Course Number: Astro 1500
Course Name: Stars, Galaxies, and Cosmology
Credits: 3 Cr
Instructor: Amanda Weinstein amandajw@iastate.edu
PreReq: None
Associated courses: Astro 1020, Astro 1030 and Astro 1200
Format: Three 50 minute lectures per week.
Course description
For the non-science major as well as satisfying a requirement for an astronomy minor. Provides a survey of astronomy with a focus on the universe beyond our solar system. Basic observational astronomy and the history of astronomy. Topics covered include:
- Stellar astronomy: Motions, distances, sizes, spectra
- Types of stars
- Variability
- Binary systems
- Stellar evolution: the birth, life, and death of stars, including supernovae, neutron stars, and black holes
- The structure and evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy
- Other galaxies, clusters of galaxies, quasars
- Theories of the origin of the universe
