Course Outline - Astronomy 102 or 112

Chap. 1 & 2) Getting orientated - Our location in the Universe and how the Earth's tilt, daily (diurnal) motion, and yearly (annual) motion influence our viewing of celestial objects.

Chap. 4) Kepler's and Newton's Laws

Chap. 5) Light, Blackbody Physics (Wein's and Stephan-Boltzman's Law), Types of spectra (Kirchoff's Law) and the Doppler effect.

Chap. 18) The Sun. Its atmosphere (photosphere, chromosphere, and corona) including characteristics of each layer such as temperature profile and spectra. Phenomena such as granulation, prominences, sunspots and the sunspot cycle. The Sun's energy (nuclear fusion and E=mc²).

Chap. 19) Basic properties of stars. Distance (stellar parallax and spectroscopic parallax), luminosity, brightness, magnitude, surface temperature, spectra and spectral class (O, B, A, F, G, K, M), luminosity class, size of stars, binary star systems and stellar masses, mass-luminosity relation for main-sequence stars, and the all important H-R (Hertzsprung-Russel) diagram.

Chap. 20) Star formation. H II regions, Dark nebula, molecular clouds, reflection nebula, mechanisms that initiate star formation, protostars and evolution onto the main-sequence.

In chapters 21-24 we discovered that stellar evolution and the final fate of a star depends critically on a stars main-sequence mass.

Chap. 21) Age of stars and clusters. Population I and Population II stars. Variable stars such as Cepheids. Close binary star systems and mass transfer.

Chap. 22) Planetary nebula, white dwarf, Chandrasekhar limit, electron degeneracy pressure, creation of heavy elements in the Universe, temperature dependence of fusion reactions, types of supernova (II, Ia, Ib, Ic) and neutrinos.

Chap. 23) Neutron stars and Pulsars. Properties of neutron stars. Rotation and conservation of angular momentum. Why pulsars spin at different rates. X-ray pulsar, nova and X-ray bursters. The upper mass limit for a neutron star.

Chap. 24) Postulates and consequences of Special Relativity. General Relativity and the Principle of Equivalence. Predictions of General Relativity. Black Holes, Event horizons and the Schwarzschild radius.

Chap. 25) Our galaxy the Milky Way. Its shape, size and our (the sun and solar systems) location in it. What is dark matter and why astronomers believe it exists. Spiral structure and regions of active star formation. The galactic center and evidence for the massive (2.5x10⁶ solar mass) black hole.

Chap. 26) Galaxies beyond the Milky Way. How to determine the distance to galaxies using the standard candles like Cepheid stars and Type Ia supernova. Types of galaxies, the redshift of an object, the Hubble law, clusters, superclusters and colliding galaxies.

Chap. 27) Quasars and their unusual spectra (non-thermal and large redshift). Supermassive black hole as the possible source for their enormous luminosity. Active galactic nuclei (AGN) such as quasars, Seyfert galaxies, blazars, radio galaxies and the possible relationship between them. Evidence for supermassive black holes.

Chap. 28) The creation and fate of the Universe! Evidence for the Big Bang - The expanding Universe, cosmic microwave background radiation and big bang nucleosynthesis. How the density and deceleration of the Universe determines its geometry and fate.