Reading/Listening Assignments for Astro 250
- The week of April 28 (SETI and the End of the World)
- Chelyabinsk: Article 9 on Blackboard
- The Fate of the Earth: S&T Article number 10 on Blackboard
- The Fate of the Sun and the Earth: S&T Article number 11 on Blackboard
- The Future of the Universe: S&T Article number 12 on Blackboard
- The week of April 21 (Life, and SETI)
- The week of April 14 (Life in the Universe)
- The week of April 7 (Life in the Universe)
- The Chance of Finding Aliens - S&T Article #1 in the
Extraterrestrial Life section of Blackboard
- A blog post on
defining
"life" written by Brian May (of
Queen fame).
- Unveiling Distant Worlds - S&T Article #2 in the ET section of
Blackboard
- Browse this poster about
the details of defining the "habitable zone" - it is in PDF format.
- For more details on the habitable zone, see this
paper by Franck et al..
- The week of March 24 and 31 (Cosmology)
- Dark Matter and Galaxy Rotation Curves
- Sizing up Inflation: S&T Article #4 available on Blackboard
- Universe in a Box: Article #2 on Blackboard, Cosmology section
- Supernovae, Cosmic Yardsticks: S&T Article #5
- Dark Energy and the Preposterous Universe: S&T Article #6
- The week of March 10 (Cosmology)
- The week of March 3 (Time Travel)
- Listening: Time
Travel at the Movies: a light-hearted discussion hosted by
Neil De Grasse Tyson about what movies get right (and wrong)
when doing time travel.
Part of his Star Talk Radio
series.
- How to Build a Time Machine, by Paul Davies
(Scientific American, September 2002)
- Wormholes and Time Machines: article by Paul Davies,
both on Blackboard in Section 2: Relativity and Time Travel
- What is a wormhole?
- Another view from Michael Shermer
- optional: this episode of Are We Alone? has a part-whimsical, part-techical
overview of time, time travel, and our perception of time. Particularly
good are the chats with Roy Gould and Simon Steel
- The week of February 24 (Black Holes to Time Travel)
- The week of February 17, general relativity and black
holes. Resources for GR:
but see also
- The week of February 10 (relativity - special to general)
- The week of February 3 (Neutron stars, gamma ray bursts, and relativity)
- Neutron stars:
- Gamma Ray Bursts
- Article: The Link Between Gamma Ray Bursts and Supernovae
- Website
to accompany "Death Star" - program on gamma-ray bursts
- See the NASA page on hypernovae for
some interesting animations.
- ... and looking ahead to special relativity:
- The week of January 27 (Supernovae...)
- Article: Illuminating Dark Energy w/ Supernovae (through p. 276, and box "Types of Supernovae" on p. 277)
- Article: Anatomy of a Supernova
- Article: The Supernova Menace (for fun!)
- Web reading: Jocelyn Bell on the Discovery of Pulsars
- Article: Taking the pulse of neutron stars
- Book review: Dragon's Egg
- The week of January 20 (into the week of the 27th)
- Article (two parts): The Elements of Life I and II: on the Blackboard for this
course, in Section 1 - Stars Bizarre.
- Article: From Here to Eternity
- Article: White Dwarf Stars
- Article: Illuminating Dark Energy w/ Supernovae (through p. 276, and box "Types of Supernovae" on p. 277)
- Article: Anatomy of a Supernova
- The week of January 13 (Stars Bizarre)
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