Dr. Harkay's Intro to Astronomy
Prof. Notes Page

Updated 2007

Schedules, assignments and general notes to class:

This page is very dynamic and is updated frequently. Remember to always hit the refresh key to get the latest version of this and any web page, rather than an old version which has been cached, or archived, by the computer and browser!! I don't edit out the older notes, many of which remain useful, so be sure and scroll to the bottom for the most current postings! 

 A REMINDER:  The web-based questions are a REQUIRED PART OF THE HOMEWORK, as pointed out in class and the syllabus. So are SKY and MC questions.

To see a recent actual solar flare or the realtime "movie" of it, including the X-Ray image on the front page of the newspapers, go to http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots/ and see the material (we know it is protons, electrons, and helium nuclei) being ejected toward the Earth. The story is at the SOHO (a satellite used to study solar "weather") site at NASA. You'll enjoy this. Biggest flare in 30 years! More are due, as the sun is in a very active phase. There have been repeats since and we can expect more. A good idea to have surge protectors on your electronics!

Some who take my class have interesting questions about science fiction movies. One can find some interesting treatments of almost al movies by an astronomer and film studies expert at a site called http://badastronomy.com. Take a look if this interests you.

To get to the KSC blackboard site from here, click this link: http://keene.blackboard.com/

Old exam keys will be on reserve (you can't take them out) at Mason Library. Hang on to your exams and get the correct answers. You will learn something and you can now use this information to study for the comprehensive final, which is VERY similar to hourlies. While the questions won't be the same, they will be awfully similar! Anyone who is not doing as well as hoped for and expects to take the final should be doing this. If you don't plan on taking the final, exams can be recycled. They also make great hamster bedding.

Our forum is now at the course site on KSC's Blackboard website http://keene.blackboard.com/, as is a link to this site. Both sites are cross-linked. By enrolling in the course, you should have access. Problems with logging on have been traced to not typing in the URL exactly as shown: http://academics.keene.edu/rharkay/astroclass.html. This has been thoroughly tested by IT. If you are experiencing difficulties with Bb or accessing the website, please contact the helpdesk either by phone or email. By enrolling in the course, everyone is guaranteed access and "computer problems" should not be an issue, unless you are working at home and have an old machine with a  very old browser. I would recommend using IE5 or higher as a browser. Any problems should be reported immediately, not after it is too late. I can't fix your computer, but HELPDESK can! Problems with computers in labs should be reported immediately to staff.

Web-based tutorials for the text are provided by the publisher (with a bit of work on my part and that of our Bb administrator) and are hosted on our local blackboard site. However, a number of students have indicated to me that the softcover study guide available for the text worked better for them when preparing for exams. HOWEVER, we now have adopted the ninth edition of the text and with it comes a brand-new website called Ace Astronomy. I like it a lot better than the old webtutor (still linked). The are some homework assignments which use tutorials on this site. Student feedback indicates that these exercises, some of which are "mini labs" do enhance learning greatly, particularly for some individuals and are "worth putting in the time". They are prefixed with MC, which stands for MEDIA CLUSTER. he link for this site (you must register using the code that came with your text) is:

http://astronomy.brookscole.com/sh9e

Rather than emailing me directly (aside from personal issues), please try posting questions on the forum so I can answer once rather than 20 times. You will be surprised how many peers share the same questions and concerns! Your classmates will probably provide answers to your questions before I can. I will check in weekly and monitor progress.

One more reiteration for special needs students. We cannot work overtime on exams in the lecture hall (although exams typically take 45 minutes-1 hr to complete and I allow as much as 90 minutes). If someone still cannot finish in 90 minutes and has requested extra time, we can use a physics lab upstairs.  In order to get grades back quickly, I must begin grading as immediately after class as possible.  If you are Title 504 (I believe that is the current rule) qualified, you must take your documentation, (which is available at the ODS office next door) to the Aspire office. Arrangements must be made through Aspire, forms signed, etc. well in advance of exams! If all you need is extra time, I would prefer that you make arrangements to take the exam with me, as you will probably have some questions about questions and I am not there to answer at Aspire. I am pleased that KSC can provide this service and encourage all eligible to take advantage of it. You can arrange for a reader, etc. in a quiet setting. You must, however, get the completed answer key to me immediately for grading by the machine!!! I use an answer key and must have all of the forms when at the machine to grade them. The program is designed to help you as a student to achieve at KSC. All faculty have been instructed about this and should be doing similarly. It is also part of a legal commitment on the part of the college and we must all comply with the rules. If you have other professors (perhaps adjuncts) who are unfamiliar with this process, please direct them to Aspire or ODS for enlightenment. Please discuss any concerns you may have in this area with me after class or in my office-not on exam day! This semester I can work with "extra time" test-takers myself.

If you are among those interested in black holes, I just found a nice article in Scientific American (In the Mason library), written by the Italians who at the forefront in this area, about an apparent connection between black hole birth or mergers and gamma ray bursters (GRB's). Just a little PS : Stellar black holes do NOT devour all the stars in their vicinity. This is a myth. The have no more gravitational influence than a large star. If they are a member of a binary system, however, they can accrete gas from a companion. It is this gas than falls inward, forming an ACCRETION disk and gets heated and emits X-rays just before falling into the event horizon. SUPERMASSIVE black holes, on the other hand, do devour stars in the cores of galaxies or quasars until all the fuel is gone. These are two very different "critters". These were NOT the result of stellar evolution or supernovae. They are still rather small but equivalent to billions of solar masses, not 4-10. There is also a link to an neat site in which yu travel" into a black hole in the web assignments for section III.

Our first class will be devoted to bookkeeping (adds/drops) and reviewing the syllabus. My grading system is easy to understand once you take the time to read through the syllabus and past students have always given me a grade of 7 under fairness on evaluations. It may seem complicated at first, as students are presented with man options for assessment-ways of showing that they are learning the material.

I will also go over lecture hall etiquette. NO FOOD in the lecture hall! Water only. All cell phones turned OFF. NO talking once class starts unless I indicate that it is a "free speech" time. No coming in late and walking across the room. Please see the syllabus for details. This is a large class and we must be efficient in covering material and respectful of myself and fellow classmates.

I would like to DISCOURAGE sitting in the back row. I've heard all of the counter-arguments, but the fact remains that it is simply a place where acoustics are bad and visibility terrible. Furthermore, educators have carried out studies with assigned seats and even when the best students in a class were placed in the back, their performance was lower than their peers in front. If we have a significant number of empty seats in prime locations, I will declare the back row off-limits. I have done this in the past and it helps.

I would like to get to know as many of you as I can. With 100 students, that's a tough one. Once things settle down, I'll ask you to introduce yourselves to myself and your peers. Let's establish a sense of community. After that, I'll make up a seating chart and try to memorize some names. It helps, though, if you preface a questions the first couple of times with your first name to help me out. Also, come and see me in my office! Introduce yourself, if nothing else and help me to get to know you. It is not necessary that students remain anonymous in the lecture hall unless they absolutely want to!

