Ay1: The Evolving Universe
Syllabus
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Observing exercises *
Section and Project * Palomar Excursion *
Late Assignment Policy * Final Exam
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Labs and Observing Exercises:
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As part of the course, we will be learning how to navigate around
the sky and use the telescope on the roof of Robinson to take digital images
of interesting astronomical objects. We will also do a series
of lab exercises/homework that will highlight exciting developments
in astronomy. These labs will be organized through your section.
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Sections and Discussion Projects:
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The class will be divided into eight discussion sections, each with about 10 students and one TA.
They will meet a total of 7 times during the term, about every other week. The scheduled meeting dates
are listed above on the syllabus. The subject matter will be discussed during 5 of the meetings with the last 2
being allocated for end of the term presentations.
To enroll in a section send an email Brian with your top three
choices as soon as possible, but no later than Friday (April 1st).
We will do our best to accommodate everyone's first choice.
The sections are:
- Astronomy Folklore - Kevin Bundy
- Location: 023 Robinson
- Roster: 16
- Lucas Johnson
- Zack Ramadan
- Arjun Bansal
- Jennifer Yim
- Amanda Silberstein
- Michael Underhill
- Harold Hsu
- Parvathy Menon
- Brian Somok
- Jennifer Li
- Yernur Rysmagambetov
- Kayte Fischer
- Lindsay King
- Hanwen Yan
- Jessica Alvarenga
- Patricio Romano-Pringles
- Description: The section will identify modern stories, superstitions, and urban legends that
relate to astronomy and analyze them from a scientific standpoint, using basic
astronomy and physics skills. The goal is not just to debunk folklore but to
understand why these beliefs are held and discover what physical basis may
motivate them.
Modern astrology is an excellent example. Someone choosing this topic would be
expected to do some research on how modern astrology developed (turns out it's
quite modern) and possibly show connections to how previous cultures and
civilizations looked to astronomical events for guidance and predictions about
the future. The primary focus might be on the common perception of how
astrology works and its relation to astronomy. Some possible questions to
address are: How is the zodiac defined? What is the scientific evidence that
personality traits are related to a person's birth month (there is evidence for
this) and why might this be? How common are so-called astrological phenomena
like alignments in the solar system and what physical effects could they
actually have on earth (Spring tides, for example)? Does astrology instill
interest or fuel misconceptions about astronomy?
- Black Holes, Neutrons Stars and White Dwarfs:
Laboratories of the most extreme physics in the Universe - Brian Cameron
- Location: 106 Robinson
- Roster: 17
- Brian Kearns
- Jason Kephart
- Yan Shan Au
- Thomas Mainiero
- Vera Velde
- Eleanor Waxman
- Patrick Herring
- Carl Allendorph
- Brian Zhou
- Jonathan Liong
- Lauren Porter
- Jing Shen
- Nixon Li
- Olivia Alley
- Jon Seitel
- Krastina Petrova
- Christopher Moody
- Elizabeth Howe
- Description:
Compact objects exist in the centers of massive galaxies and result from the death of stars,
and their properties are quite amazing.
They can have magnetic fields 1015 times as strong as the Earth's, have densities
1014 times larger than water, infinitely curve the spacetime around them, and power the
brightest objects in the universe.
In this section we will discuss the known properties of these objects, the outstanding puzzles
surrounding them and how astronomers hope to solve these puzzles.
From here there are many areas of interest we can pursue depending on the preferences of the class.
For example, we can discuss the implications for theories involving Black Holes, such as wormholes, time
travel and parallel universes. Or the possibility of detecting ripples in spacetime from compact objects
with instruments like LIGO, a very important project here at Caltech.
- Open Questions in Cosmology - Andy Green
- Location: 010 Tom
- Roster: 16
- Jonathan Arnold
- Tim Curran
- Drew Pollock
- Francisco Godoy
- Michael Forte
- Kevin Cossel
- Ashok Kumar
- Ching-Ping Janet Shen
- Andrew Tan
- Boris Chen
- Juan Benitez
- Matt Wierman
- Jonathan Marina
- Chris Gonzales
- Tom Raney
- Erin White
- Description:
Cosmology has undergone a renaissance in the last 10 years.
Precision measurements have shown that the universe is expanding at an accelerated
rate due to the existence of some kind of "dark energy", and
we've learned that structures in the universe formed primarily due to a kind of "dark matter".
In this section we will discuss what we know about these two quantities, how cosmologists hope
to understand them and how they relate to the observable universe and its ultimate fate.
- The Next Decade of Astronomy - Adam Kraus
- Location: 11 Downs
- Roster: 14
- Kenneth Ho
- Shawn Surdyk
- Mike Grinolds
- Natalie Szweda
- Brandt Belson
- Steven Wang
- Jessica Arnold
- Matthew Wroten
- Chunhui Gu
- Vincent Auyeung
- Bin Wu
- Andrew Krause
- Ryan Cabeen
- Steve Gamero
- Description:
The big astronomy missions planned for the next decade promise to generate
some extraordinary results:
- characterization of dark energy
- observations of the earliest stages of galaxy formation
- observations of giant planets
- detection of Earth-like planets
We'll discuss the merits of the missions that are studying each topic,
what they hope to learn, and their prospects for success.
Our goal is for prospective astronomy majors to learn about potential job opportunities in
graduate school (and beyond) and for non-majors to learn how to better
interpret the news you'll see on CNN.com in the next ten years.
