I should stress that I have not skimped on anything and have read through all the course texts thoroughly, carried out all the practical work, researched outside the course and so on. In fact I have had a bloody good time - I realy realy enjoyed this course. I have gone far deeper that any of the popular astronomy books. To give you a flavour, however brief, here is an outline of what the course covered:
- The Sun: Observation, composition, measuring. Visible wavelengths, invisible wavelengths, morphology.
- The planets: Orbits, centripetal motion, moons, phases, eclipses, terrestrial planets, gaseous planets, icy bodies, planetary formation.
- The stars: Astronomical coordinates, planispheres, distances, constellations in two-dimensions, constellations in three-dimensions, temperature and wavelength, composition and wavelength.
- Lifecycle of stars: Intersetllar medium, star-forming regions, protostars, open clusters, globular clusters, reg-giants and white dwarfs, supernovae, pulsars, black holes, cosmic recycling.
- Life beyond earth: Chemical elements and compounds, potential habits, extra-solar habitats, planetary spectra.
- Galaxies: The Milky Way, Other galaxies, classification of galaxies, doppler effect and moving galaxies, peculiar galaxies, clusters - the local group, super clusters.
- The Universe: Expanding, Distance Redshift rRecession speed, General Relativity, the Early Universe, Hubble constant, Dark Matter, Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, Dark Energy.
I also feel inspired to sign up for S197 'How the Universe Works' that starts in February. If I do then I will be studying that alongside M362 which I have already signed up for, so I will probably decide to do the long version so that I can commit the time to M362.
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