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PHYS 206 Detailed Outline
Last modified 18 Feb 06
Textbooks:
Topic 1. What is in the Universe and how big are
they ?
- Videotape: Powers of Ten
- "Astronomical" numbers
Scale of the Earth, and of the Earth-Moon system Scale of the Solar System
Distances to the stars: Light-years
The Milky Way: Our galaxy
Other galaxies
Clusters of galaxies.
PART I : THE STARS
Topic 2. The Sun: An ordinary star
- 2.1. Overview
- Size and distance
300 000 Earth-masses
Hot sphere of gas
Rotation
- 2.2. Outer layers of the Sun
- Photosphere
Spectrum
Chemical composition
Chromosphere Corona
The Solar Wind
- 2.3. Solar Activity
- Granulation
Sunspots, magnetic fields and their cycles
Prominences and flares
Long-term variability?
Topic 3. Solar energy: Source of life on Earth
- 3.1. Where does the Sun's energy come from?
- Solar constant
Coal?
Gravitational energy?
Nuclear reactions
E=mc2
- 3.2. Solar Interior
- Gas/Plasma
Hydrostatic and thermal equilibria
15-million-degree core
Random-walk of photons
Convection
Solar pulsations
Solar neutrino problem
Topic 4. Looking at stars
- 4.1. Rungs 1 & 2 of the Cosmic Distance Ladder
- Parallax-good to 100 ly
Parsecs
The nearest stars
- 4.2. Luminosity & Apparent Brightness
- An inverse
square law
-
- 4.3. Rung 3 of the Cosmic Distance Ladder: Motional calculations
- Secular parallax
Moving clusters (Hyades)
A few hundred ly
- 4.4. Colors and spectra
- Color: Temperature
Absorption lines: Composition
Doppler shift: Radial velocity
Broadening: Rotation
Splitting: Magnetic field
- 4.5. Other bands
- Infrared, radio, x-ray, etc...
Topic 5. Double stars
- 5.1. Binary stars
- Eye-test of the middle ages
Visual binaries
Spectroscopic binaries
The demon star: an eclipsing binary
Mass exchange in binaries
- 5.2. Two-body problem gives mass
- Weighing the Earth
Mass of the Sun
Stellar masses from binaries
Range of stellar masses
- 5.3. Mass-luminosity relation
- The more mass, the more luminosity
-
5.4. Diameters of stars
- From eclipsing binaries
From radiation laws
Topic 6. Stellar classes: The giants, the dwarfs, the
average ones...
- 6.1. The nearest and brightest stars
- The Centauri System
Sirius
More dim stars than bright
- 6.2. The Hertzsprung-Russel Diagram
- Main Sequence
Giants, supergiants, white dwarfs
- 6.3. Rung 4 of the Cosmic Distance Ladder: Main sequence fitting
- Open Clusters
- 6.4. The stellar recordholders
- Most luminous and most massive:
Blue supergiants Largest and least dense:
Red supergiants Least luminous and least
massive: Red dwarfs Densest:
White dwarfs ???
Topic 7. A star is born
- 7.1. Formation of stars
- Molecular clouds
Collapse: Protostar
Failures: Brown dwarfs
Chain reactions
Observations
- 7.2. Digression: Why can't I see the at night the beautiful colors of astronomy
posters ?
- Cones and rods in the retina
Night blindness
Color blindness
- 7.3. Formation of, and search for planetary systems
- Disks around protostars
Infrared search
Doppler search
Found !!!
Topic 8. We are children of the stars
- 8.1. Big stars live fast and die young...
- Destiny written at birth: The
Russel-Vogt Theorem Bigger stars exhaust
their core hydrogen faster
- 8.2. Red giants
- Recall: Pressure vs. gravity
Helium core - shell hydrogen burning
-> expansion: Sun will eat up Mercury and Venus!
Helium burning
All heavier elements cooked inside massive
giants! Mass loss
Topic 9. Stardeath I and starcorpses I: White dwarfs and novae
- 9.1. White dwarfs
- Degeneracy pressure
Solar-mass, Earth-sized...
- 9.2. Novae
- "Guest stars"
Red giant/white dwarf binaries
Ignition of accumulating shell
May repeat
Topic 10. Stardeath II: Supernovae: Brighter than hundred billion Suns
- The Chandrasekhar Limit
Iron core, collapse and bounce
Violent death of a big star: Type II supernova
Elements heavier than iron
Scatterer of ashes
May outshine galaxies!
