The Dark Sky - Serious Questions for Real Astronomers

Banner

The Class:

Course Description (from 2008):

The class began with an overview of the astronomy of the different civilizations through the ages. It proceeded to describe the various laws and theorems from Newton to Kepler to Stefan Boltzmann. Interjected throughout these lectures were descriptions of the Oorb Cloud, black body experiments, and a thorough description of sun spots. Following this were informative explanations on the history and current state of the constellations, planets, satellites, and the Kyper Belt. This portion concluded with the description of HR Diagrams. An example of the latter is shown below.

HR Diagram

After a section on our sun's radioactivity and craters, the class was introduced to Bode's Law and Roche's Limit. The former describes the position of planets through their general similarity to the frequency of notes, while the latter states that an object of significantly smaller mass than that of the second must be a minimum of 2.5 radii of another relatively spherical object in order to avoid being pulled in by its gravitational force. A distance approximate to that calculated by the aforementioned proportion will cause the object to combust and form rings around the larger.

Interlude

We were assigned a short research project on any astronomical body of our choice to prepare us for the mid-term project. At this point, each of four groups was given the opportunity to create a planetary system whose only requirements were that the source of energy, the sun, must be kept relatively constant; the system must include a minimum of eight bodies; and the system must follow the laws of physics. The results of the project were rather entertaining.

Course Description (continued)

Because the final project was planned to be the creation of a new solar system with an alternative source of energy, the next several lectures were spent following the various stages of the life of a star. We began with the smaller stars, followed their lives through the process of formation into white dwarfs, and moved on to the study of the supergiants, which turn into either supernovas or black holes. The discussion continued with the study of gamma bursts. The professor and his assistant made the class more interesting by socratic questioning, allowing the class to come up with inventive solutions to various problems.

We then studied the spectral imprints of the elements and the methods used to understand which of these are most dominant in certain stars. The class continued with the study of galaxies and what would occur in the collision of two galaxies. An especially interesting portion was the discussions of what the image from a planet or star that is drifting apart would be, the optical illusions that can be made with a camera, and the various images that can be captured while away from populated areas. (An example of this is shown below.) Soon afterward, the class joined the Settling the Solar System class and visited the Lynchburg College Observatory, where we focused on the survey of Jupiter.

Milky Way

After a thorough discussion on the use of filters to determine the types of stars at the centers of galaxies, the lectures continued into distance scales.

Field Trip

On a relatively clear night, the class joined the Settling the Solar System class led by Dr. Neal Sumerlin on a star-gazing trip to the Lynchburg observatory. While the primary telescope was not in working condition, the tour of the facility and the use of several professional, albeit smaller, telescopes outside provided pleasant entertainment for the evening. The various levels of knowledge of the participants in each of the two classes enabled us to find the most interesting objects in the sky.

The last three days of class were spent examining cosmology's distance scales, as well as phenomena such as black matter and black energy with regard to the Big Bang Theory versus the Stationary Universe Theory. Following this and a visit to the local Cafe, the class studied the probability of artificial intelligence in the Milky Way Galaxy and in the entire universe.

Pictures