News Release

Searching for dark skies: 'Stars Above, Earth Below'

Readers take a celestial journey through our national parks in new book

Book Announcement

Springer

Stars Above, Earth Below: A Guide to Astronomy in the National Parks is a literary and photographic journey through the national parks, tracing the night skies as they relate to the iconic geological formations of the Grand Canyon, Yosemite and several of America's other natural treasures. The book links astronomy, geology, history, folklore and the arts with the beauty of earthly and celestial frontiers, and explores the modern-day disappearance of night skies and natural open space in our world.

This is the first book to make direct connections between astronomy and the natural landscapes and human culture shaped over time in the national parks. Author Tyler Nordgren, Ph.D. uses photographs and sky charts to reflect this dynamic between the tangible world by day, and the infinite universe by night.

In 2007, Dr. Nordgren, an astronomer and associate professor of physics at the University of Redlands in California, took a sabbatical and spent 12 months exploring and photographing the night skies within America's national parks. The journey was a launching point for his book.

"I want people to have a better appreciation of science and its role in the humanities," Nordgren said. "Some books talk simply about astrophysics. Some books talk about stars in the sky. This book puts it all together by combining astronomy, geology, history, and the landscape. It provides the science behind what you are looking at, explains why it's important and why it's relevant to you."

The book features text, graphics and more than 150 spectacular photographs of night skies within the parks to show readers how to connect what they see to greater geological and astronomical phenomena. Each chapter addresses a different phenomenon in the following national parks: Bryce Canyon, Rocky Mountain, Grand Teton, Glacier, Acadia, Great Smoky Mountains, Chaco Culture, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Arches and Yosemite.

The book also addresses the disappearance of night skies, a result of what many refer to as "light pollution." Six out of every ten Americans no longer live where they can see the Milky Way. In Europe, a view of the stars is even harder to find. The National Park Service, astronomers and others from around the world are raising awareness of the problem. The NPS has established a Night Sky Team, of which Dr. Nordgren is a member. It's a small group of park rangers, astronomers and researchers who are systematically measuring the amount of artificial light intruding into the night sky above the national parks, and are working to protect the night sky, much as our national parks themselves protect and preserve natural wilderness.

Dr. Nordgren is an Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Redlands. Trained in both astronomy and physics, Dr. Nordgren has written and spoken extensively on topics such as pulsars, the interstellar medium, star formation in galaxies, the distribution of dark matter in galaxies, and the atmospheres and pulsation of red giant stars. As an astronomer at the U.S. Naval Observatory and the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff Arizona, he became interested in archaeoastronomy, science education and light pollution, an issue that inspired him to write Stars Above, Earth Below. In 2005, Dr. Nordgren began working with the National Park Service Night Sky Team, which developed a method of quantifying the amount of light pollution in the skies above the national parks, and works diligently with the Park Service to preserve the last of our dark skies.

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T. Nordgren, University of Redlands, CA, USA
Stars Above, Earth Below
A Guide to Astronomy in the National Parks
2010. 300 p. 192 illus., 170 in color.
Softcover 29,95 €, $29.95, £26.99
ISBN 978-1-4419-1648-8


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