The Crab nebula
SN 1987 A Type I
supernovae
Topic 11. Starcorpses II: Neutron stars and Pulsars
- 11.1. Neutron stars
- Early prediction
Core collapse in Type II supernovae
The neutrino flash
- 11.2. Pulsars
- "Miss Bell's "Little green men"
The Crab pulsar
Rotating neutron stars
- Videotape: Death of a star
Topic 12. Starcorpses III: Black holes
- 12.1. Final state of very massive stars
- If neutron degeneracy pressure is
not enough, nothing is...
- 12.2. Black holes
- Not even light can escape
Event horizon
Curved spacetime
Gravitational lens
Singularity
Mini black holes
Hawking Radiation
Supermassive black holes
Discovery of black holes
PART II: GALAXIES AND THE UNIVERSE
Topic 13. The Milky Way
- 13.1. The idea of "galaxy"
- The phenonemon of "Milky Way"
Herschell's "star gauging"
- 13.2. Size of the Galaxy
- Variable stars: Cepheids and RR Lyrae
Period-luminosity relation
Shapley and Globular clusters in Milky Way
Classical Cepheids as Rung 5 of the cosmic
distance ladder RR Lyrae as Rung 6
Rung 7: Type II Cepheids
- 13.3. Structure of the galaxy
- Disk with dust
Central bulge Halo
Rotation and spiral arms
Fast-old and slow-young!
Dark matter
Supermassive black hole at center?
Topic 14. Galaxies and the expanding universe
- 14.1. Other galaxies far, far away
- "Island Universes" ?
The Shapley-Curtis Debate
Hubble's resolution: Cepheids in Andromeda
Spirals-ellipticals-irregulars
- 14.2 The Rest of the Cosmic Distance Ladder
- The concepts of standard candles
and standard rulers Brightest stars (sc),
Globular Clusters (sc), HII regions (sr)
Tully-Fisher relation (sc), supernovae, etc...
- 14.3 Expansion of the Universe
- Redshifts
The Hubble Law
- 14.4 Quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei
- Big redshifts mean extreme
luminosity ...or do they?
Active galaxies
Where does the energy come from?
Supermassive black holes ?
- 14.5 Large scale structure of the universe
- Hubble Survey The Local Group
Clusters of Galaxies
Superclusters
Voids, sheets, filaments, The Great Wall:
Cheese or sponge?
- 14.6 The Formation and Evolution of Galaxies
- Galactic ages (!)
Which scale formed first?
Topic 15. The Big Bang: The past and the future of
the universe
- 15.1. A brief history of cosmology
- Ancient cosmologies:
Geocentrism and the celestial sphere. "Planets" and days of the week.
Galileo's telescope, Copernicus, Newton.
End of geocentrism. Olbers' paradox.
Galactic dimensions (1917).
The Cosmological Principle.
Einstein's biggest "blunder": The static model.
Friedmann-Lemaitre model (1922-27).
Debate on nature of spiral nebulae.
Resolution by Hubble (1924).
First estimate of age of Earth.
Discovery of expansion of the universe (1929).
The age problem.
Gamow ('46) and "Big Bang".
The "perfect cosmological principle" and
steady-state model. Prediction of cosmic background
radiation (CBR). Corrections to distance scale,
resolution of the age problem. Discovery of CBR.
Uncertainity in Hubble constant.
Possibility of a new age problem
Acceleration of expansion?
- 15.2 The past of the universe
- Expansion means a beginning
Hot in the beginning, cools as it expands.
First, radiation dominated
Temperature of the primordial soup Quark-gluon plasma
Formation of neutrons, protons, etc. (Hadronization).
Annihiliation of hadrons, small excess of matter over
antimatter. Neutrino decoupling
Annihiliation of electrons and positrons.
Helium synthesis.
Matter domination.
Formation of hydrogen atoms (Recombination)
Transparent universe --> CBR.
- 15.3 The future of the universe and the dark matter problem
- Open and closed universes
Critical density.
Not enough luminous matter.
Dynamical measurement of mass at different scales, evidence for dark matter.
Most of the universe may
be exotic matter.
Expansion forever?
- 15.4 Sucsesses and problems of the standard Big Bang
- SUCSESSES: CBR
Primordial light element abundances. PROBLEMS:
The horizon problem: Horizon smaller at recombination time.
The flatness problem: critical density is unstable,
fine tuning required. SSB in early universe -->
The monopole problem
- 15.5 Solution of Problems: The Inflationary Universe
- "False vacuum". p = -(density) -->
density = const. --> Exponential growth
by ~50 orders of magnitude. Observable universe a very
small part of the domain. Horizon, flatness, monopole
problems solved
- 15.6 Open questions
- Dark matter: What is it? Black holes? Dead
stars? Jupiters? Nucleosynthesis limit on
baryons. Massive neutrinos? WIMP's? axions? cosmic strings?
