- Mercury, Venus, the Moon
- Another Web Page on the Solar System - links to other web pages
- The Entire Solar System at your fingertips - links to other web pages
- The Face of Venus - pictures and more
- The Moon -more than you ever wanted to know
Read Chapters 7,8 ,10 (skip the earth)
- Mars, Terrestrial Interiors and Atmospheres
- Mars -facts and photos
- Visit all the Terrestrial Planet Pages -facts and photos
Read Chapters 11,12,13
- Giant Planets
- The Nine Planets Page again - Click on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune
Read Chapters 14, 15, 16
- Mid-Term Exam: Friday,
May 4, 2001 at 10 AM in Annenberg G15
- Jupiter - click on Io, Europa, Ganemede, and Calisto
Galelian Moons of Jupiter
Read Chapters 17, 18, 19
- More Icy Moons
- Titan - a moon with ice floes?
- Triton - a captured moon?
- Pluto - a runaway moon? and Charon - a runaway moon?
- Moderate Sized Icy Moons - click on selected moons
Read Chapters 20, 21, 22
- Comets, Asteriods, etc.
- JPL Comet Page - current info on Hale-Bopp and other comets
- The Asteroid and Comet Fact Sheet - brought to you by NASA
- A Model of EROS - brought to you by Mark Robinson, Jessica Edmonds, and Emily Peters
- More on EROS - brought to you by Mark Robinson
- Even more on EROS - brought to you by Mark Robinson
- A Model of Gaspra - brought to you by Mark Robinson
Read Chapters 23, 24, 25
-
Paper Due: Wednesday, May
23, Last Mid-term, Friday May 25 at 10 AM in Annenberg G15
- Meteorites for sale! - I can't promise this is "legit"
- Yet more meteorites for sale! - I can't promise this is "legit"
- Antarctic Search for meteorites - why look there?"
- Searching for Extrasolar Planets - the very latest from the planet-finders
- The SETI Institute - the scientific approach to the ET issue
- Life on Mars? - the very latest on the possible discovery of ancient life on Mars
Metiorites, Life in the Solar System, Search for other planets
Read Chapters 26, 27, 28;
Week 10 (Reading week: May 28-June 1)
One last set of observing sessions. Sign up the week before.
NO Final Exam:
The First Lecture
As a way of introduction, I would like to begin by making some general comments.
First, Astronomy is probably the oldest science. Anybody who has looked up at the sky has gazed in wonderment. Driven both by curiosity and religion, man continued to study the sky. There were some pretty important religious based questions that were addressed, such as exactly where did man and the earth stand compared to the universe. On the curiosity side, we are simply driven on and to learn more even as we learn more. For, as we delve in to the limitless universe it seems we often uncover new questions as we answer old ones. The growth in our knowledge of physics in the past 100 years has allowed us to understand a great deal about the stars, planets, galaxies and the universe at large. In the distant past when this knowledge wasn't available, astronomers had more use as astrologers. They told people the location of the planets etc. The concept of a supernatural being and how the being's existence explains the existence and characteristics of Earth has affected people's connection with organized religion and vice versa. The knowledge of astronomy was useful for debates in this area. The Copernican Revolution was a classic example. Now we enter a new era of astronomy and astrophysics where billions of dollars are spent every year on astrophysics research, and society as a whole is starting to ask tough questions such as why is this research necessary? What's in it for me? Or why do I find it interesting? And is it worth that much money? This has placed a requirement on the professional astrophysicist to emphasize research that connects directly to the interests of the layman rather than, perhaps, the esoteric interests of the peer group of astronomers and astrophysicists who know enough to ask detailed questions. You, as future leaders and taxpayers will have to answer the question of how much funding to give to astronomy and astrophysics and why. Two of my goals in this course are to motivate you to want to learn this material and to teach you enough so that you will be able to make educated choices about future funding as well as to appreciate future press releases and discoveries.