We are going to begin slowly and gradually pick up the pace. I will begin with scaling, the earth-moon system, and some other assorted topics. You will feel that section I of the course is less organized than the other two sections because it is. There is no single theme or clear progression of topics. I can't help that. We will then continue to expand our horizons to the stars in section II and to the entire cosmos in III.

As the catalog states, this course DOES have a QUANTITATIVE COMPONENT. That means some math. Your math skills must be equivalent to KSC Math 020 (remedial HS math). You will need to be able to follow and interpret x-y graphs (astronomers learn sooo much from graphical presentation of data!), perform simple algebraic manipulation, and use scientific notation. Take a close look at the text and the assigned homework. if this looks too daunting, you have two choices: 1. drop now if you don't see a need to use any math in your life (or numbers make you vomit, as some report) or 2. get some help at the Math Center. There are wonderful study modules there and lots of help. We take math competency seriously at KSC. I plan on having my WS student present study sessions, probably on Monday nights, as I have done in the past. You get to hear things from a peer's point of view (he is an English major) and he will also help you with the math.

I also need to tell you what this course is and what it isn't, in case you didn't read the description. Firstly, it is not a "gimme". I don't simply engage in "edutainment", although I try my best to make astronomy interesting and even fun. Secondly, it is not amateur astronomy or stargazing. I will try to host a viewing session (Saturn is beautiful this semester), but we do NOT study or memorize constellations, star names, or learn to navigate using the stars. Astrology is garbage and not a science, although I credit the ancient astrologers for their diligent work in plotting the positions of the stars and devising calendars, ways of predicting eclipses, etc. If you signed up expecting the above rather than what you see in the text, you might want to consider your options. This is a course in modern astronomy, which is a branch of physics. I don't want to read comments on evaluations like "but I thought it would be----". Student comment that this course is challenging but worth the effort. I'll give you all I can and expect you to reciprocate.

With all the above said, welcome to the course and lets get started learning about astronomy, astronomers, and the METHODS by which astronomers reach the conclusions they do. The emphasis will be on methodology-doing science properly. I encourage you to be skeptical and always question scientific conclusions. Be like people from Missouri. On their license plates, it says: "Show me". 

We will start out with a discussion of the seasons and I will demonstrate how to use the website and the planetarium CD (Sky software) that comes with the text and is used to complete some homework assignments.

I am going to leave up the below postings from last semester so you can get an idea of how Profnotes works and glean information.  Students who follow Profnotes say its a great help. I will post announcements, news, topics, etc. Maybe even a hint from time to time. Please supply feedback if you think there is a way I can make things more clear--I listen.

Posted 1/28/07 and revised 1/29:

Sorry to wait so long for the first posting, but we've just had one "real" class. I've left all postings from the previous semester below. you ay find some very useful information in there.

We have covered so far the causes of the seasons: solar insolation AND the length of day (if you receive more Watts /Sq M for a longer tine, you've received more energy). You should be able to determine the altitude of the noonday sun for any latitude as a function of time of year. We also covered the ideas of the Ecliptic, celestial equator, meridian. zenith, zodiac, precession, and length measurements, including light years. You should know the definitions for a quiz. In addition, we covered scaling and found that most of the universe is just empty space!  I went over the shadow stick project and showed you my data. This project is due with the homework at exam III. Take data now!!!

While you are doing the shadow stick, I'd like EVERYONE to take a look at our new weather station in the front lobby. Look at the meter that reads insolation in Watts per square meter. record the values for a sunny day and a cloudy day for the start of the semester and repeat at the end. Add this data to your shadow stick graph. By how much does insolation increase by the end of April? Is it really worth the expense to cover your roof with solar cells?

I expect to cover celestial (equatorial) coordinates, phases of the moon, and tides on Monday and begin the section on the history of astronomy on Wednesday (prefaced by eclipses). We will cover the ancient Greeks' contributions, including stellar magnitudes (Hipparchus), determining the size (Eratosthenes) of the Earth (yes-they knew it was round), and Ptolemy's model, which accounted for retrograde motion using a geocentric model with epicycles and deferents. We'll also look at early models and the trouble caused by Aristotle. After that we will move on to Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo. Then on to Newton and some more modern and observational astronomers. We may also (if time permits) watch a video about some astronomers whom I know-Tony Tyson and Vera Rubin. I'd like you to have a chance to see astronomers as real people who work at astronomy as a living.

POSTED 1/31:

Today we finished Chapter 3 with eclipses. We saw that total solar eclipses are rare because three conditions must be met: A new moon, Moon must lie on line of nodes, and moon must be at perigee (close to Earth). The shadow barely reaches the earth, so you've got to be in the right spot at the right time!

We watched a video I put together called "What if we had No Moon". Amazing how important the moon is--stabilizes the tilt (or seasons/climate are all screwy), makes tides, and the list goes on. Amazing that this is all attributable to a huge collision with another planet when earth was young. Remember scenes of accretion as planetesimals grew in size for part III.

We started history and did cover the three people mentioned above. We should do some more examples of stellar magnitude calculations. Ask me unless you understand this already. The book treats this topic in a later chapter on the stars. Look it up!

Your quizzes are graded and ready to hand back Monday. I'd expect another quiz.

Monday I plan on covering much more history, including  the Copernican revolution. Under Brahe, we'll cover parallax and the Parsec, also covered in the book in a later chapter to be looked up. I'm going to add some material on observers, more modern astronomers, and women in astronomy.

POSTED 2/07/07:

We have nearly completed the section on history of astronomy. I need to cover a couple of observers (we've seen Herschel in the video) and women in astronomy. Today we included Newton and his modification of Kepler's 3rd Law. As we saw, the constant we called K was just a grouping of other constants that come out of Newton's law of gravity. Since Newton hadn't been born yet, Kepler did not know anything about gravity and was explaining how planets moved based purely on Tycho's observational data. Quite a feat! We also covered Einstein and relativity. We nearly finished watching a short video-about 6 minutes left. We also used some computer simulations to show that it is indeed the average distance between the planet and sun that counts and not the eccentricity of the orbit. We also tested our "prediction" for a hypothetical planet.

Thank you for the interesting questions on the questionnaire. Hopefully you were satisfied with my answers or will get more complete ones as the course progresses. Some very good questions!

It would appear that we should be ready for Exam I after two more classes. I would like to tentatively schedule it for  Feb 19. If there is a huge outcry (or I sense the class really isn't ready), I can and may cover some more history or start on light and postpone it by one class. In fact, I would like to find time for a slide show on telescopes, so there is a strong possibility that I will host the exam on Feb 26 instead of rushing ahead. Let's see how it goes. This exam will cover everything through optics and telescopes.

