100 Billion Suns: The Birth, Life, and Death of the Stars [Paperback]

Rudolf Kippenhahn (Author), Jean Steinberg (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 19, 1993 | ISBN-10: 0691087814 | ISBN-13: 978-0691087818

How are the nuclear power plants we call "stars" formed? Where do they get their energy and how do they die--and what does this suggest about the future of the universe? One of the most popular books written on astrophysics, 100 Billion Suns provides an exhilarating and authoritative life history of the stars.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Writing with Asimov-like clarity, [Rudolf Kippenhahn] makes exciting reading of the advances modern technology has brought to our knowledge of what is really happening out there in the Milky Way and far beyond.
(Publishers Weekly )

Kippenhahn has produced an excellent and most readable book. . . . Come on all you amateurs or armchair enthusiasts out there, read it and enjoy astrophysics as it really is!
(New Scientist )

A thoroughly delightful and informative book.
(The New York Times Book Review )

An admirable introduction to the difficult subject of stellar evolution accurately aimed at the general reader.
(Nature )

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (April 19, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691087814
• ISBN-13: 978-0691087818
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,471,553 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Readable and authoritative guide to stellar evolution, February 15, 2001

By 

Kevin W. Parker (Greenbelt, MD) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 100 Billion Suns: The Birth, Life, and Death of the Stars (Paperback)

I read a lot of astronomy books, so any one book tends only to reinforce what I know already, plus just a little bit of additional information.

This book was different. I learned a lot about star formation and particularly about the meaning of the ubiquitous Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. The diagram is obligatory in a discussion of any astronomy other than planetary, but it tends to be described rather than explained. Here Kipenhahn goes through the life of stars of various sizes, showing their evolution along the H-R diagram and why the "main sequence" is so thickly populated (simply, because that's when the stars are burning hydrogen, which is what they do most but not all of the time).

Once done with the basics, he goes on to cover binary stars, neutron stars, and other stellar oddities. He also devotes a chapter to planetary formation and the possibility of life on other planets. Three brief but valuable appendices cover the measurement of stellar velocities, distances, and masses.

This book is a treasure and an authoritative work on the topic. Highly recommended.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice book, December 3, 2008

By 

shopper1 (crying in the woods, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: 100 Billion Suns: The Birth, Life, and Death of the Stars (Paperback)

Very good book, it was able to keep me interested and I could learn some new stuff, building on what I've already studied. This book is pretty brainy, there is no fluff. The print is nice and large. I got it very cheap.

5.0 out of 5 stars The average Joe's guide to understanding the stars, August 28, 2011

By 

T. Colangelo (Woodbury, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 100 Billion Suns: The Birth, Life, and Death of the Stars (Paperback)

Kippenhahn has the knack of simplifying some rather complex facts into an engrossing overview of the creation and lifespan of the stars. The book is written in clear language for the lay person with detail to precise facts. The book is an excellent primer on the stars and I've re-read my copy a number of times over the years. I also think this would be an excellent book to stimulate the interest of teenagers in astronomy. So many of the introductory textbooks on astronomy are editorially cold, boring, too technical in places, contain irrelevant chapters and are very expensive. Not so with this inexpensive but authoritative introduction to the stars. If you want to know more about stars, here's a great starting place.