Ultraviolet Astronomy

Man's quest for knowledge naturally extends beyond the confines of Earth, hence the motivation for astronomy, the study of nature beyond Earth. As technology developed over the years, astronomy has gone beyond naked-eye observations and adopted new technologies to remain at the forefront of discovery. As the number of types of light that could be sensed increased, and as other messengers from afar besides light became detectable, the discipline of multimessenger astronomy emerged. This chapter on ultraviolet astronomy in this book was written to describe the nature of ultraviolet astronomy, the instruments that we utilize in ultraviolet astronomy, and the objects in the universe that are amenable to study by observing their ultraviolet emissions.