Courses

"From Black Holes to undiscovered worlds" - a journey through our fascinating universe. Ever wondered about the universe? What you see in the night sky? How stars get born and how they die? How Black holes work? And if there is life out there in the universe? Join us for a journey through our fascinating universe from Black Holes to undiscovered worlds through the newest discoveries. We are made of stardust. Ad Astra.  

Full details for ASTRO 1101 - From New Worlds to Black Holes

Provides a "hands-on" introduction to observational astronomy intended for liberal arts students. High school mathematics is assumed, but otherwise there are no formal prerequisites. The course objective is to learn how we know what we know about the Universe, and to learn how to observe with moderate cost amateur telescopes. There are two lectures and one evening laboratory per week. Typically, labs consist of 4-5 observing sessions using the Fuertes Observatory 12" telescope and a set of Meade 8" telescopes, a trip to Mount Pleasant to look through its 25" telescope and, on cloudy nights, 4-5 in-class experiments, the highlight of which is collecting micrometeorites for study.

Full details for ASTRO 1195 - Observational Astronomy

Writing course designed to develop an understanding of modern solar system exploration. Discussion will center on describing our home planet as a member of a diverse family of objects in our solar system. In addition to studying what we have learned of other planets and satellites from unmanned spacecraft, we will also discuss the missions themselves and describe the process of how they are selected and developed. Guest lecturers will include political advocacy experts, NASA officials, and science team members of active NASA/ESA missions. Participants will study, debate, and learn to write critically about important issues in science and public policy that benefit from this perspective. Topics discussed include space policy, the potential for life in the ocean worlds of the outer solar system, the search for extrasolar planets and extraterrestrial intelligence, and the exploration of Mars.

Full details for ASTRO 2202 - A Spacecraft Tour of the Solar System: Science, Policy and Exploration

Introduction to the solar system with emphasis on the quantitative application of simple physical principles to the understanding of what we observe or can deduce. Topics include: planetary orbital and spin dynamics, tidal evolution, the interiors, surfaces, and atmospheres of the planets including the effects of greenhouse gases on climate, and smaller bodies such as satellites, asteroids and comets. Comparisons will be made between planetary systems discovered about other stars and our own solar system. Results from past and current spacecraft missions will be discussed. Final grades will depend on homework sets and on a final team project and in-class presentation, supported by a joint term paper. The course is more in-depth and quantitative than ASTRO 1102/ASTRO 1104. All course materials will be available online.

Full details for ASTRO 2212 - The Solar System: Planets, Small Bodies and New Worlds

Hundreds of planets around other stars have been discovered over the past two decades, and many more discoveries are sure to come. How are these discoveries made and what are the properties of these exoplanets and their systems? How exotic can we expect exoplanets to be? Is our solar system a typical planetary system or something unusual? How common are planets like Earth? How might we determine whether exoplanets can host life, or do host life? These and other issues related to planetary formation and evolution will be discussed.

Full details for ASTRO 3301 - Exoplanets and Planetary Systems

The course covers methods in optical and radio astronomy and selected topics in astrophysics. Major experiments use techniques chosen from charge-coupled device (CCD) imaging, optical photometry, optical spectroscopy, radiometry and radio spectroscopy. Observations use the Hartung-Boothroyd Observatory's 24-inch telescope and a 3.8-meter radio telescope on the roof of the Space Sciences Building. The course covers the fundamentals of astronomical instrumentation and data analysis applied to a wide range of celestial phenomena: asteroids, main-sequence stars, supernova remnants, globular clusters, planetary nebulae, the interstellar medium, OH masers, and galaxies. Methods include statistical data analysis, artifact and interference excision, Fourier transforms, heterodyned receivers, and software-defined radio.

Full details for ASTRO 4410 - Experimental Astronomy

Major topics include: the structure and evolution of stars; solar neutrino astronomy; stellar seismology; the physics of white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes; the physics of low mass stars and connection to planets. Basic ideas in atomic and molecular physics, condensed matter physics, nuclear and particle physics, fluid mechanics and general relativity are introduced in a practical fashion that emphasizes concepts useful for understanding astrophysical phenomena.

Full details for ASTRO 4431 - Physics of Stars, Neutron Stars and Black Holes

One-semester introduction to general relativity that develops the essential structure and phenomenology of the theory without requiring prior exposure to tensor analysis. General relativity is a fundamental cornerstone of physics that underlies several of the most exciting areas of current research, including relativistic astrophysics, cosmology, and the search for a quantum theory of gravity. The course briefly reviews special relativity, introduces basic aspects of differential geometry, including metrics, geodesics, and the Riemann tensor, describes black hole spacetimes and cosmological solutions, and concludes with the Einstein equation and its linearized gravitational wave solutions. At the level of Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity by Hartle.

Full details for ASTRO 4445 - Introduction to General Relativity

Individuals work on selected topics. A program of study is devised by the student and instructor.

Full details for ASTRO 4940 - Independent Study in Astronomy

The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover is currently en route to Mars and represents the first mission in the Mars Sample Return Campaign. Perseverance will land in Jezero Crater in February 2021 and, over the occurences of its 3-year primary mission, explore Jezero's ancient lacustrine environment and determine the most scientifically compelling samples to cache and deposit on the Martian surface for future return to Earth. This multi-institutional seminar will review the capabilities and objectives of Perseverance's science payload, with each meeting devoted to discussion of a single instrument. Institutions will take turns virtually hosting the discussion, with instructors leading the course every other week and students leading discussions in between.

Full details for ASTRO 6500 - Seminar: Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover: Science Objectives and Instrument Descriptions

A comprehensive introduction to Einstein's theory of relativistic gravity. This course focuses on the formal structure of the theory.

Full details for ASTRO 6509 - General Relativity I

Intended to provide a systematic development of stellar astrophysics, both theory and observations. Topics include hydrostatic equilibrium; equation of state; radiation transfer and atmospheres; convection and stellar turbulence; nuclear burning and nucleosynthesis; solar neutrinos; star formation; pre-main sequence stars; brown dwarfs; end states of stellar evolution (white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes); supernovae; interacting binary stars; stellar rotation and magnetic fields; stellar pulsations; winds and outflows.

Full details for ASTRO 6560 - Theory of Stellar Structure and Evolution

The universe, its large-scale structure and history; morphology, photometry, dynamics, kinematics and active nuclei of galaxies; galaxy formation and evolution; cosmological theory and observations.

Full details for ASTRO 6590 - Galaxies and the Universe

Intended to provide a detailed theoretical development of current ideas in cosmology. Topics include Big Bang cosmology and the universe's matter content; a cosmological chronology very early universe, symmetry breaking, inflationary scenarios, nucleosynthesis, recombination, growth of irregularities, galaxy formation and clustering, dark energy; current and future cosmological observational approaches.

Full details for ASTRO 6599 - Cosmology

Guided reading and seminars on topics not currently covered in regular courses.

Full details for ASTRO 6940 - Advanced Study and Research

This course is a reading seminar where graduate students will gain astronomy breadth, practice public speaking, and distill important results from seminal astronomy research papers.

Full details for ASTRO 7683 - Seminar: Astronomy and Planetary Science

Covers numerical methods for ordinary and partial differential equations, linear algebra and eigenvalue problems, integration, nonlinear equations, optimization, and fast Fourier transforms. Find out how and why the "black-box" numerical routines you use work, how to improve and generalize them, and how to fix them when they don't. Based on the text Numerical Recipes by William H. Press, Saul A. Teukolsky, William T. Vetterling, and Brian P. Flannery.

Full details for ASTRO 7690 - Computational Physics