Astronomy 111:Assignments, Course Status & Announcements

last revised 12/15/09

Fall 2009
ASTRONOMY 111
Assignments & Announcements

Homework Policy
You are permitted, and in fact, encouraged, to work together on homework assignments. If you do so, write down the names of your co-workers on your paper. The important thing to remember is that what you turn in for a grade must be in your own words.

Homework turned in for a grade must be legible, stapled, and and smooth-edged.

Homework Assignment pdfs:
Homework #1
Homework #2
Homework #3
Homework #4
Homework #5
Homework #6
Homework #7
Homework #8

Announcements

Final Exam: Thursday, December 17 at 1:30 PM. Room TPL 205 - across the hall from our classroom

Class Links & Applets

Relativity and Black Holes
Special Relativity notes
General Relativity notes
Black Hole notes -1
Black Hole notes -2
Animation of the equivalence principle
Another equivalence principle animation - scroll down to see both views
A neat black hole applet
The Binary Pulsar
Diagram of Precession of Mercury's Perihelion
Simulation of Orbit Precession
Precession of Mercury's perihelion
Bending of starlight
Black hole binary system models
HST finds a hurtling black hole x-ray binary
Gravity Probe B page with good explanatory videos
Time dilation and length contraction applets
Great special relativity applet with several demos
Black Hole FAQs
Comparative warping of space

Compact Binaries
Roche lobes
Essay on Lagrange Points by Neil deGrasse Tyson (Hayden Planetarium)
Close binary classification
NASA's page on X-Ray binaries
Black hole binary system models
HST finds a hurtling black hole x-ray binary
Falling into a Black Hole - lots of good info here

Star Clusters and Populations
George Rieke's Milky Way page --READ THIS!
website about star clusters
Open Clusters
Evolution of a cluster's HR diagram
HR Diagram evolution simulator
Computer simulation of a young star cluster over 3 million years
Composite open cluster HR diagram except for M3 which is a globular cluster, for comparison
Globular cluster HR diagram
Movies over a single night of RR Lyrae stars in globular cluster M3 by Krzysztof Stanek and Andrew Szentgyorgyi, Whipple Observatory
Period-Luminosity Relation for Cepheids and RR Lyrae variables
Shapley's globular cluster distribution
A beautiful view of the Milky Way

Supernovae, Neutron Stars and Pulsars

COMPACT REMNANT TIME LINE
(some information from http://astrosun.tn.cornell.edu/teach/astro201/pulsar_hist.htm)

1931: Chandrasekhar calculates the maximum mass of a degenerate white dwarf (~1.4 M_sun)

1932: Chadwick discovers the neutron

1933: Baade and Zwicky hypothesize existence of stars composed of neutrons as a consequence of a supernova explosion

1939: Oppenheimer and Volkoff publish theory of neutron stars, taking general relativity into account

1967: Pulsars discovered by Bell-Burnell and Hewish. Gamma-ray bursts also discovered by military satellites

1974: Nobel prize awarded to Bell's graduate advisor, Hewish, but not Bell herself, for "pioneering research in radio astrophysics," including his "decisive role in the discovery of pulsars"

1975: Binary pulsar PSR 1913+16 discovered by Taylor and his graduate student, Hulse

1982: Millisecond pulsar PSR 1937+21 discovered by Backer and his colleagues

1992: Wolszczan and Frail discovery planets around PSR 1257+12

1992: Nobel prize awarded to Hulse and Taylor

Origin of Mass-Radius relation for white dwarfs
Explanation of pulsar pulsation mechanism
Derivation of tidal force
Energetics of the Crab Nebula demonstrating that is is powered by rotational energy lost by the pulsar
Conservation of angular momentum
Pulsar Lighthouse animation http://www3.amherst.edu/~gsgreenstein/progs/animations/pulsar_beacon/
Pulsar Sounds
Animation of Double Pulsar evolution (orbital motion suppressed) John Rowe Animation/Australia Telescope National Facility, CSIRO
Current state of the Double Pulsar John Rowe Animation/Australia Telescope National Facility, CSIRO
Building neutron-rich isotopes
High-mass core -- Type II SN precursor
Why an iron core means good-bye
Type II Supernova explosion cartoon from abyss.uoregon.edu/ ~js/images/sn_explosion.gif
Detection of neutrinos from SN 1987a

Cepheid Variables
Standard Candles
All about Delta Cephei and Cepheid variables
H. Leavitt
Schematic Cepheid Light Curve
Schematic Cepheid light curves at different P
The P-L relation
Demonstration of the Cepheid P-L relation
Description of Cepheid pulsation mechanism
Movie of a Cepheid in M100 from the AAVSO
Hunting for Cepheid Variables in M100

Planetary Nebulae and White Dwarfs
A Gallery of Planetary Nebula Spectra
Planetary Nebula Shapes:
   Roundish (NGC 7662, NGC 6826 )
   Bipolar (M2-9, Hb 5)
   Quadrupolar (NGC 7026, NGC 3918)
   Point-symmetric: (NGC 5307 , NGC 6543)
Wikipedia entry for white dwarfs
Chandra pages about planetary nebulae and white dwarfs
White Dwarf Mass-Radius Relation
Movie of Sun's evolutuionary track

Star Formation and Energy Generation
The proton-proton cycle from http://astro.unl.edu/classaction/animations/sunsolarenergy//
The CNO cycle from http://astro.unl.edu/classaction/animations/sunsolarenergy/
Stellar energy generation pagefrom Michael Richmond at RIT
page 1 page 2 page 3 of "So You Want to Make a Star" article by Prof. Kwitter from Mental Floss
Jim Brau's star formation web page at U. Oregon
Steps to Star Formation from Alyssa Goodman's COMPLETE program at CfA
HR diagram showing protostar evolutionary track
Explanation of Hydrostatic Equilibrium
Input for a stellar model

Particles and Forces
A figure from John Bahcall showing the evolution of neutrino experiments and the new agreement with theory.
THE ANSWER
The sheet on particles and forces
A blowup of the chart of particles and interactions in the stairwell.
The Particle Adventure

Solar Links
Here is a movie of solar granulation.
Here is a movie of solar rotation.
Solar granulation size comparison
Supergranulation
Sunspot size comparison
Prominence size comparison
Spicule size comparison
The Sun - NOW!
Tour Through the Sun