| Week | Monday's Date | Topic |
| 1 | Sept. 3 | No classes this week. |
| 2 | Sept. 9 | Introduction to the course. Overview -
Scientific Method, Mathematics Background, and Overview of Astronomomical Objects.
Chapter 1: 1.1, 1.2, Distances to Astronomical Objects Box 1-3, Chapter 1.7 and supplemental material on the class website. -includes Powers of Ten, angular measurements and parallax. Gravity.Chapter 2.7,Newton's Laws |
| 3 | Sept. 16 | Start using iClickers Gravity. Chapter 2.7,Newton's Laws continued. Orbits and Escape velocity, Box 2-2 (Weighing the sun). (Sept. 18: the last day to change courses.) |
| 4 | Sept. 23 |
Chapter 7.6 (Tides) Kepler's Laws Chapter 2.5, 2.8 General Relativity (part of 22.6 - P. 553 to 557) Radiation. Chapter 3.1 to 3.4. and "More Precisely" Box 3-2. Dual nature of light,electromagnetic radiation, diffraction and interference, energy. |
| 5 | Sept 30 | FIRST TEST OF THE TERM: Friday, Oct. 4 Radiation continued. Flux (e.g. Box 3-2) and luminosity (e.g. equation in Box 17-2). Thermal radiation, black body curves, Wien's Law, Stefan-Boltzmann Law. |
| 6 | Oct. 7 |
Spectra Chapter 4, emphasizing 4.1 and 4.2. Creation of absorption and emission lines via excitation and ionization. Radio Line emission: Chapt 18.4 21 cm radiation via the spin-flip transistion. Radio Continuum emission: synchrotron and free-free. |
| 7 | Oct. 14 | Thanksgiving - No class Oct 14 Doppler Shift and Radial Velocity. Chapter 3.5, 4.4, Box 3-3. Telescopes and Spectra Chapter 5. Telescopes 5.2, 5.3, part of 5.4 (seeing), parts of 5.5-5.7 CCDs, photometry, spectroscopy Light gathering power, Resolving Power, Diffraction Limit, Seeing Our Solar System Chapter 6. Planets. Focus on material presented in class and the physical data in Appendix Table 3B. |
| 8 | Oct. 21 |
Solar System continued. Mass, Radius relative to Earth. Temperature & Density & distance from sun. Interesting features like vortices and rings. Which objects have atmospheres, magnetic fields and liquids on their surface (e.g. Titan's ethane lakes.) Climate Change on Earth. (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.) Includes material presented in class such as the Greenhouse Effect. P. 173-176 including Box 7-1 and see schematic on supplemental links page. Focus on Mars.(Chapters 8-13) Note Discovery Box 8-1 about retention of atmospheres. What form does water take on Mars and why? What is the evidence for liquid water in the past? Any other explanations for Martian geological features? Searching for life on Mars (e.g. Phoenix and Curiosity missions) |
| 8 | Oct. 28 | SECOND TEST OF THE TERM: Friday, Nov 1. Planetary System Formation. Chapter 6 (some extra details in Chapter 15.) Formation of the Moon. Chapter 8.8. Exoplanets Chapter 15 and material presented in class. |
| 9 | Nov. 4 | Brown Dwarfs Our Sun. Chapter 16. Other Stars. Luminosity, Magnitudes, Hertzsprung Russell Diagram, Masses and Lifetimes. Chapter 17. |
| 11 | Nov. 11 | Remembrance Day - no class Nov. 11. Interstellar Medium and Star Birth. Chapter 18 & 19 Stellar Evolution of a 1 solar mass star: Red Giants, Planetary Nebulae, White Dwarfs Chapter 20. Stellar Evolution of M > 5 solar masses: Supernovae, Pulsars, Gamma-ray bursts. Chapter 21 (Nov. 13: Voluntary Withdrawal Date) |
| 12 | Nov. 18 | Stellar Populations: Chapter 23 (p.583-584). Black holes. Chapter 22 and Supplemental Material. - the student should review Gravity in preparation. |
| 13 | Nov. 25 |
Galaxies: Hubble Classification, Milky Way Structure. Portions of Chapters
23 + 24 + 25. Dark Matter portions of Chapters 23 + 24 + 25 + 26. |
| 14 | Dec. 2 | Cosmology. Hubble's Law. Chapter 26 Examples of sections that should be read: start at P615 == section on Hubble Law, start at P664 == section on Big Bang, start at P677 == Cosmic Microwave Background. Also Large Scale structure, acceleration of the universe and Dark Energy. Last day of classes is Dec. 4. |