An essential resource for graduate students and astrophysicists
This is a comprehensive and richly illustrated textbook on the astrophysics of the interstellar and intergalactic medium-the gas and dust, as well as the electromagnetic radiation, cosmic rays, and magnetic and gravitational fields, present between the stars in a galaxy and also between galaxies themselves.
Topics include radiative processes across the electromagnetic spectrum; radiative transfer; ionization; heating and cooling; astrochemistry; interstellar dust; fluid dynamics, including ionization fronts and shock waves; cosmic rays; distribution and evolution of the interstellar medium; and star formation. While it is assumed that the reader has a background in undergraduate-level physics, including some prior exposure to atomic and molecular physics, statistical mechanics, and electromagnetism, the first six chapters of the book include a review of the basic physics that is used in later chapte
