This time I am posting something a bit personal. I am the lead author of a free book that is part of a nonprofit experiment to help students with the costs of college. Here is the news from our publisher:

OpenStax, the open textbook publisher based at Rice University, is pleased to announce that its free, openly-licensed introductory textbook, Astronomy 2e, has now been used by more than 1.1 million students. The text is also the first in OpenStax’s library of 68 titles to become the most frequently-used textbook in its field.

Written by senior authors Andrew Fraknoi, David Morrison, and Sidney Wolff, with the support and assistance of dozens of astronomers and astronomy educators, Astronomy 2e has been used by more than 2,000 instructors in over 11,600 courses at universities, colleges, and high schools across the world. In the process, students have saved more than $84 million in astronomy textbook costs at a time when the rising cost of a college education poses significant difficulties for many students.

OpenStax estimates that approximately 250,000 to 300,000 higher education students take an introductory (non-majors) astronomy course each year and that roughly a third now use the free OpenStax textbook. The book is also widely adopted in high schools and by independent learners. Thanks to the support of many foundations and donors, OpenStax is able to offer textbooks that are written, edited, and designed to the highest standards and that compete effectively with commercial textbooks costing hundreds of dollars.

OpenStax Astronomy 2e also has a free Open Education Resources Hub, where the authors and adopters have shared over 50 resources aligned with the text.  These include an annotated subject index for astronomy lab exercises, an introductory guide on the history of women in astronomy, and lecture slides for many chapters.

The book’s authors do not receive any royalties, but they are delighted to see how warm a welcome the book has received from faculty and students. All three senior authors are now retired but continue to revise the book. With James Webb Space Telescope images and results, and so many other advances in astronomy, the book is updated every six months to ensure students have access to the most recent data and research. Updates are far less expensive to produce with an online textbook since, as Fraknoi puts it, “they do not require chopping down any trees, but only rearranging electrons in computer storage.”

Andrew Fraknoi is the Emeritus Chair of Astronomy at Foothill College and the former executive director of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. David Morrison retired from NASA after a distinguished career as a senior scientist, one of the founders of the interdisciplinary science of astrobiology, and a pioneer in understanding the threat that asteroids pose to planet Earth. Sidney Wolff is Director Emerita of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories and the first woman in the United States to head a national observatory. She also led the development phase for the twin Gemini telescopes and the Vera Rubin Observatory.

This may well be the only textbook OpenStax has published where all three authors have an asteroid named after them by the International Astronomical Union in recognition of their work to enhance the public understanding of science!

Instructors and students can access OpenStax Astronomy 2e for free online and as a downloadable PDF. Low-cost print copies are also available for purchase through Amazon and campus bookstores.