- Cataclysmic events: a bad day on earth - Sam Lawler
- Location: 123 Lau
- Roster: 16
- Ryan Bogner
- Christine Parry
- Shai Barak
- Helen Lee
- Sixin Lu
- Zac Lizer
- Josh Feingold
- John Jester
- Alexander Sonn
- Yang Hai
- Gaurav Giri
- Shaun Lee
- Molly Davis
- Franziska Dammeier
- Russell Krom
- Ben Pedersen
- Description:
Every section meeting we'll talk about a different way to destroy our
beloved home planet. How bad can a bad day on Earth really be? Some
of the possibilities for death and destruction include: supernovae,
gamma ray bursts, asteroids, rogue planets and stars, and the death of
our sun. We'll also talk a bit about what we can do to detect these
objects and events, and once we detect them, if there's anything we can
do to save ourselves. You should have a good sense of humor to be in
this section, because the subject material is obviously a little
depressing!
- Extra-Solar Planets - Tyson Mao
- Location: 103 Downs
- Roster: 15
- Zhan Wang
- Kevin Dick
- David Dow
- Zhonglin Zhang
- Dorota Korta
- Peter Hung
- Daniel Yi
- Leyan Lo
- Sonia Tikoo
- Kevin Peng
- Chi Wan Ko
- Chris Hiszpanski
- Aleks Chechkin
- Torrey Spink
- Doyl Dickel
- Description:
This section will discuss the current methods of
detecting extra-solar planetary systems. We will discuss what we have found, what we can
currently find and what the future holds. We will also discuss the
formation of the Solar System and explore the question of why most of
the extra-solar planetary systems out there are unlike ours. This
section will also discuss the possibility of life in exo-planetary
systems as well as our own.
- Updated! See New Description. Spitzer Space Telescope - Cathy Slesnick
- Location: 012 Robinson
- Roster: 14
- Richard Jones
- Scott Hsieh
- David Rosen
- Aaron Hoffer
- Stephen Heumann
- Justin Lazear
- Andreea Stuparu
- Viviana Gradinaru
- Smaranda Marinescu
- David Rocklin
- Joseph Xu
- David Koenitzer
- New Description: This section has been expanded to be more like "The Next Decade in Astronomy" (see above.)
It will focus on more missions than just Spitzer, but will still include a Spitzer lecture and tour. As such,
many who signed up for Adam's section have been placed here.
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Old Description:
NASA began the "Great Observatory" program to explore the sky over the entire electromagnetic
spectrum. For example, the Hubble Space Telescope probes the boundaries of the
visible universe. The Spitzer Space Telescope, headquartered here at Caltech,
allows us to explore space in the infrared,
penetrating regions obscured by dust, and observing objects too cool to be seen at
shorter wavelengths. One of the most recent and exciting discoveries made by Spitzer was the first
direct detection of light from an extra-solar planet!
In this section we will review the details of Spitzer and
its instruments. We will devote most of our time to discussing current science unique
to such an observatory. A tour of the Spitzer Science Center (hopefully including control room) may also
be organized.
- The First 3 Minutes - Dan Stark
- Location: 365 S. Mudd
- Roster: 15
- Tatyana Shatova
- Mario Roa
- Angela Magee
- Michael White
- Scott Davies
- Janet Sheung
- Guan Wang (George)
- Youssef Moussaoui
- Matt Krogstad
- Sami Zerrade
- Han Seo
- Paxon Frady
- Aditya Rajagopal
- Timothy Chung Kwa
- John Joseph Carrasco
- Description: The section will discuss the beginning of the universe.
We will review the observational evidence for the "Big Bang", highlight the
physical processes that occurred in these early times, and how they affected the
evolution of the gigantic fireball that was the early universe.
We will address the outstanding questions about the early universe and discuss how
astronomers can answer them with observations.
In addition, each student will be responsible for completing a term paper and presentation
that deals with some aspect of the discussion topic in your
class section. This is intended to allow you to go a bit deeper into a topic of interest, learn to make use of
resources available at Caltech and elsewhere, and force you to write! The paper,
whose topic must be approved by your section leader (TA), should be at least
5 pages long and must make use of at least 5 books or articles in addition to
resources available on the Web. Students will also present the results of their
papers orally in carefully honed 5-minute presentations to your classmates and
TA in your section group during the last week of classes. You may then be chosen
(by section vote) to reprise your presentation in front of the whole class
in the lecture hall on the last day of classes, along with representatives from each of the other
sections. The paper will be due in section on May 27th. The presentations will take place
during the last two section meetings, and the schedule will be decided by your section TA.
There will be an optional but highly recommended Saturday excursion to
Palomar Observatory, location of the 200-inch (5-meter) telescope.
Completed in 1948, the 200-inch telescope was the largest optical
telescope in the world until 10 years ago, when it was superseded
by the 10-meter Keck telescopes in Hawaii. This is truly an astronomical
spectacle and you will enjoy seeing it. The trip is tentatively scheduled for May 21st.
There is also an optional trip to the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) being planned.
Extensions of no more than one week may be granted for the lab exercises
and the term paper by section TAs for special circumstances. Extensions
must be requested before the assignment due date. No extensions will be
granted for the presentations. In the event that an extension has not been
granted the assignment will be docked 5% per day late.
The final exam for the class is a 3-hour (closed book) during finals week.
This exam will include multiple choice, short answer, and short essay questions
and will be based on the material presented in lecture and the assigned readings.
Maintained by Brian Cameron.
Last updated 4 April 05.