In collaboration with many of my colleagues at Yale-NUS College, and with the patience of Springer, Inc., I happy to report that I have completed my second edition of the Power of Stars book. The new chapters have all been submitted and the publisher is happy to accept these as a new edition to appear some time around April 2017. The new edition has benefited from my time living here in Singapore and includes new sections on ancient astronomy within India, Australia and China, with original photographs and new digital graphics based on travels throughout Asia since 2014.
The new edition includes several improvements – these are listed below:
- Chapter 1 includes new sections on Native American sites such as Chimney Rock and Hovenweep with photographs from site visits, new information on Mercury and Venus transits, and new figures to help guide amateur observers in their viewing of planets.
- Chapter 2 includes new sections on Hawaiian and Polynesian navigation, finding guides for some of the main star clusters, nebulae and galaxies in major constellations, new information on the Inuit skylore, and improved sections on Indian observational astronomy and observatories.
- Chapter 3 includes expanded sections on Aboriginal Australian creation, a new section on the ancient Hindu creation stories, and figures from trips to Angkor Wat, Cambodia, and Mammalapuram, India.
- Chapter 4 includes updates on the Chinese cosmologies, and an extensive description of Hindu and Buddhist Cosmologies.
- Chapter 5 includes new photographs and information from the Purple Mountain Observatory, Nanjing, China, and an expanded section on Chinese calendars and timekeeping.
- Chapter 6 includes an update on the Antikythera mechanism, including figures from reconstructions of the device based on new research, and updates on the rapidly developing world of atomic clocks – which have improved by more than a factor of 100 since the first edition.
- Chapter 7 includes the research on Stonehenge, photographs of the Hovenweep site at summer solstice, additional information on Islamic city orientations, a description on new research with lidar to uncover lost cities near Angkor Wat, and an extensive analysis of orientation of shrines and temples in Tamil Nadu based on site visits during 2014.
- Chapter 8 includes an improved section on Turrell’s artistry, and an updated look at the top skyscrapers – soon to be joined by ever-taller skyscrapers that attempt to defy the laws of physics and architecture in their reach for the stars.
- Chapter 9 includes updates on the latest research on Dark Energy and Dark Matter, including new images of dark matter from the Hubble Space telescopes, an update in the largest telescopes of the world, and a mention of the discovery of the Higgs Boson and its connection to the early universe.
- Chapter 10 retains its philosophical tone, but adds a summary of the “concordance cosmology” with updated results from new types of cosmic ray and neutrino detectors, and new information on the discovery of gravitational radiation and its profound impact on our understanding of the universe.
A sample of some of the new images within the Second Edition are below.
