Features include:
• Chapter opening "What Do You Think?" questions and their end-of-chapter counterparts, "What Did You Think?" draw on the authors’ and other instructors’ experiences with student misconceptions
• Astronomer's Toolboxes set aside extra, optional coverage of more difficult math and physics material using many worked examples
• "What If?" essays followed up with "What If?" questions in the "Questions and Projects" sections at the end of each chapter
• Focus questions throughout the book encourage students to frequently test themselves on what they’ve learned. Answers to approximately one-third of the questions are at the end of the text.
• New coverage of the planets based on the new classification scheme for the objects in the solar system.
• Expanding final chapter, Astrobiology (exclusively online), now offers a richer presentation of this emerging topic.
• Dynamic Summary Figures throughout the book provide students with a visual overview of important concepts.