Our Place in the Universe - II

From Copernicus to Enlightenment.- Empirical Evidence for the Heliocentric Model.- Resolution of the Theoretical Objections to the Heliocentric Theory.- Size of the Solar System.- Celestial Navigation and Exploration of the Heavens.- New Members of the Solar System.- Is the Sun a Star?.- A New Way of Thinking.- What Are Stars Made of?.- Origin of the Solar System.- Plurality of the World.- The Nature of Nebulae.- Are all Motions Relative?.- The Nature of Light and Matter.- The Human Star Connection.-  Is the Universe Finite?.- Early History of the Earth.- Common Ancestors.- Origin of Life.- Complexity in the Universe.- Evolution of the Earth through the Ages.- Earth as an Integrated System.- Life Cycles of Stars.- Life in other Worlds.- Our Place in the Universe.- The Common Link in Our Journey.- Further Reading.- Appendix I: Brightest Stars in the Sky.- Appendix II: Units of Measurement.- Appendix III: Astronomical Measurements.- Appendix IV: Photometric Method to Estimate the Distances of Stars.- Appendix V: Mass of the Milky Way.- Appendix VI: Examples of Inertial Forces.- Appendix VII: Astronomy from other Planetary Systems.- Review Exercises.- Glossary.

Prof. Kwok was the founding director of the Laboratory for Space Research and has served as Chair Professor of Space Science and Dean of Science at The University of Hong Kong. Previously, Prof. Kwok served as Faculty Professor of the University of Calgary in Calgary, Canada, Killiam Fellow of the Canada Council for the Arts, and Director and Distinguished Research Fellow of the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics of Academia Sinica of Taiwan.

Professor Kwok is widely acknowledged as the world-leading expert in the study of planetary nebulae, a class of spectacular-looking objects formed near the end of a star's life. His theory on the origin of planetary nebulae has revolutionized our understanding of the death of Sun-like stars. More recently, he has found that planetary nebulae can rapidly synthesize large amount of complex organic compounds, as well as widely spreading them throughout the Milky Way Galaxy; a finding that has significant implications on the origin of life on Earth.

Prof. Kwok is the author of a number of books, including the best-selling Cosmic Butterflies published by Cambridge University Press in 2001, and Physics and Chemistry of the Interstellar Medium, a standard textbook used in many leading universities in the world. His book Origin and Evolution of Planetary Nebulae (Cambridge, 2000) is regarded as the most authorative treatise of this subject. His book Organic Matter in the Universe published by Wiley in 2011 was the first book on this new frontier of astrochemistry. He has two recent books published by Springer: Stardust: the cosmic seeds of life (2013) and Our Place in the Universe: Understanding Fundamental Astronomy from Ancient Discoveries (2017).

Prof. Sun Kwok has served as President of Commission F3 (Astrobiology) of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) (2015 - 2018), President of IAU Commission 34 Interstellar Matter (2012-2015), and chairman of IAU Planetary Nebulae Working Group (1994-2001).

"My overall impression is of a very carefully organized book in which clear explanations are seen as the key to understanding the process by which scientific discoveries are made. ... this book is a mostly excellent, carefully constructed, step-by-step educational path through the development of the process of doing science and resulting discoveries. Sun Kwok's book provides an all-embracing view of how science has enabled a detailed description of our place in the Universe ... ." (Barry Kent, The Observatory, Vol. 142 (1291), December, 2022)