Lecture Outlines Autumn 2008

Astronomy 101A - Lecture Outlines for Autumn Quarter 2008

Lectures leading up to exam 3

Lecture date and subject	Web links and handouts
Other Life in the Universe?	Planet Quest JPL NASA Astrobiology NASA Astrobiology Web SDSS Three distant quasars found at the edge of the [visible] Universe Quasar spectra at various redshifts Wikipedia Quasar
Wednesday, 3 December 2008 Big Bang II: 1st 3 minutes (or so)	The Evidence for the Big Bang in 10 Little Minutes (YouTube) Please note: The narrator talks about "proof" of various aspects for the Big Bang theory. Science does not set out to prove anything! What scientists seek is overwhelming evidence that supports our ideas of how things work; plus, hypotheses that have predictive power. No one has yet come up with an alternative explanation that addresses all of the observations that have gone into formulating a rather convincing (but maybe not yet complete) scenario of how the Universe began and how we got here.
Video shown 1 December 2008 (175 MB) Right click and save to computer. To open in iTunes click on File, Add to Library.	Video Questions
Wednesday, 26 November 2008 Big Bang I: Expansion of Universe	WMAP concept animations NOVA Origins
Monday, 24 November 2008 Birth/Evolution of Galaxies	Millennium Simulation with music Hubble Deep Field story 5 galaxies merging collision of Milky Way and Andromeda Future of Milky Way (Sloan Digital Sky Survey) Formation of filaments (shown in lecture) Formation of a galaxy group (shown in lecture) More galaxy formation (growth of 20 million galaxies!)
Wednesday, 21 November 2008 Galaxies	Classifying Galaxies practice studyguide Sloan Digital Sky Survey SDSS Galaxy Clusters SDSS Places STScI Virgo Supercluster SDSS Archive
Wednesday, 19 November 2008 More about the Milky Way	A Trip from Orion Nebula to Virgo Supercluster Atlas of the Universe: The Milky Way A Trip to the Very Center of the Galaxy!
Monday, 17 November 2008 The Milky Way	The Universe: The Milky Way from the History Channel (via iTunes, $1.99) Questions to accompany the video The Universe: The Milky Way

Lectures leading up to exam 2

Lecture date and subject	Web links and handouts
Monday, 20 October 2008 Introduction to Stars
Wednesday, 22 October 2008 More About Stars	Star Scales from YouTube; Kaler Stars and Star of the Week Seattle Night Sky 25 Oct 2008 (handout); Top 10 Stars of the Autumn Sky (handout); When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer by Walt Whitman
Friday, 24 October 2008 Interstellar Medium	Milky Way Map of Nebulae for star forming regions
Monday, 27 October 2008 Star Birth	Orion Volume Visualization Star Cluster Formation in 3D
Wednesday, 29 October 2008 Star Clusters
Wednesday, 31 October 2008 Color-magnitude Diagrams and Ages of Star Clusters	Stellar Structure and Evolution Simulator This is very cool!
Monday, 3 November 2008 Evolution of Sun-Like Stars	Death of the Sun, Part I (.mov) Death of the Sun, Part II (.mov)
Wednesday, 5 November 2008 - See Monday's (11/03/08) notes	Evolutionary tracks and CMDs Important Considerations for the evolution of the Sun Stellar Evolution Tutorial This Flash Applet on the ideal gas law may help you visualize better. Evolution of the Sun and Sun-like Stars: Driven by What Happens in the Core "game board" as played 6 Nov. 2008 Answer Key Booklet for Evolution of the Sun "game"
Friday, 7 November 2008 Evolution of Massive Stars	Death of Sun-like Star Death of High-mass Star
Monday, 10 November 2008 Death of Stars Monday, 10 November 2008 Intrinsically Variable Stars	Lucy: The Real Diamond in the Sky! Sounds of pulsars The Sounds of Space
Wednesday, 12 November 2008 Black Holes	Death by Black Hole Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson Death spiral around a black hole from Hubble Space Telescope Falling into a black hole A Light Take on the Gravity-Time Relationship NPR (thanks, Jae!)

Lectures leading up to exam 1

Lecture and topic	Web links and handouts
Friday, 26 September 2008: Scale of the Universe, Scientific Method, Changing View of the Universe
Monday, 29 September 2008: Night Sky and the Celestial Sphere	Animations Available for this Lecture
Wednesday, 1 October 2008: Energy
Friday, 3 October 2008: Newton's Laws of Motion and Gravity	Accompanying PPT Slides YouTube Elegant Universe - Gravity (the one that didn't work too well during lecture)
Monday, 6 October 2008: Introduction to Light
Wednesday, 8 October 2008 Light: Stefan-Boltzmann Law, Blackbody Radiation, Wien's Law	You control the temperature: Stefan-Boltzmann Law Why a dense, opaque object emits a continuous spectrum
Friday, 10 October 2008 Light: Kirchhoff's Law, Doppler Shift	Working with Kirchhoff's Laws APOD 9 October 2008 NGC 6357 APOD 19 December 2006 Pismis 24
Monday, 13 October 2008 Earth-Sun Relationship	SOHO-MDI views the Sun Flare with field lines imposed TRACE zooms in on a flare Sun at multiple wavelengths Simulating Magnetic Field Lines of the Sun (~5 minute movie)
Wednesday, 15 October 2008 The Solar Interior