The Chemical Evolution of the Galaxy
Kluwer: 2001. 308 pp. £72, $106
Walter Baade, at Palomar during the Second World War, observed that the halo of the great spiral Andromeda galaxy was dominated by red, metal-depleted stars, whereas its disk contained mainly blue, metal-enriched stars. (Astronomers, to the exasperation of chemists, persist in using 'metals' to describe all the elements heavier than helium. But the term, along with 'metallicity', is too thoroughly entrenched to be replaced). Baade's observations enabled Olin Eggen, Donald Lynden-Bell and Allan Sandage to erect their classical model of galactic evolution, in which a spherical halo collapses to a disk. But it was Beatrice Tinsley who, in the course of her brief life, focused attention on the chemical evolution of galaxies, and stimulated the explosive growth in this field.
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