21st Century Astronomy (Full 4th Ed)
by Laura Kay, Stacy Palen, Brad Smith, and George Blumenthal
W. W. Norton & Company | February 2013 | ISBN-10: 0393918785 | True PDF | 856 pages | 51.3 mb 
http://www.amazon.com/21st-Century-Astronomy-Fourth-Edition/dp/0393918785

Teaches students to think like scientists.
Authors Laura Kay and Stacy Palen have developed pedagogy that helps students understand the process of science, and how physical principles are used to discover the origins of the universe. The authors emphasize how we know what we know in the figures, text, and end-of-chapter material.

About the Authors
Laura Kay is Ann Whitney Olin professor and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Barnard College, where she has taught since 1991. She received a BS degree in physics from Stanford University, and MS and PhD degrees in astronomy and astrophysics from the University of California– Santa Cruz. She teaches courses in astronomy, astrobiology, women and science, and polar exploration.
Stacy Palen received her bachelor's degree from Rutgers University in 1993 and her PhD from the University of Iowa in 1998. Currently, she is an Associate Professor at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. She lives on a small farm with her husband, two dogs, two dairy goats, four horses, and an ever-changing number of chickens.
Bradford Smith, who studies solar system cosmogony and stellar astronomy, is affiliated with the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii.
George Blumenthal is professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He studies a wide range of topics including cosmology, dark matter, and the origin of structure in the Universe. 

BRIEF CONTENTS
Part I Introduction to Astronomy
Chapter 1 Why Learn Astronomy? 3
Chapter 2 Patterns in the Sky—Motions of Earth 25
Chapter 3 Motion of Astronomical Bodies 63
Chapter 4 Gravity and Orbits 89
Chapter 5 Light 117
Chapter 6 The Tools of the Astronomer 151
Part II The Solar System
Chapter 7 The Birth and Evolution of Planetary Systems 185
Chapter 8 The Terrestrial Planets and Earth’s Moon 215
Chapter 9 Atmospheres of the Terrestrial Planets 257
Chapter 10 Worlds of Gas and Liquid—The Giant Planets 291
Chapter 11 Planetary Adornments—Moons and Rings 323
Chapter 12 Dwarf Planets and Small Solar System Bodies 359
Part III Stars and Stellar Evolution
Chapter 13 Taking the Measure of Stars 395
Chapter 14 Our Star—The Sun 427
Chapter 15 Star Formation and the Interstellar Medium 459
Chapter 16 Evolution of Low-Mass Stars 491
Chapter 17 Evolution of High-Mass Stars 521
Chapter 18 Relativity and Black Holes 551
Part IV Galaxies, the Universe, and Cosmology
Chapter 19 The Expanding Universe 581
Chapter 20 Galaxies 611
Chapter 21 The Milky Way—A Normal Spiral Galaxy 641
Chapter 22 Modern Cosmology 667
Chapter 23 Large-Scale Structure in the Universe 695
Chapter 24 Life 723