ASTR& 101: Introduction to Astronomy

Diagram and describe the position of Earth in the Solar System.

Describe what the Earth has in common with the terrestrial planets and compare/contrast the terrestrial planets with the Jovian planets.

Explain how the nebular contraction theory of the origin of the Solar System explains the terrestrial and Jovian planets’ chemical compositions, sizes, and orbital properties.

Describe where in the Solar System the dwarf planets Ceres and Pluto are and describe what qualifies them as asteroids and Kuiper belt objects, respectively.

Define and describe asteroids, comets, meteors and meteorites.

Distinguish short-period and long-period comets and their origins.

Describe the composition of comets and explain the behavior of their tails.

Identify which small bright lights in the night sky are stars, which are visible planets, which are meteors, and which are artificial objects.

Explain how most meteors originate from the asteroid belt and how their composition and age yield the age of the solar system and insight into earth’s origin.

Identify the oldest things in the Solar System that have had their ages measured, state the essentials of the principle on which the age measurements are based (decay of radioactive elements with known half-lives), and explain how the combined age measurements show that the Solar System is 4.6 billion years old (rounded to the nearest tenth of a billion).

On imagery from satellites, interpret the surface features of solid planets in terms of the major geologic processes volcanism, tectonics, meteorite impacts, and gradation.

Relate the theory of the origin of the Solar System to its main characteristics. In other words, explain how the characteristics of the Solar System are the primary evidence of how it formed, and how the collapsed nebula theory of origin of the Solar System is the only currently known theory that accounts for all the characteristics.

Use a sky chart, with east and west reversed compared to an Earth map, to find the positions of stars, planets and constellations, including specifying their celestial coordinates, when they rise on a given day, when the cross the meridian, and when they set.

Identify at least three circumpolar constellations in the actual night sky. Find Polaris (the North Star) in the night sky. Distinguish the asterisms the Little Dipper and the Big Dipper from the constellations that contain them, Ursa Minor and Ursa Major.

Explain how the apparent motions of the Moon, Sun, stars and planets are accounted for in a heliocentric system.

Correctly explain retrograde motion of planets, including by use of a diagram or drawing.

Describe the major contributions of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Einstein and Hubble to the advancement of astronomy.

Describe the behavior of electromagnetic radiation in terms of the spectra of blackbodies and rarefied gases. Relate this information to how the properties of celestial objects are determined by spectroscopy.

Describe how stars are classified by spectra and what the spectral classes indicate about the physical properties of the stars.

Diagram the physical evolution paths of stars as portrayed on Hertzprung-Russell (HR) diagrams and explain what is occurring at each stage in terms of thermonuclear and hydrodynamic processes.

Graph stars on a HR diagram using appropriate data for each star, classify each type of star based on its HR position, and describe the star in terms of ongoing thermonuclear fusion reactions in the core, diameter, surface temperature, and color.

Describe the main methods that are used to measure or estimate distances to celestial objects and show the ability to determine such distances given basic measurements.

Describe the main parts of spiral galaxies and the different types of spiral galaxies, the two different chemical types of stars (those with almost no elements heavier than helium and those with many heavier elements), and explain how each chemical type of star originated.

Correctly identify the Milky Way galaxy as the galaxy in which we reside and correctly classify it as a barred spiral galaxy.

Correctly name the Milky Way galaxy as the galaxy in which we live, classify it as a barred spiral galaxy, show roughly in which part of it (a spiral arm) the Solar System is located, and show about how far out (1/3 to 1/2 way out) from the center we are.

State the evidence that shows the universe is expanding, relate the rate of expansion to the Hubble constant, and use the Hubble constant to measure the age of the observable universe.

Discuss or write about dark matter and dark energy, what leads us to think they exist, and why we do not yet know what they are.

Explain gravity in term of Newton’s law of universal gravitation and Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and explain in what settings the two theories produce markedly different results.

Explain how space and time together comprise spacetime, and how matter affects both space and time.

Describe the theory of black holes in terms of why light cannot escape, what the event horizon is, and what evidence there is for the actual existence of black holes.

Describe some of the remarkable predictions of Einstein’s relativity theory that have been verified by experiment and observation, including the slowing down of time at higher velocities and the bending of light by the effect of concentrated mass.

Distinguish what makes a hypothesis worthy of scientific study and what makes other ideas not worthy of being subjected to scientific research.

Show evidence of overcoming a common misconception about what a theory can be in science by expressing awareness that a theory can approach and ultimately move up the status of being a fact, once the theory has been repeatedly tested against observations from the real world, the tests and observations have been verified at every stage to the highest precision possible, the theory has demonstrated predictive power so great that such predictions were never even possible until the theory was conceived, the theory has led to new discoveries, and the theory has spawned new theories and new lines research, changing our understanding of nature. For example, describe a historical example of an astronomical theory that was controversial when proposed but is now considered a fact.