Why matter-antimatter
asymmetry? How did large-scale structure form? Initial
fluctuations required: COBE results. Dark matter
important. Flat and accelerating universe?
The anthropic principle.
PART III: GOING INTO SPACE
Topic 16. The Past: From Sputnik to the Space Shuttle
- 16.1. Firecrakers to Saturn-V: Rocket Technology
- Chinese firecrackers and medieval
weapons Goddard V-2
and von Braun
- 16.2 The "Sputnik Crisis" and the Kennedy pledge
- First satellite: Sputnik
"Sputnik Crisis" and the Mercury Program
Vostok 1 and the first human in space: Gagarin
The Kennedy pledge
- 16.3 The race for the Moon
- First woman in space: Tereshkova
Voskhod 2: First "spacewalk" by Leonov
The Gemini Program
Apollo 8: First around the Moon
Apollo 11: A giant leap
Apollo 17: The End
Disasters: Nedelin, Apollo 1, Soyuz 11
- 16.4 Lone explorers: Planetary probes
- Pioneers, Veneras, Vikings, Voyagers...
Galileo Cassini ?
- 16.5 The Shuttle Program and the Challenger Disaster
- Launch like a rocket, land like a plane
Cargo bay and manipulator arm
Challenger Disaster: 3-year freeze
HST and its repair
Topic 17. The Present and Near Future: Commercialization of Space
- 17.1. The really fixed stars: Communication satellites
- Geosynchronous orbit
Türksat
- 17.2 GPS, EOS, SDI, 007
- Where am I?
Earth Observing System
"Star Wars" Spy in
the sky
- 17.3 Orbital observatories and factories
- Get above the atmosphere: Hubble Space
Telescope, COBE, IRAS, GRO, etc... Microgravity:
less stress, new chemistry
Topic 18. The Far Future: Living in Space
- 18.1. Colonies in space, not on planets
- "Planetary chauvenism"
Gravitational wells of planets
Other constraints: surface gravity, atmosphere,
length of day... Surface-volume ratio
- 18.2 Constructing islands in space
- Skylab, Mir and Freedom: Pioneers
Material: asteroids
Cylindrical geometry for gravity
Mirrors provide sunlight
Controlled climate
- 18.3 Life in space colonies
- Social diversity
"Geographical" diversity
Independence Utopias?
Topic 19. Space Travel
- 19.1. The rocket principle
- Action=reaction
Propellant Fuel
- 19.2 Variations on a theme
- The first nuclear idea: The Orion Project
Deadalus Project The nuclear
salt water rocket The ion rocket
The photon rocket The ramscoop (Bussard) engine
Annihiliation engine
- 19.3 Alternatives
- Solar sailing
Laser-driven spaceship
- 19.4 Other considerations
-
Acceleration constraints
Spin the ship!
The any-acceleration ship
Cosmic speed limit
Problems at relativistic speeds
Space arks
Hibernation
Aerobraking
Gravity assist
- 19.5 Planet-to-orbit commuting: The Space Elevator
- Rockets are wasteful
polluting noisy irreversible
expensive The solution
- 19.6 Impossibilities (?) and FTL
- Star Trek's warp drive
Asimov's `jumps'
Blish's spindizzy Niven's hyperdrive
Topic 20. SETI: Are other intelligent beings out there?
- 20.1. Life
- Is a definition possible?
Philosophical and religious implications of
ET life
- 20.2. Life in the Solar System?
- Life on Earth
Mars? Europa?
Titan? Elsewhere?
- 20.3 Other planetary systems?
- Does life need a planet?
There seem to be extrasolar planets
Trojan points of binary stars?
- 20.4 Intelligent life in the galaxy?
- The Drake equation
The Kardashev classification
Dyson spheres The
Galactic Zoo hypotesis
- 20.5 Pro
- Possibility of planetary systems
Ancient life on Mars
Miller-Urey experiment
UFO's ?
- 20.6 Con
- Improbability of similar-level
civilizations von Neumann machines and galactic
colonization "Where are they?"
Should intelligence be observable?
- 20.7 Search
- UFO's? (probably) no.
Search for a radio message
Other evidence? So
far, no sucsess
If you have any comments or questions or corrections, contact me
at
semizibr@boun.edu.tr
-Ibrahim Semiz