There is another reason for you to take this course, however, and that is to learn how to think like a scientist. So stop to think a minute now, what does it mean to you when the TV reporter says "today scientists have announced the discovery of..." The use of the word scientist had a certain implied reliability, right? Why is that? And why do most universities require that you take an science class? This is because you are supposed to receive some training to behave like a scientist, right? Yet mostly the astronomy, biology and geology courses that are offered are descriptive courses where the main goal is to teach jargon and facts. The facts will be useful as noted above, but beyond that this new knowledge will make you more conversant, and if your child asks you something about the sky someday you'll be able to give a concrete answer. But is this motivation enough to require that you take a science class? Probably not. It is better for you to get some training at acting scientifically. We won't be able to do this rigorously, but I hope you will actually benefit from this class.
Here are some of the things that I hope will stick with you:
(1) Be methodical and take careful notes: since this is the is the art of making reproducible results, e.g., if you tell somebody exactly how you did something, they should be able to repeat it and get the same result. As an aside here, there is implied a certain level of competency in being able to reproduce the results. I could get a very precise ski lesson and still not be able to make it down a snow covered slope in one piece. Nevertheless, detailed recording of how the measurements were done, the material was made, etc is what is needed. One of the things that makes most of us disbelieve in UFOs, leprechauns, Big Foot etc, is that the supposed observations are not reproducible in any controlled fashion. (Sure people continue to report UFOs, Big Foot etc, but there is no concrete, reproducible evidence of these things.)
2) Think deductively and critically. For example, if a marketing person calls you and tells you that if you follow their advice, you will become rich... Think about it...Why doesn't the person on the end of the line just follow their own advice? OR thinking critically: a football player a few years ago had a sore back and the team had him take 40 Advils a day. What was he thinking? Didn't the read the bottle for directions? Also when somebody provides you with a fact that is important to you, how do they know? What is their reference, or how did they make the measurement? This will even allow you to pick out exaggerated claims such as "Scientists discover Black Hole....''. How did they know?
(3) Avoid as often as you can qualitative thinking and descriptions versus quantitative descriptions, e.g. it's a long way to Tipperary..what does "long way" mean?
(4) Always have an idea of where you are going, why are you going there and a schedule for achieving those goals. No scientific project that takes more than a few hours or days can be done on time and within budget without systematic planing, project justification, budgets etc.
As an example of project management and proposing, which make up 50%-90% of
a scientist's time, I'm going to offer, as an experiment, two extra credit
projects. I will now relate these to you in some detail. The first project a
something you might all appreciate if it is done, but it is not a "science"
project. The second one is maybe impossible to actually carry out, but we'll
see. However, the first project is not astrophysics based at all, and if
nobody proposes that's okay. We'll have at least learned a little about project
management and planning by my description of the process.
So extra-credit-credit project number 1:
Bake a very special cake. This cake takes about 6 hours to prepare
after you have acquired the ingredients and the utensils and have found a place
to bake it. The idea is that first you must assemble a team with a Principal
Investigator = person who provides overall direction and decision making
and could actually do most of the baking in this case. Second, is the project
manager whose job it is to facilitate the project and to make sure it is
carried out on schedule and within budget. The project manager would find
the kitchen, identify a source of the utensils, arrange for the acquisition of
the utensils and the materials (at the right time) and would schedule
organizational meetings; team members who might be experts in cooking and
peeling chestnuts or experts in making butter cream sauce or who are over 21 so
they can by the necessary rum. So the first task it to put together at
team, which the PI does, and then the team must write a proposal that describes
the facilities available, the skills of the personnel, the responsibilities of
the personnel, and a detailed budget and a plan that describes how and when you
will purchase the necessary ingredients. One ingredient that you might have
difficutly acquiring is chestnuts. Canned chestnuts can be a bad choice. The
ones I used, which were in crumpled form, were no good. Maybe whole canned
ones would be ok. Fresh is best. You may have to find fresh chestnuts via the
web as they usually carried in stores around here near Thanksgiving and running
into January. After you submit the proposal I will judge the proposals, and if
there is more than one that is good I'll accept them and fund them. If your
proposal is no good, you get no credit at all. IF you do a poor job on the
cake, i.e. it doesn't look and or doesn't taste okay, then you get minimal
credit (TBD). You must also provide a detailed written report, and picture or
a video record of the entire process. If your cake passes, then you get the 20%
of the total points allowable in the class added to you total. Each team can
consist of no more than 4 people, and I'll at most accept two teams. So, first
you have to judge: Can you put together a good team? And is this worth the
trouble just to propose? Your proposal can be no more than 4 pages long, single
spaced, 12pt, and 1 inch margins all the way around. It is due in class April
13. The recipe is given here (or ask me for hard copy): Chestnut Chocolate Torte
The second project is to design a
write a proposal to NASA for a micro-gravity experiment that can be carried out
in NASA's "Vomit Comet" Your first task will be to find out all the details via
a NASA Web page http://www.tsgc.utexas.edu/floatn/.
