Instructor: Nancy Chanover
Teaching Assistants: Sarah Bates and Jim Norwood
Class times: MWF 10:30-11:20 am, Biology Annex 102
Lab times: M 1:30-3:30 pm (Science Hall Room 114), M 3:30-5:30 pm (Science Hall Room 114), or Tu 1:30-3:30 pm (O'Donnell Hall Room 316)
Department: Astronomy
Here is the class syllabus.
Upcoming Events:Click here for a list of the web-based lecture notes.
Click here for a list of the homeworks and reading assignments so you can stay caught up.
Click here for our attendance records so you can see for yourself how many classes you've missed. Attendance is posted by the last four digits of your social security number.
Click here for our grade spreadsheet. The grades are listed by the last four digits of your social security number.
Planetary Astronomy in the News:
27 April 2004: Saturn's little moon, Iapetus, is two-faced! One side is nearly as dark as coal, while the other is nearly as bright as snow. What could be causing such differences on the two hemispheres? Read more about it here.
14 April 2004: The newly discovered planetoid, Sedna (see 15 March press release below), does NOT appear to have a moon. This was determined from careful observations of this distant object with the Hubble Space Telescope. This makes Sedna even more mysterious, for researchers believed the presence of a moon was the cause for Sedna's slow rotation. Sedna may hold important clues to the origin and evolution of objects on the far edge of the solar system.
08 April 2004: The Mars Rovers have had their mission extended several months due to the enormous success they have had thus far. Read more about the plans for the extended mission here.
22-31 March 2004: There will be 5 naked-eye planets visible in our evening sky shortly after sunset. This presents a rare opportunity to see Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter all at one time. Click here for more details.
15 March 2004: The most distant object in our solar system was just discovered! The new planetoid, Sedna, is three times farther from the Sun than Pluto. It is also unusual in that it is extremely red -- it is the second reddest object in the solar system after Mars!
11 March 2004: The European Rosetta mission, which will visit a comet, was successfully launched on March 2. A final selection of the asteroids that Rosetta will visit on its way to the comet has just been made.
08 March 2004: Opportunity sees solar eclipse when Mars' two small moons, Phobos and Deimos, pass between Mars and the Sun. This is the first time that a spacecraft has ever directly observed a moon pass in front of the Sun from the surface of another world.
02 March 2004: Opportunity finds evidence that its landing site, Meridiani Planum, was wet in the past!
29 February 2004: Evidence for water on Mars is mounting, but there are no definitive answers yet. Look for a press conference in the near future!
27 February 2004: The Cassini spacecraft has started collecting data on Saturn, even though it won't arrive at the Saturn system until July 2004. The latest press release image of Saturn is gorgeous!
19 February 2004: The Mars Rovers explore hints of salty water on or near the surface of Mars. The rovers continue to function normally, and are exceeding pre-flight expectations.
15 February 2004: Jupiter's icy moon Europa, thought to contain liquid oceans beneath its icy crust, may also contain acids and peroxides that might make it a less hospitable environment for life than previously believed.
10 February 2004: As the tropical oceans continue to heat up, following a 20-year trend, warm rains in the tropics are likely to become more frequent, according to NASA scientists.
02 February 2004: Oxygen and carbon were found in the atmosphere of an "extrasolar planet," or a planet orbiting a star other than our Sun, using the Hubble Space Telescope. The planet HD 209458b is the first transiting planet discovered, the first extrasolar planet known to have an atmosphere, the first extrasolar planet observed to have an evaporating hydrogen atmosphere, and now the first extrasolar planet found to have an atmosphere containing oxygen and carbon.
29 January 2004: Over the next few weeks, the joint European-NASA spacecraft Ulysses, designed to study the Sun, will be revisiting Jupiter. "Ulysses will approach Jupiter from high northern latitudes, opening a window on previously unexplored parts of the giant planet's magnetosphere," said Richard Marsden, ESA's Mission Manager for Ulysses. This is of particular interest to scientists studying Jupiter's natural radio emission, since a distinctive type of radio signal is believed to originate in the high-latitude auroral zones of Jupiter.
25 January 2004: The second Mars rover, Opportunity, landed safely on Mars in the middle of a small crater. It is already sending back valuable data! The diagnosis for Opportunity's ailing twin, Spirit, has improved. A software problem, which hopefully can be fixed fairly soon, appears to be causing its communication problems. Latest updates on these two missions can be found here.
22 January 2004: New images of Uranus and Neptune taken with the Hubble Space Telescope reveal banded cloud decks and several active storm clouds.
20 January 2004: Comet Wild 2 was visited by NASA's Stardust spacecraft, which captured a thousand or more grains of comet dust during the flyby. Such material, little altered since the formation of the solar system, could tell us a great deal about our origins. The craft's payload will return to Earth in 2006 for analysis by scientists. If a single picture from the navigation camera can surprise researchers, just imagine what's in store when they get their hands on a thousand pieces of the comet itself.
20 January 2004: You have less than two weeks left to make a Deep Impact! The deadline for signing up to have your name go crashing into a comet on the Deep Impact mission is 31 January. See the Deep Impact web page for details.
03 January 2004: Spirit, the first of two Mars Exploration Rovers, successfully landed on the surface of Mars thanks to our familiar airbag technology. It is already sending back images of the Martian surface with unprecedented detail!
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