1. Scale. Rank the sizes of planets, stars, galaxies, and the universe. Qualitatively relate the size and separations of the Sun and planets in the Solar system.
2. Calendar. Describe and explain how the sky changes throughout the day, month, and year. Also includes differences between different places on Earth.
3. Spaceship Earth. Describe the ways that Earth changes position and orientation over time. Includes precession of the axis, orbit around the Galactic center, and motion relative to the cosmic microwave background.
4. Shaded. Identify the characteristics of, and conditions creating, Solar and Lunar eclipses, planetary transits, and occultations. Nodal points, types of eclipses, parts of an object’s shadow.
5. History. Identify key advances in Western astronomy from Babylonian foundations until the Copernican revolution. Contributions of Eratosthenes, Hipparcus, Ptolemy, and Arabic observers. includes Aristotle’s views of motion and Ptolemy’s orbital model of epicycles and deferents.
6. Revolution. Identify and interpret the contributions of Copernicus, Galileo, Brahe, Kepler, and Newton to astronomical thought. Includes explaining the evidence for and against heliocentric orbits of the planets.
7. Quantities of motion. Define and relate position, direction, time, velocity, speed, and acceleration.
8. Newton’s laws. Define force, and explain how force influences motion. Includes explaining the need for a centripetal force to make a curved path.
9. Gravity. Explain and apply Newton’s formula for the gravitational force. What do all the symbols mean in the formula F = Gm1m2/r2? How does the force respond to changes in any of the quantities?
10. Orbits. Describe the orbits of the planets, including direction and shapes of their paths. Includes inclination to the ecliptic, orbital direction, and Kepler’s laws.
11. Conservation. Define mechanical energy and angular momentum, how they relate to orbital motion, and what it means for them to be conserved.
12. Signals. Identify the different categories of signals that Earthbound observers receive from space and what we learn from them. Electromagnetic radiation (next standard), plus neutrinos, cosmic rays, gravity waves, and meteorites.
13. EM radiation. Describe the nature of electromagnetic radiation; relate energy, momentum, wavelength, and frequency; and order the spectral regions. Wave nature of light; variation and orientation of electric and magnetic fields; speed of light; c = λf, E = hf, p = h/λ = E/c.
14. Black body. Describe the characteristics of black body radiation and what conditions affect it. Includes Wien’s displacement law and the Stefan-Boltzmann law.
15. Spectra. Match the type of a spectrum to the substance and conditions that create it. Describe the effect on a spectrum of movement of the source toward or away from the detector. Kirchhoff’s spectroscopy rules; Doppler effect.
16. Mirror v. Lens. Compare and evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of refracting (lens) and reflecting (mirror) telescopes.
17. Seeing. Identify and explain the observational challenges with different bands of the electromagnetic spectrum.
18. Jeans. Recount and justify the Solar nebula hypothesis of the formation of the Solar system. Identify and explain evidence for the hypothesis. Identify events that can trigger a collapse.
19. SSO. Identify and describe the principal categories of objects in the Solar System.
20. Earth. Describe at least five ways in which Earth differs from other rocky planets.
21. Earth and Moon. Describe and explain the interaction of Earth with the Moon’s orbit.
22. Moon’s surface. Describe major features of the Moon’s surface.
23. Impact. Identify and explain evidence for the Giant Impact hypothesis of the Moon’s formation.
24. Mercury. Identify the unique aspects of Mercury’s composition and surface.
25. Venus. Describe the composition and characteristics of Venus’s surface and atmosphere.
26. Mars’s water. Identify evidence that Mars once contained abundant surface water.
27. Gas giants. Describe Jupiter’s and Saturn’s composition and internal structure, atmosphere, and weather. Includes their magnetic fields and unique characteristics
28. Major moons. Describe the major moons of Jupiter and Saturn, including notable orbital properties, composition, and geologic activity. includes the Galilean satellites of Jupiter; Enceladus and Titan.
29. Life:. dentify and describe the primary locations to search for life in the Solar system.
30. Ice giants. Describe, compare, anad contrast the composition, structure, orbital features, and dynamic processes of Uranus and Neptune.
31. SSSBs. Describe, compare, and contrast the composition, properties, orbits, and behaviors of dwarf planets, comets, and asteroids.
32. Meteorites. Categorize meteorites, describe their features, and explain what they teach us about the Earth and Solar system.
33. Exoplanets. Describe how we have detected planets orbiting other stars. Descrbe the characteristics of the planets that have been found.
34. Sun. Describe the structure, composition, features, and processes of the different layers of the Sun’s interior, surface, and atmosphere, and their interactions.
35. Star structure. Describe the interior processes maintaining structure and size of the Sun and other stars.
36. Parallax. Explain and apply the method of ascertaining stellar distances by annual parallax.
37. Magnitude. Describe, explain, and apply the stellar magnitude scale. Distinguish and relate absolute and apparent magnitude scales.
38. Spectral class. Describe the stellar spectral classes, their sub-classes, and luminosity classes.
39. H-R. Describe the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram and related plots. Identify features and properties of stars categorized by their positions therein.
40. Star birth. Describe the formation of stars from their origin in a nebula until they exhaust core hydrogen.
41. Fade. Describe and explain what happens to low-mass (< 8 M⊙) stars after they consume their core hydrogen.
42. Collapse. Describe and explain what happens to high-mass stars after they consume their core hydrogen.
43. Remnants. Describe and explain processes involving stellar remnants, such as pulsars, magnetars, novae, type 1a supernovae, and x-ray bursters.
44. Island. Recount how the center of the Milky Way galaxy was first located. Recount how other galaxies were found to be “island universes” separate from our Milky Way. Includes Shapley’s study of globular clusters, and how distances to galaxies can be estimated.
45. Galaxies. Describe the structure, composition, and classification of galaxies, including our Milky Way. Explain the structure, composition, and classification of galactic clusters, including our Local Group. Describe how galaxies interact with each other. Includes identifying and distinguishing stars as population I, II, and III.
46. Dark matter. Identify the evidence for dark matter, and where in the universe dark matter is located. Includes velocities of stars and galaxies and gravitational lensing.
47. Black holes. Describe the classification of black holes, including stellar mass, intermediate mass, and supermassive black holes. Describe and explain their detectable manifestations, including X-ray sources and active galactic nuclei. Includes describing, distinguishing, and classifying the types of active galaxy.
48. Bang. Identify the evidence for cosmic expansion and inflation. Describe the hypothesized history of the universe. The big bang. Includes describing and explaining the cosmic microwave background and elemental abundances, as well as the uniformity problem and flatness of spacetime.
49. Fizzle. Describe the likely fate of the universe, the relevant evidence, and the uncertainties in the prediction.
50. ET. Describe and justify the conditions surmised to be necessary for life. Identify where in the Solar system and beyond these conditions are expected to occur. Identify the observable signs a technological extraterrestrial society might produce. Describe human activities to detect and contact extraterrestrial life.
51. Coordinates. Identify and describe schemes for specifying locations in the sky. Includes the astronomical constellations and coordinate systems, including altazimuth, equatorial, ecliptic, galactic, and ICRS.
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Revised: 12 March 2025. Maintained by Richard Barrans.
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