| Week |
Topic |
Links |
Tue |
Thurs |
| 1 |
Aug 28/30 |
Introduction
|
|
|
|
| 2 |
Sep 4/6 |
Near-Earth Asteroids
|
NASA Asteroid Page
contains a lot of information about asteroids in general, and nearby ones in particular
There's also a
NASA Comet Page
DAWN mission
NEAT project
NEO Program - click on "Close Approaches" and "Impact Risk"
JPL multimedia Flash presentation
|
Apollo
|
Platypus
|
| 3 |
Sep 11/13 |
Extra-Solar Planets
|
Dick McCray's hypertext
and many links therein.
Official extra-solar planet site -
look for "public" information, as this site also contains a lot of highly technical stuff.
JPL site on future planet-finding missions
contains a lot of multimedia stuff.
The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia
New Worlds Imager
NASA mission led by Prof. Webster Cash, U. Colorado, Boulder
|
Ares
|
Cat
|
| 4 |
Sep 18/20 |
Special Relativity
|
Andrew Hamilton's very own Special Relativity,
including a Guide to Special Relativistic Flight Simulators,
and a Trip across the Universe.
And if all that is too much for you, try The Dummies' Guide to Special Relativity
(and get your browser to block the annoying pop-up ads).
|
Andrew
|
Andrew
|
| 5 |
Sep 25/27 |
Space Travel
|
NASA main site - click on the links entitled "Vision for Space Exploration" at bottom right
Steve Kilston of Ball Aerospace suggests the The Ultimate Project - here is his
presentation (pdf).
New Scientist 2007 Sep 8 special issue on "The Conquest of Space" (will be distributed)
|
Aphrodite
|
Polar bear
|
| 6 |
Oct 2/4 |
Extra-Terrestrial Life
|
NASA Astrobiology Institute click on Education
(and also click on Teams → University of Colorado, Boulder to find out what is happening on this campus)
NASA's Astrobiology website
Astrobiology Magazine has some cool stuff
|
Athena
|
Puppy
|
| 7 |
Oct 9/11 |
Black Holes
|
Dick McCray's hypertext
Falling into a Black Hole
Inside Black Holes (under construction)
Hubble Space Telescope: Black Holes
Chandra X-ray Observatory: Black Holes; see More Information at the bottom of the page
|
Andrew
|
Frog
|
| 8 |
Oct 16/18 |
Supernovae
|
Dick McCray's hypertext
Latest Supernovae; click on Links in the bar at left, and there are more links at the bottom of the page
|
Apollo
|
Panda
|
| 9 |
Oct 23/25 |
Gamma-Ray Bursts
|
Dick McCray's hypertext
Current Swift NASA mission
Gamma-ray burst real time sky map
Future GLAST NASA mission
|
Ares
|
Puppy
|
| 10 |
Oct 30/Nov 1 |
Active Galactic Nuclei
|
Dick McCray's hypertext
Bill Keel's Quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei
Cambridge X-ray Astronomy
NASA's Active Galactic Nuclei website
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory's
Image Gallery of Active Galactic Nuclei
|
Andrew
|
Cat
|
| 11 |
Nov 6/8 |
The Big Bang
|
Dick McCray's hypertext
Cambridge Cosmology
Ned Wright's Cosmology Tutorial, a blog before blogs were invented
NASA WMAP site on Cosmology; see also the bunch of links at the bottom of the page
|
Aphrodite
|
Frog
|
| 12 |
Nov 13/15 |
Dark Energy
|
A 1999 article by Bob Kirshner describing the observations indicating that the Universe is accelerating
Robert Caldwell's Dark energy has some history
JDEM
was recently (5 Sep 07) rated NASA's
top priority Beyond Einstein Mission
Report of the Dark Energy Task Force.
This gets a bit technical, but at least sections I and II are comprehensible.
NASA's What is the Mysterious Dark Energy Pulling the Universe Apart?
|
Athena
|
Platypus
|
| 13 |
Nov 20/22 |
Fall Break
|
| 14 |
Nov 27/29 |
ARL visit
|
ARL website
|
|
|
| 15 |
Dec 4/6 |
Inflation
|
Dick McCray's hypertext - click the Inflation link
Was cosmic inflation the 'bang' of the big bang?,
a talk Alan Guth, one of the originators of the theory of inflation
Alan Guth's logbook recording his discovery
Inflation and the New Era of High-Precision Cosmology, an article by Alan Guth
George Smoot's page on
Cosmic Inflation
contains several links
Wikipedia
has a nice write-up of cosmic inflation
|
Apollo & Ares
|
Panda
|
| 16 |
Dec 11/13 |
String Theory and the Multiverse
|
This is such a fast moving field that
you need to go to the research literature
to find out what is going on.
To do this, go to
http://arxiv.org/list/gr-qc/new
and search for "Multiverse".
Here are some articles that you may find readable:
Physics in the multiverse: an introductory review
by Aurelien Barrau
Predictions and Tests of Multiverse Theories
by Don Page
String Theory - From Physics to Metaphysics
by Reiner Hedrich
The problem of what exists
by P. C. W. Davies
Living in the Multiverse
by Steven Weinberg
Particle Physics Reviews
contains links to a number of string theory websites
|
Aphrodite & Athena
|
Polar bear
|
Fall 2007 ASTR 1120-880/1 General Astronomy Stars & Galaxies - Honors Co-seminars: Topics
Fall 2007 ASTR 1120-880/1 Homepage