Please start looking over the chapter on telescopes. We will discuss the spectrum and atmospheric "windows", reflection, refraction, dispersion, Snell's Law, spherical and chromatic aberration, focal length, resolving power, light gathering power, interferometry, and adaptive optics.

POSTED 2/14/07:

Well, the "college that never closes (official administrative policy) closed today. That throws a big monkey wrench into the works of those, like us, who are trying to adhere to a schedule. I have decided upon the four following steps:

1. I am NOT going to show a video on astronomers Rubin and Tyson that I was going to. If you wish to see this, I will be happy to put it on reserve in the library.

2. I am going to cut my slide show on telescopes very short or to none at all. I will not bring a scope to class and demonstrate how it works.

3. Our exam is moved from the 19th to the 21st. The class indicated a strong preference for a Wednesday. n order to meet this deadline, I will have to FINISH all material on telescopes in Monday's class. Most important vocabulary (you should read this NOW) is indicated above at the end of the previous posting. Use the day off to work on chapter 5--I will have to move fast!!

4. I had written and scheduled a brief quiz for today. I will probably not have time to administer it unless the class can finish in 5 minutes or less. We'll see.

Exam I is written and being printed. It will be about 100 questions long and cover all aspects of the material we've covered in class from seasons through telescopes. 

Next Wednesday I will be covering the chapter on light. From there we (finally!) move on to stars!

POSTED 2/25:

It is Sunday night and I have finished all of the grading! I will post a printed report, by class code #, on my bulletin board. I'll also print a copy on overheads. You will find grades for all of your quizzes, homework, and exam. I did not award credit for a couple of homework packets submitted. Please pick them up after class and review the guidelines. You will understand the grade. many did not include the WEB assignments. I let this slide this time, taking off a few points, but will not next time. Same goes for SKY. Most were absolutely great! 

There is one problem. For some reason, some names are not listed with an ID, or code. I am looking into the reason for this. If you se a blank where you think your name should be, you will have to get your grade by name form me in my office. I will try and fix this.

Please scan the chapter on light. We will cover this Monday, including an opportunity to do some spectroscopy in class. You will come to see that the spectrum of an object may be worth far more than a picture. We'll concentrate on spectroscopy, Wien's Law, Stephan's Law, and the Doppler Shift. I'd also like to touch on how different wavelengths of light are produced, including synchrotron radiation. After that, we (finally) get to talk about stars and stellar evolution, starting with the closest one, our Sun.

POSTED 2/27:

My computer at work has crashed, so I am putting up what I will be covering with respect to the Sun a day in advance.

Moving on to the Sun, we may watch (time permitting-we lost that day to the snowstorm) a video about solar monitoring with satellites and the effect the sun has on our weather and satellites surrounding the Earth and power grids. The DVD contains incredible footage of actual pictures of the surface of the sun, including the way the hot plasma follows magnetic field lines. Note that some of the pictures were taken in UV light (more energetic than visible) and X-ray. One can also see the effect of convection in the form of granulation. I will finish the Sun with sunspots, which are the result of the sun's differential rotation twisting its magnetic field lines. We also will discuss long-range sunspot cycles and the climate. Global warming is absolutely real, but one cause may be the modern maximum. That doesn't mean that the greenhouse effect doesn't compound the situation! However, they are NOT one in the same.

While we won't memorize the entire structure of the Sun, one should realize that fusion takes place only in a relatively small core at the center. Energy is produced in the form of gamma rays which are deadly. However, as they make their way to the surface over a million years, the wavelength becomes longer (due to Compton Scattering) and we receive light from the surface, which acts as a blackbody (thermal) source. Hydrogen can be fused via the proton-proton chain or the CNO cycle. He is fused via the triple alpha process in stars which have exhausted their supply of H (red giants, like Betelgeuse). Stars spend most of their lifetimes as "main sequence" stars, fusing H into He.

While discussing the sun, we cover the four forces of nature and the role each plays in the fusion process. Hopefully, everyone understands why a star's core must be hot and dense for fusion to take place. We also looked at natural "stopping points" for stars on the periodic table and the processes by which elements beyond hydrogen and helium are produced in stars and supernovae.

Moving on to Chapter 8, we will start with the all-important H-R diagram. Be able to reproduce this. We saw why there are more small stars observed than large ones when we discussed stellar lifetimes and the role of the mass when determining the luminosity and hence the lifetime. A larger star with more mass has more "gravity" so the core, where fusion takes place, is a larger fraction of the volume of the star. Hence, big stars are gluttons and don't live very long, using up their hydrogen supply. In addition to the Mass-Luminosity relationship (know this), we covered spectroscopic parallax and the use of the H-R diagram to verify models of stellar evolution and determine the age of clusters (know this, as well--might be on a quiz!) by observing the turnoff point.

POSTED 3/5:

We did finish the sun today with a discussion of sunspots and climate and  nuclear fusion processes and then moved on to stars. After reviewing spectral classes, I introduced the class to the H-R Diagram. Know this and be able to use it! We will be using this, along with Wien's and Stephan's Laws for the remainder of stellar evolution. I hope to finish that topic by no later than March 19 or 21. We should plan on Exam II on either March 21 (while I am here) or on March 26, when Mr. Jerry Henry will be filling in for me while I am away having shoulder surgery and recovering.

I am going to concentrate on starbirth and evolution with emphasis on white dwarfs, neutron stars, pulsars, and black holes.

POSTED 3/21:

Happy Vernal Equinox! Hope you got a data point for shadow sticks this beautiful day!!

I finished stellar evolution today with a discussion of the supernova process (Urca Process, role of neutrinos, creating elements via neutron capture, core bounce) and then we proceeded to black holes. The Schwarzschild Radius defines the zone of curved space form which light cannot escape (event horizon). A black hole is simply space curved back on itself--not a physical object. We discussed how one might "observe" a black hole and prove its existence.  I also mentioned the existence of supermassive black holes in the cores of galaxies like our own. We discussed hawking radiation and then had some fun with Penrose space-time diagrams.

I hope you enjoyed this section. i find stars and stellar evolution particularly fascinating. After Exam II on Monday, you will be covering (along with Mr. Henry, my sub) the Milky Way galaxy, galaxies in general, including quasars and AGN's, and Hubble's Law. Then onto the truly interesting subject of cosmology. I hope to be able to come in and talk at you after a week or two of recovery (this will take some effort!). We'll finish the semester with material about the solar system and how it formed and the search for extraterrestrial life.

