 2010)