A Letter From the Authors

Astronomy is first and foremost about standing outside and gazing up at the night sky with wonder. Although it is certainly true that modern astronomers use giant telescopes, high-tech space probes, and supercomputers, astronomy is at its core a quest for knowledge to help better understand our place in this vast universe. This new edition of Investigating Astronomy has been carefully designed to highlight astronomy not as a long list of disconnected and therefore meaningless facts, but instead as a deeply human enterprise.

As one of humanity’s first sciences, astronomy might initially seem to be stagnant “old news.” Perhaps surprisingly, because of rapid advances in technology and computers, astronomers are taking enormous strides and increasing our knowledge of the universe. In other words, what we understand about the universe expands each and every day.

In much the same way, what we know about how students learn develops and grows each day. This new edition uniquely brings the latest astronomical discoveries together with cutting-edge teaching and learning strategies in a partnership designed specifically to improve the depth of students’ learning. The scientific concepts selected for this edition are presented with a focus on making tight connections to the experiences of today’s students and helping them develop flexible understandings of scientific processes. Overall, the goal of this edition is to leverage students’ innate enthusiasm for learning about outer space to help them more deeply understand and value the scientific and technical enterprises that shape twenty-first–century society.

Timothy F. Slater

Roger A. Freedman