NOTE:

My (left) shoulder surgery has been scheduled for March 26. I will be directing a substitute while I am away recovering. According to the original plan, I was to be out one or two weeks. Our Dean seems to wish to extend this to the rest of the semester. I still hope to finish out the semester and will bargain vigorously to try and make this happen (I can still lecture in a sling!). At any rate, the person taking my place will have all of my notes and videos. I will continue to write and grade exams and quizzes and take all responsibility for assessment. Maybe you will find him a welcome change. His name is Mr. Jerry Henry. His email address is jhenry@polyonics.com.

POSTED 3/29:

My surgery went well and I am now back at work, part-time, and wearing a sling, to teach my classes. I will see you all Monday. I understand Jerry had some trouble covering the Milky Way chapter so I will go over that briefly, with emphasis on spiral arm tracers, star cycle, and density wave. We will then proceed to what I hope the video helped with-galaxies and Hubble's Law (the "other" most important graph). After that we cover the overall structure of the universe, its origin and fate. A great deal of emphasis will be placed on the 3 degree cosmic microwave background and the anisotropy found in it! We'll see how one can use Type I supernovae (remember those?) to determine cosmic distances and, hence, a precise value for the Hubble Constant.

I plan on saying on schedule and covering all topics through planets and the search for life elsewhere.

Exam II is completely graded and your scores are now posted on the bulletin board next to my office door. Com and see how you did! The answer key is, as usual, on reserve.

POSTED 4/2:

Attendance wasn't all that great today. As a result, not that many will do well on the next quiz. So it goes. As promised, I covered two chapters, finishing the Milky Way and the one on galaxies. We included a discussion of Quasars and AGN's, showing WHY a quasar must be tiny and how long one can live. When discussing Hubble's hypothesis and diagram regarding galactic evolution, I sensed many still don't have a full understanding of how we can use light as a "time machine" to look into the past. Light takes time to get from there to here. If we look far away, we are looking far into the past. If we look relatively nearby, we are looking at older, more mature and evolved objects. This is key to understanding Cosmology. We wish to know how the Universe has evolved since the "Big Bang" (there really was no such thing!). IN order to see what conditions were like long ago, when galaxies were first forming, etc., we must look FAR AWAY. That's why the need for big telescopes that can gather lots of light!! The young universe was much different. Far denser than it is now. Everything was squeezed into a smaller space. A good reason quasars cannot form any longer. Also, all the intergalactic gas that fueled them is gone--now contained in galaxies. We'll it al unfold over the next few weeks! I'm going to start with Hubble's Law and the cosmological redshift on Wednesday.

POSTED 4/4:

I am instituting a course policy that I think is fairer. From now on, students are not to come and take the quiz and leave. Snap quizzes are intended to stimulate learning and reward those who come to class to learn some astronomy. This behavior is rde to those who are in attendance. I will not grade those quizzes turned in by those who leave early unless I have given prior permission to do so (which I do).

We had our introduction to the topic of Cosmology today as promised. This is a subject not easily grasped. We saw that there is a Universe and then there is an OBSERVABLE universe. I pointed out that the Big Bang was really a slanderous term coned to ridicule those who believed in an expanding universe and there was no such explosion". Space itself was created and subsequently expanded. All of the energy which became dark energy, dark matter, and matter was present from the start. The universe has no center or edge. It is homogeneous and isotropic. We showed that The DNS Paradox can only be solved if one assumes an expanding universe. We covered the structure of the universe--galaxies, clusters, and superclusters with voids. We need to figure out how this came about.

I am going to begin on Monday with an introduction to the Cosmic Microwave background--its discovery and what it is and what we can learn from it. We'll take a break for a video as well. We've been covering a LOT of new material!

We also need to look at possible spatial curvature and how it might be determined along with details of the early universe (what we do refer to as the big bang).

Enjoy your Easter/Passover. See you Monday.

POSTED 4/18:

Sorry for not posting for 2 weeks but the surgery limited my ability to type. 

We have completed everything having to do with cosmology, including several justifications for the existence of Dark Energy.  We spent quite a bit of time looking at the anisotropy in the CMB (cosmic microwave background) and found that the universe has a flat geometry, with a density equal to the critical density (Omega = 1). I discussed how the structures we see today grew win a bottom-up manner and how important dark matter was in forming the initial "clumps" (halos) in which stars and galaxies eventually formed. Both dark matter and dark energy are necessary to end up with the structure we see today.

The other huge discovery of this century was that the Hubble constant is, indeed, NOT a constant. Up until 5-6 by after the beginning, the universe was gradually decelerating and expanding at a slower rate. At 5-6 by, the density of matter and dark matter = the density of dark energy (which stays constant and is repulsive by nature), and the universe's expansion rate began speeding up, or accelerating. The data which enables us to look back so far with such precision comes from Type Ia supernovae, all of which have the same inherent brightness and decay over the same amount of time.

I went over the history of the early universe (often referred to as the Big Bang), including the era of nucleosynthesis and the dark ages before the first stars reionized the H gas. We showed how the Inflationary model solves the problems of smoothness and flatness. I stressed two things: the difference between a Doppler shift and the cosmological redshift and the fact that the Universe is NOT expanding into ANYTHING.

We have, since, begun work on the last few chapters, including the formation of the solar system, inner vs outer planets, and comets (building a "comet nucleus" in class). We now have samples of real comet dust in the lab! This was a remarkable technological feat. I also covered atmospheric retention and evolution and the origin of the moon. For fun, we demonstrated a sunset (same process as interstellar reddening in which the blue light is scattered out, leaving the red behind).

I will finish Monday with a discussion of life elsewhere and the possibility of communicating with it (the Drake Equation). Maybe we'll have time for some more video, too. Some remarkable results have come out of the Galileo, Cassini, and mars rover missions. 

I must remind all that the deadline for the submission of semester projects has passed. According to our syllabus, they were due by week twelve (but I did accept some this week). Next week is week 14, our final week of class. The shadow stick project is due as a major part of section III homework (as described at the time the assignment was made), which will not be considered as complete unless that is included.

The last review session of the semester takes place Monday at 7 in 375.

POSTED 4/26:

I finished all exam III grading tonight and have posted all of your grades. Remember when determining your grade that numbers no longer count--only letter grades. I have recorded attendance credits but, of course, that does not get added in until I determine final grades. If you filed for credit, you will receive it, so take that half-grade raise into account when calculating your grade.

I also posted the histograms. As usual, there were more A's and B's than C's and D's. There was, however, an increase in F's, a reflection of some poor attendance toward the end (fewer taking quizzes and low quiz scores) of the semester (yes, I know how that goes---). If you fall into that group, study hard for that final! There were fewer homework's submitted than in the past (again end of semester issues) and precious few shadow stick projects. Absolutely nobody ever checked the insolation at the weather station! I deducted a few points if that portion was missing, as I said I would. This disappoints me, as it was a semester-long effort and gave you a chance to actually connect with the outside world. We don't do enough of that. A couple turned out beautifully!