It is the place to start, but so far only the fall competition section provides
details you need. IF the proposal is deemed good we can actually submit
it, but first things first. The problem is that your system is only
weightless for about 5 seconds at a time, so you have to think of something
interesting that can be tested in an airplane in series of maneuvers that
last about 5 seconds and can occur every few minutes. Note that you can't test
animal or humans and you have to be prepared to go through physical training
etc. I have not yet been able to think of some interesting process or test for
5 seconds that is significantly affected by being in micro-gravity. One that
you might think about is the old Pepsi/Coke test: This was to design a
container that allowed the astronauts to drink Pepsi (or Coke) in Space.
Neither container worked. The problem is that without the gravity the bubbles
did something weird: so the Pepsi container ended up ejecting a baseball to
grapefruit sized ball of froth that the astronauts had great fun playing with,
but not drinking.
How about asteriod-Earth collisions? First a mini-review of Armageddon (I
didn't see Deep Impact). I've never seen a picture of an asteroid that is
covered with stalagmites and canyons, etc, and the asteroid is not likely to
have 10's of 100 meter class rocks in "formation." (A comet, which is mostly
ice, is another story. It could have such an entourage). Then there was the
splitting of the asteroid into two neat pieces (I think not) and the
implication that the space shuttle can orbit the Moon (NOT). Never mind,
let's listen to the following description of an impact that took place in the
desert several years ago, and look at the probabilities to consider how much
effort we should put into an asteroid "watch' (and destroy) program. Then we
will move on to the basics of the course and then some other course material.
"The Day the Sands Caught Fire"
by Jeffrey C. Wynn and Eugene M. Shoemaker Scientific American, November
1998
Imagine, for a moment, that you are standing in the deep desert, looking
northwest in the evening twilight. The landscape is absolutely desolate:
vast, shifting dunes of grayish sand stretch uninterrupted in all directions.
Not a rock is to be seen, and the nearest other human being is 250 kilometers
away. Although the sun has set, the air is still rather warm-50 degrees
Celsius-and the remnant of the afternoon sandstorm is still stinging your back.
The prevailing wind is blowing from the south, as it always does in the early
spring. Suddenly, your attention is caught by a bright light above the
darkening horizon. First a spark, it quickly brightens and splits into at least
four individual streaks. Within a few seconds it has become a searing flash.
Your clothes burst into flames. The bright objects flit silently over your head,
followed a moment later by a deafening crack. The ground heaves, and a blast
wave flings you forward half the length of a football field. Behind you, sheets
of incandescent fire erupt into the evening sky and white boulders come flying
through the air. Some crash into the surrounding sand; others are engulfed by
fire. Glowing fluid has coated the white boulders with a splatter that
first looks like white paint but then turns progressively yellow, orange, red
and finally black as it solidifies-all within the few seconds it takes the
rocks to hit the ground. Some pieces of the white rock are fully coated by this
black stuff; they metamorphose into a frothy, glassy material so light that it
could float on water, if there were any water around. A fiery mushroom cloud
drifts over you now, carried by the southerly breeze, blazing rainbow colors
magnificently. As solid rocks become froth and reddish-black molten glass rains
down, you too become part of the spectacle-and not in a happy way.
Extra-credit-credit project number
2: