High-Energy Particles and Quanta in Astrophysics

For many centuries the study of astronomy was restricted largely to the equilibrium effects associated with Newtonian gravitation and thermal electromagnetic radiation in the visible band. But there is more to astronomy than meets the eye, more in the heavens than was dreamed of in the older cosmologies. High energy astrophysics represents a new era and area of astronomy concerned with a wide range of phenomena that are invisible to the human eye. It deals with the observation and interpretation of charged cosmic rays and electromagnetic cosmic radiation in the gamma ray, x-ray, and radio bands. It encompasses the suprathermal equilibrium phenomena, such as the flux of cosmic rays, that are an important everyday aspect of astronomical space; the problems of quasi-equilibrium, including galactic dynamics, the interstellar gas, and star formation; and the domain of nonequilibrium phenomena, sometimes explosive, such as stellar explosions and solar flares. It ranges from the sun through the galactic and extragalactic and local supergalactic to the metagalaxy. And most of what is presently known about these phenomena and these regions is reviewed within the covers of this book. The editors of this volume, and their fellow authors, are associated with the Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and have aided in the design of NASA's rich experimental program in these areas, which includes an ongoing data-collection effort via balloon, rocket, and satellite, soon to be joined by a series of High Energy Astrophysical Observatories, which are the largest unmanned research satellites now under development. The topics treated in the ten chapters are galactic cosmic ray observations, the origin and interstellar propagation of cosmic rays, the interstellar propagation of nuclei and source composition, cosmic electrons, solar modulation and the earth's field, solar particles, radio astronomy, discrete x-ray sources, the cosmic x-ray background, and gamma ray astronomy.MacDonald, Frank B. is the author of 'High-Energy Particles and Quanta in Astrophysics', published 1974 under ISBN 9780262060486 and ISBN 0262060485.