I have also put Exam III answer key on reserve at the library, completing the set. I recommend highly reviewing and retaking all three exams as a method of preparing for a comprehensive final. After you find your weaknesses, review notes and the text those topics.

We are again clouded/rained out form our Saturn viewing party, as we were Monday. If some of you would like to go out during finals week, please send me an email letting me know which evenings would work for you. It gets dark enough around 8 or 8:30. If a sufficient number would like, we can carpool to a darker site in Sullivan. Get in touch.

POSTED 5/4:

Final exam grades are now posted on my bulletin board (as of F 7:30)! I still have to include attendance and fill out grade forms, but you can easily calculate your grade. I added a fudge factor representing your quiz average to the raw score. There were some top-notch performances and some not so good ones.

I hope you enjoyed the course. Astronomy is a field I have always found fascinating with advances coming so fast it hard to keep up. Many of you will have children someday (if you don't already have them) and they will ask about the stars and astronomy. In hope you can share with them some of the interesting topics we've encountered. Don't just forget it all! Take some time this summer to check out phases of the moon and time, tides, and colors of stars and learn a few constellations. Start with easy summer ones, like Saggitarius and Scorpius in the South and the Milky Way and Lyra and Cignus overhead. If you are interested in purchasing a telescope or viewing,  highly recommend Keene Amateur Astronomers. I've been affiliated with them (yes, I like to stargaze, too!) for over 25 years. The current President is Junie Esslinger, who lives in Alstead.

Please don't be a stranger. Stop by and say Hi. I may still run some viewing sessions for the public and other groups in the fall. Join in.

See you around campus.

A BIG reminder! Review sessions will be run by my WS, Everett Kysor, on Mondays at 7 PM in S375. I brief him on all classes. He has done this before and does a great job. He's a senior who has taken my university astrophysics class and he "knows his stuff". You will find him a very useful resource who can help you with your math skills as well. He's one of our best majors. Take advantage of this opportunity!! (if not enough do, we will discontinue this service)

Anything below this point is archived profnotes from a previous semester. It is the same course, so there may be useful information!

Posted 9/6/06:

Today we will cover the underlying cause of the seasons, hours of daylight, view of the sky a a function of time of year, the shadow stick, and, hopefully constellation and the Celestial Sphere. New terms include : Meridian, ecliptic, celestial equator, altitude, azimuth, right ascension, declination, and insolation. I will also demonstrate the SKY software to be used for some homework assignments.

POSTED 9/13:

On Monday we measured the size of the sun using similar triangles and nothing but a pinhole and a ruler. The exercise was one from my book (see www.phenomenalphysics.com if interested in more). The apex angle of the triangle is 1/2 degree. It is important to understand the concept of measuring angles in the sky. Coincidentally, the moon ALSO subtends and angle of 1/2 degree of arc! (test the "moon illusion, which makes it look bigger at rise and set by holding coins at arms length and see which "covers" the moon--any difference?) This is why we are just barely able to get a complete lunar eclipse--more on that on Monday. We also had a quiz on the seasons and altitude of the noonday sun as a function of time of year. If you still have trouble with this concept, run the simulation software for it at the ACE astronomy website that comes with your book.  I finished by introducing the celestial sphere, declination, and right ascension, NCP, ecliptic, celestial equator, and coordinate systems.

Today we ran the SKY software in class and used it to look at the variations in the noonday sun altitude, how to locate the ecliptic, and how stars seem to "move" in the night sky. I would expect exam questions on some of this. We also used another mode to observe Kepler's Third Law at work and the cause of retrograde motion. Objects closer to a source of gravity have to move faster to avoid falling "in". More on that when we cover Newton and gravity.

We also learned to draw and use a "moon phase" diagram. You should be able to determine rising and setting times, when the moon is on the meridian and use the moon to tell time. There may be a quiz relating to this.

Attendance at the review session was horrible and many didn't even know where and when it was, indicating to me that some were not listening in class and VERY few are reading these notes!! We will try again next Tuesday and if the turnout is poor again, I will assign Everett to other tasks.

I am going to finish Chapter 3 on Monday with tides and eclipses (we will see that tides mean a LOT more than the ones we see in the sea). We then move on to history of astronomy, including a video or two about some astronomers and how they work. We will be introducing a lot of ideas that are found in later chapters in that section, laying the groundwork so we can understand how astronomers do astronomy and how the universe works. After that we cover telescopes and then exam I. I would expect it to occur around the end of September or first week of October.

POSTED 9/23:

Our first exam will definitely NOT be until early October! I have been taking my time and going somewhat slowly this semester. I am not sure whether or not it will include telescopes. We need to finsih history of astronomy, and that takes a while. I also have another video I'd like to show.

One point about the history section. I include many "tools" of astronomy in this section. The book we use chooses to introduce many of these ideas (like parallax and magnitude) in a later chapter on stars. You should look in the index and find where these concepts are and read along after class. I will also talk a bit about more modern astronomers, great observers, and women in astronomy.

We discussed the contributions of Aristotle, Eratosthenes, and Hipparchus. Under the topic of Hipparchus, we took a look at the magnitude scale used by astronomers to indicate the apparent and actual brightness of objects, including stars, galaxies, etc. You will find the math in the text by looking up magnitude in the index and then reading ahead in the chapter on stars. This is an important concept and astronomical tool. In comparing apparent and absolute magnitudes, we can determine the distance to ANYTHING! This includes galaxies billions of light years away. The trick is to know the absolute magnitude (the actual brightness, or luminosity). More later about how this is done. Hipparchus stuck us with a backward system that seems cumbersome. It takes some getting used to. I showed two methods by which one can convert between brightness ratios and magnitudes-one is to take the fifth root of one hundred and raise it to the delta m power (the proper way). On exams, however, I'll stick to even multiples of five. For every difference of 5 magnitudes, one star is 100 times fainter than the other.

The third "character" we discussed was Ptolemy and his system of deferents and epicycles which predicted, quite accurately, retrograde loops with the Earth at the center of the solar system.

On Monday, we will begin discussing the golden age of astronomy-the Copernican Revolution. We'll start with Copernicus and end with Newton. Under Brahe, we will work with the idea of parallax-another method found later in the text. 

When we discuss Newton, we will encounter his laws and gravity again. Something I didn't mention when we discussed tides. Can you take that idea and figure out why big planets, like Jupiter and Saturn have rings?? Think about the quiz you took where we drew things close together. How are tidal forces related to distance from  the object? We will discuss, quantitatively, on Monday, Kepler's laws, which I hinted at when we viewed the SKY software.

After we finish history, everyone should understand and be able to work with the concepts of apparent magnitude (and brightness ratios--see chap 1), parallax, and Kepler's 3 laws. You must be able to manipulate these algebraically. For example, given a find P, given P", find d, etc. We worked through numerous examples in class. This is some of the more quantitative material in the course.

I will proceed to speak about some more modern astronomers, great observers, and women in astronomy. Why did we look at a film about Tyson and Rubin and dark matter under history? The discovery of dark matter is of great historical significance. It is also nice to see that professionals (and someone having fun working for the Exploratorium, John Dobson) are people, too. Vera Rubin had something interesting to say about her career in science, It is remarkable that 50% of astronomers and astrophysicists are women today!

The moon is going through its phases now-go out and look at it and see if your diagram makes sense. We had a new moon on Friday. How about observing the phases and where and when you see them in the sky NOW?

POSTED 9/25:

We had a lively discussion today and finished Brahe, Kepler, Galileo and the Copernican Revolution. We started on Newton and I will finish discussions of him and his revision of Kepler's Third Law and its applications on W. Understand and be able to use Kepler's Laws and gravity and parallax. We did some computer simulations relating to Kepler's Laws. I hope they helped. I still need to cover some more modern astronomers and observers and then move on to telescopes.

I think we can cover telescopes before the first exam if I wait 2-3 lectures before giving it. I may have to postpone a slide show, but I'd like to get it included. I would expect Exam I on Oct. 9 or 11. 

POSTED 9/27:

We have about finished history of astronomy--I will present a couple of ideas on Monday and move on to telescopes. One of the most important topics we covered was Newton's modification of Kepler's Third Law. Understand this! This is the method by which all astronomical objects are "weighed". I used examples of binary stars and our galaxy (including dark matter), but the method applies to black holes, planets, clusters of galaxies--anything involving gravity and orbits.

We saw a video I put together about "great discoveries". The graphics help, I hope, to make points more clear. We'll be covering some of the topics in great depth, like pulsars and the cosmic microwave background and gamma ray bursters. I hope to intersperse some more videos as the curse progresses.

I will need about two lectures to cover telescopes. That means we should be completely ready for Exam I on Monday, 10/9. Many expressed a desire to have it after a weekend. Let's plan on that date.

Read ahead about telescopes. There are some new terms to be covered, including light gathering power, resolving power, magnification, refraction and reflection, and adaptive optics. I'm gong to demonstrate some basic optics on Monday. If time permits, we'll look at some slides on Wednesday. I will not go into details about different types of telescopes (mounts) nor will we memorize which telescopes are where. We just want to know the basics of how they work and why we keep building bigger ones.

The most difficult topic is resolving power. Read about that. We will use some equations.

POSTED 10/2/06:

As promised, we finished history of astronomy today. I used the opportunity to introduce the idea of spectral class (Annie Cannon) and absolute magnitude and the distance modulus. We compare how bright something is to how bright it seems to be to calculate distances. Aside from parallax, there really is no other option in astronomy. We also discussed Messier, Hershel, Shapley, and Leavitt (who discovered the period-luminosity relationship for variable stars).

I started on telescopes. The blackboard optics could not be done due to a burned-out power supply, but we charged ahead and discussed refraction, dispersion, focal length, spherical and chromatic aberration and why one builds larger telescopes. Dispersion also has its useful side-we use it to do spectroscopy!

On Wednesday I will discuss magnification, light gathering power, and resolving power (also interferometry and adaptive optics) and show some slides. Our exam will take place on Monday.

If you are going to submit homework, PLEASE REVIEW THE SECTION OF THE SYLLABUS RELATING TO THAT TOPIC.  I will NOT grade incomplete or sloppy packets. All internet links seem to be working fine (no one has reported a problem) so I expect to see them completed as well-no need to write a book on each-just a brief answer.

I have given Everett permission to extend the review session if needed. 

POSTED 10/04:

Attendance was poor today with lots of uncollected quizzes having low scores. Judging from some comments and quiz scores, not everyone is reading these notes (all topics covered listed here), the syllabus, the book, or doing homework OR attending class regularly. I don't feel too confident about exam I. If you are one who falls into the above category, at least it will be a learning experience and the lowest score does get dropped. I really DO expect that 6-9 hours outside of class per week! This is a real course in astronomy and not just "edutainment".

As promised, I did put my old study guide on reserve in the library. it is available for 1-hour use in the library. If you go as a group, you can rotate and check it out multiple times. Since it is old, some of section one is found in section two. The questions are taken from older test banks but darn close to ones I use now. No, these aren't old exams! The publisher also offers an excellent study guide and there is online help and tutorials at the Ace site that came with your book. IN the past, students have told me they really liked the latter two. You paid for the website-use it.

General rule (also in syllabus): If  don't cover it in class, its not on the exam.

I did finish telescopes today. We worked with magnification, resolving power, and light gathering power and took a look at some slides after I demonstrated refraction, dispersion, and focal length with blackboard optics. 

Good luck on the exam! And remember your #2 pencil (or two). I provide the forms and exams and you provide the pencils and (correct, I hope) answers. 

Keep watching those moon phases-we'll have clear weather and a waxing gibbous moon tomorrow and full on the weekend. Try the angular measure I suggested earlier with the coins.

See you on Monday.

POSTED 10/10:

We had our first exam yesterday and all grades have been posted on my bb since 11 last night (physical one, not blackboard). Lots of A's!! I also put out a histogram. grades ranged from (unfortunately) 20's through 120%. You will notice lots of F's. This is because there are a number of students who do not come to class but have not been kind enough to drop, so they must be retained in my grading software. VERY few who actually took the exam failed. None of those participating actively in the course did so. I suspect many did better than they thought they would.  Now you know my testing style, so it gets easier. it also gets easier because sections II and III are shorter and not disjointed. I will bring exam forms and homeworks to class on W.

We will be delving into light on W, starting with a hands-on activity involving spectroscopy and a demo relating to Wien's and Stephan's Laws. After that (finally) the Sun and the stars! Lots of fun to come. Read ahead in Ch 6. You will find that many of the most difficult, quantitative topics from subsequent chapters have already been covered.

Good job on Exam I.

POSTED 10/23:

It's been longer than I thought, so here goes:

As promised, we did perform our spectroscopy exercise and learned abut emission and absorption spectra. We also covered the very important Doppler shift, used to measure velocities. Everyone is expected to understand and be able to apply Wien's Law and Stephan's Law, which were also demonstrated in class. A subsequent quiz revealed that this is not yet the case. We examined the various means by which light is produced, including atomic energy level shifts, electron spin-flip (21-cm line), and synchrotron radiation. 

Moving on to the Sun, we watched a video about solar monitoring with satellites and the effect the sun has on our weather and satellites surrounding the Earth and power grids. The DVD contained incredible footage of actual pictures of the surface of the sun, including the way the hot plasma follows magnetic field lines. Note that some of the pictures were taken in UV light (more energetic than visible) and X-ray. One could also see the effect of convection in the form of granulation. Today I finished the Sun with sunspots, which are the result of the sun's differential rotation twisting its magnetic field lines. We also discussed long-range sunspot cycles and the climate. Global warming is absolutely real, but one cause may be the modern maximum. That doesn't mean that the greenhouse effect doesn't compound the situation! However, they are NOT one in the same.

While discussing the sun, we covered the four forces of nature and the role each plays in the fusion process. Hopefully, everyone understands why a star's core must be hot and dense for fusion to take place. We also looked at natural "stopping points" for stars on the periodic table and the processes by which elements beyond hydrogen and helium are produced in stars and supernovae.

Moving on to Chapter 8, we started with the all-important H-R diagram. Be able to reproduce this. We saw why there are more small stars observed than large ones when we discussed stellar lifetimes and the role of the mass when determining the luminosity and hence the lifetime. A larger star with more mass has more "gravity" so the core, where fusion takes place, is a larger fraction of the volume of the star. Hence, big stars are gluttons and don't live very long, using up their hydrogen supply. In addition to the Mass-Luminosity relationship (know this), we covered spectroscopic parallax and the use of the H-R diagram to verify models of stellar evolution and determine the age of clusters (know this, as well--might be on a quiz!) by observing the turnoff point.

On Wednesday we are going to continue with the "meat" of the course, covering star birth and death (stellar evolution). We'll finish stars with discussions abut the final products into which stars evolve, including white dwarfs, neutron stars, pulsars, and black holes (a number of you expressed an interest in this). We'll also talk about the supernova process. Exam II will follow this topic after about three more classes.

POSTED 10/30:

I have been taking a look at what is left in section II (ch 6-11), and it would appear that we will be finishing the section, as promised, in two classes-today and Wednesday. Exam II would then take place next Monday (11/6). If I feel (and/or you do) that we are rushing or can't finish Wednesday, I'll do so Monday and move on to Part II and postpone the exam until next Wednesday. I do wish to leave enough time to cover Section III. So far, our pace has been on par with past classes.

Six chapters may sound like a lot, but many are extremely short (11, for instance) and I'm not quite sure why 8/9 and 10/11 are not combined-they were n older editions of the book. In addition we already covered many ideas, like tidal forces, parallax, etc. in Section I. I do not cover everything in the book, either, such as the section on binary stars.

Today I hope to finish deaths of stars--we had concluded last time by saying that the final fate of the star depends upon the amount of mass left after all is said and done. We then go on to supernovae and some fun with black holes. 

Key vocabulary words are, of course, found at the end of each chapter and I emphasize them in class.

POSTED 11/8/06:

The exam results have been posted since ten Monday evening. They are very good, with some grades in the nineties. There is a significan number of drops who have not actually dropped yet, so my software shows an inordinately large number of F's when I plot a histogram. In actuality, most common grade was a A. I don't think anyone who comes to class and participates in the course actually failed.

Today we are starting the topic of Cosmology-the study of the Universe as a whole. Now that we know how stars and astronomers work, we can embark on this larger undertaking. I am going to start "close to home" with the Milky Way, just as we started stars with the Sun. We will then move on to galaxies in general and then to the overall structure of the universe and how we think it came to be that way. Following that, we will cover the Big Bang and some modern ideas, like microwave anisotropy, the "accelerating universe", and the possibility of finding life elsewhere. I will spend a class or two on the solar system (depending on time available), including building a comet nucleus in class, basic planetology (including atmospheric retention and evolution), and how the solar system was formed. 

Exam III is already written. 100 questions once again. You may not find the old question banks as useful, as I have written many of these just this week. Cosmology is a subject in which change is rapid. I'd recommend sticking to notes from class and homework as I believe many or most of you do. It will take place on Dec. 6, our last class.

I hope to show one or two more videos. However, I must ask that anyone who feels compelled NOT to watch it leave at the start. The door slamming throughout the movie last time was really unbearable and rude to those in the audience!! The lecture hall is not a movie theater. I show videos not for entertainment but because I believe they contain course material of value and sometimes may present it better than I can and to give everyone a break from my lecturing. Yes, seventy minutes is a long time to sit still and pay attention.

POSTED 11/17:

As promised, we have finished the Milky Way, Galaxies, and Quasars (galaxies with active nuclei) and, yesterday, moved on to Cosmology in general (Ch 15). Everyone should understand clearly Hubble's Law and how the Hubble Constant is obtained and what it means. This is of paramount importance. We had a Milk Way quiz and results were very mixed. Some results were very good while some others indicated no course participation whatever. We stressed the importance of the density wave and resulting spiral arms as a means of recycling stellar products to enrich future generations of stars and make planet and life building possible. You should understand why the spiral arms look brighter than the rest of the disk and how they are traced. We grouped galaxies into three main types-spiral, elliptical, and irregular. Ellipticals are the most common and represent the largest and smallest and yet they have no mechanism for producing subsequent generations of stars, containing only Pop II stars, much like globular clusters. When we talk about the solar system, it will be clear that there is a direct analogy to the galactic halo in the form of a cloud of comet nuclei called the Oort Cloud. 

The question begs to be asked-why does our universe have any structure, or lumpiness (like stars and galaxies) at all? The Big Bang models do not account for this.

The main topic of our video and discussion of Cosmology is the 3 K microwave background. This topic can be daunting and that's why I supplemented it with a video. About 300,000 years after the Big Bang (beginning), the universe had COOLED to a temperature of 3000K. At this point, electrons could combine with protons to form hydrogen gas.The photons of light originally trapped by electrons (compton scattering) was free to roam through space and as space expanded, the wavelength stretched as demonstrated. The reference to temperature doesn't mean that space has a T of 3K. It is just the consequence of plugging lambda max into Wien's Law. IN other words, the radiation is thermal and once had a lambda max matching 3000 but now the wavelengths of the photons are 1000 times longer. Another way of thinking abut this is in terms of an energy density die to photons. When the universe was very young it was smaller. This means that all of the energy in the form of photons was packed into a much smaller volume. Now that it is larger the energy of each photon MUST be less in order to satisfy conservation of energy! The Universe overall has been steadily cooling since its inception (disregarding what is going on inside stars).

Penzias and Wilson accidentally discovered the 3K background nearly 40 years ago. One needs to get out into space to observe it, though, as it is blocked by the water vapor in our atmosphere. Thus, detailed maps were not created until the COBE (cosmic background explorer) satellite was launched. That experiment showed some slight deviation from perfect uniformity (called anisotropy). Astronomers wanted more details. That meant more resolving power AND more computing power to crunch the numbers. Deviations form the mean don't show up until one goes out five more decimal places!  Now we have the WMAP data (named after Wilkinson of Princeton-Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe), with all of its fine detail. We will refer to this repeatedly on Monday. The red areas are slightly warmer (than 2.74K) and show where the density of matter was slightly greater. Blue means less dense. We will see that this not only demonstrates that structure existed very early but that we can use the size of the "lumps" to determine the curvature of space and the density and fate of the universe. IN conjunction with Type Ia supernova measurements of the Hubble constant, we now know that the universe is accelerating (started doing so at abut 5 by), flat, and made of mostly dark energy with another 30% dark matter, and 6% luminous (ordinary, or baryonic) matter like stars, planets, and life.

We have 4 classes remaining. One or two will be spent finishing cosmology and the Big Bang. The last two, at least, will concentrate on the solar system and search for life elsewhere. I will include videos if time permits. I hope its al coming together for you. There will probably be a quiz on Monday with some questions relating to the video we watched. There is no class Wednesday.

POSTED 11/20:

Reminder!! Our viewing session for tonight is still on! According to the weatherman, the skies are to clear by afternoon. Unless it clouds up again, Jerry Henry and I will be outside of the science center on Appian way with one or two telescopes. He gets out of class at 9, so we plan on setting up then and ready to observe by 9:20 or 9:30. Feel free to bring friends. I will post something on my bulletin board as well. Dress warmly.

There was a meteor shower Sat night but you couldn't see it (why I didn't post it). If you were somewhere else and did see a lot of meteors (shooting stars), they were dust form a periodic comet's tail and seemed to come out of the constellation Leo in the northeast around 11:30 PM-2:30 AM.

POSTED 11/21:

We finished most of cosmology in a long a difficult lecture today. We discussed WMAP results, the Dark Ages (between recombination that released what became the microwave background and when first stars formed), spatial curvature, and used a computer demo to show the effect the density has on the fate of the Universe. Understand that the critical density is that required to just make space flat. Luminous (baryonic) matter is insufficient-less than 10$ of critical. Dark matter contributes far more, but to account for WMAP and for the results of Hubble's Law which show that the U is accelerating, one must infer the existence of a large fraction of dark energy. 

We went through the Big Bang quickly (many were in a hurry to leave), starting with the Plank Time and showed that as the Universe expanded it cooled (it still is!). When the T got LOW enough, particles could "freeze out" as could forces. When T reached 3000K, recombination occurred and the light was free to travel and redshift. We started with the Cosmological Principle, according to which the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic. What we have been discussing so far is called the "standard model". Next time I will show that there are a couple of problems with this that can be fixed with something called inflation.

After that, we come back home and discuss the solar system and its origin. We'll take a look at some video footage about Mars and finding extrasolar planets. I hope to build a comet nucleus in class.

Our viewing session was a success! I think those who attended enjoyed the experience-we saw the Orion Nebula and trapezium stars up close, as well as the Andromeda Galaxy and some double stars, etc. One could appreciate how bright and red Betelgeuse really is. It cleared up nicely.

At the start of our next class, I am going to have a student named Stephanie tell you what works for her when it comes to mastering the material and performing well on exams. She is a record-holder, achieving a score in the mid-nineties on the last exam, so what she does clearly works for her. If others have ideas to contribute that might help others, all thoughts are welcome!

POSTED 12/01:

We went over the big bang again and then proceeded to review the solar system and its origin. There was a quiz as well. At the end of class we began watching a video about the search for life elsewhere.  Time permitting, I will show more if not al of it.

In addition, we built a comet nucleus in class. I hope you found it both fun and informative. We discussed comets and meteor showers. Most comets originate in the Oort Cloud or the Kuiper belt (Pluto is considered a Kuiper Belt Object). We are interested in them because they are preserved remnants of the solar nebula from which our planets formed.

Key words include terrestrial (inner) and Jovian (outer) planets, differentiation, condensation and accretion. I think the model presented for the formation of the solar system does a god job of explaining the differences between inner and outer planets. We still need to discuss the retention of atmospheres by planets to have a complete picture. Large, cold planets can hold on to light elements with their gravity. Smaller, warmer ones can't. The Earth's atmosphere has evolved significantly. let's make sure it doesn't evolve too much in the wrong direction!

I our last class I will also discuss the formation of the moon and why we see the "man in the moon". Nasa has been assigned the mission of returning to the moon (provided we have the money left), including establishing a moon base and observatory. After that we can think about Mars. Our last topic will be the possibility of life existing elsewhere and communicating with it. I will preset this using the Drake Equation found in that last chapter--you may want to read ahead.

POSTED 12/6/06:

We successfully have concluded the course with Exam III. The final is optional, of course. I will post all three exam grades on the BB by my office (NOT web!). You can use these to calculate your grade, if you don't already know it. If you like what you've got (remember the credit for attendance as well), then you should concentrate on your other exams and not take the final. I will NOT be here Dec 11-13! I will be out of town. I will be in for part of the day this Friday if anyone needs help. However, all data will be posted by code number.  Feel free to stop by and say "Hi" if you are not taking the final. 

Big News! Take a look at the Dec issue of Astronomy Magazine to see (water) frost on Mars as imaged by the MRO that we learned about in the video we watched in class. An unqualified success! In addition, additional information has been gleaned from the WMAP microwave probe which demonstrates that the background is also polarized in a manner consistent with predictions made by the INFLATIONARY model. More mustard!

 I do hope you fund the course enjoyable and informative. I guess I'll find out when I read the evaluations. There is an awful lot of interesting work being done in astronomy. Even the Russian program is back on track with several major missions taking place between now and 2015. The EU is very active, as are the Japanese and Australians. You'll be able to appreciate developments more and have a greater understanding of their significance--I hope.

Have a great Christmas Break!

Also, I want to encourage all to stay in touch in the future. We'll be observing planets in the spring-join us!

There is a "study guide' on reserve in the library (not old exams)

Final exam will b given Thursday, 12/14 at 3:30. 100 mc questions. Exams I through III are on reserve in library for use as a study guide.

Stay tuned!!

For those who have completed the course: I hope you've enjoyed the course and found your effort worthwhile. Over the summer, take a look at the planets, the stars and moon phases. Have some fun with what you've worked at. Keep watching the news in the future-there will be many more exciting announcements from astronomers. We may soon have real evidence of life on Mars, past or present. We should know more about the fate of the Universe. We'll know more about dark matter and dark energy. Remember, too, all of the incredible events that had to occur just so we could have such a finely tuned universe and planet to life on. Be grateful and take care of it! I hope you are willing and able to share your new view of the complexity of the Universe with friends and, someday, progeny.

Don't be a stranger in the future, either! Stop by and say Hi  in the new Science Center, look at this site for notices of viewing sessions and news. Send me an email and let me know of any astronomical news you'd like to share with me and my students.

If you wish to see the Cosmic Microwave Background movie, Whispers from Space, it is on reserve at the library for viewing. It is a wonderful flick. I also put a film from the same "astronomers" series we saw in class on Cosmology on reserve for you. Enjoy!

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