Survey of Astronomy (ASTR 1050) Standards

1.  Cycles: Describe and explain how the sky changes throughout the day, month, and year. 

2.  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.

3.  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.

4.  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. 

5.  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?

6.  Heliocentric: Explain evidence supporting the heliocentric model of the Sun and planets.  Includes Occam's principle, the scale of the heavens, Kepler's laws, and Newton’s gravitational formula.  Also includes understanding why the geocentric model was reasonable to the Ancients.

7.  Signals: Identify and describe the different categories of signals that Earthbound observers receive from space. 

8.  EM Spectrum: Relate the energy of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength and frequency, and order the spectral regions. 

9.  Black body: Describe the characteristics of black body radiation and what conditions affect it. 

10.  Mirror v. Lens: Compare and evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of refracting and reflecting telescopes. 

11.  Seeing: Identify and explain the observational challenges with different bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. 

12.  Kirchhoff: 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 rom the detector.  Kirchhoff's spectroscopy rules; Doppler effect.

13.  Jeans: Explain what a Jeans instability is, what triggers one, and how one evolves. 

14.  SSO: Identify and describe the principal categories of Solar System objects. 

15.  Earth: Describe at least five ways in which Earth differs from other rocky planets. 

16.  Earth and Moon: Describe and explain the interaction of Earth with the Moon’s orbit. 

17.  Moon's surface: Describe major features of the Moon’s surface. 

18.  Impact: Identify and explain evidence for the Giant Impact hypothesis of the Moon’s formation. 

19.  Mercury: Identify the unique aspects of Mercury’s composition 

20.  Venus's Atmosphere: Describe the composition and effects of Venus’s atmosphere. 

21.  Venus's surface: Describe the composition and characteristics of Venus’s surface. 

22.  Mars's water: Identify evidence that Mars once contained abundant surface water. 

23.  Gas giants: Describe Jupiter’s and Saturn’s composition ands internal structure, atmosphere, and weather.  Includes their magnetic fields and unique characteristics .

24.  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.

25.  Life: Identify and describe the primary locations to search for life in the Solar system. 

26.  Ice giants: Describe, compare, anad contrast the composition, structure, orbital features, and dynamic processes of Uranus and Neptune. 

27.  SSSBs: Describe, compare, and contrast the composition, properties, orbits, and behaviors of dwarf planets, comets, and asteroids. 

28.  Meteorites: Categorize meteorites, describe their features, and explain what they teach us about the Earth and Solar system. 

29.  Sun: Describe the structure, composition, features, and processes of the different layers of the Sun’s interior, surface, and atmosphere, and their interactions. 

30.  Star structure: Describe the interior processes maintaining structure and size of the Sun and other stars. 

31.  Parallax: Explain and apply the method of ascertaining stellar distances by annual parallax. 

32.  Magnitude: Describe, explain, and apply the stellar magnitude scale. Distinguish and relate absolute and apparent magnitude scales. 

33.  Spectral class: Describe the stellar spectral classes, their sub-classes, and luminosity classes. 

34.  H-R: Describe the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram and related plots.  Identify features and properties of stars categorized by their positions therein. 

35.  Star birth: Describe the formation of stars from their origin in a nebula until they exhaust core hydrogen. 

36.  Fade:   Describe and explain what happens to low-mass (< 8 M_⊙) stars after they consume their core hydrogen.

37.  Collapse: Describe and explain what happens to high-mass stars after they consume their core hydrogen.  

38.  Remnants: Describe and explain processes involving stellar remnants, such as pulsars, magnetars, novae, type 1a supernovae, and x-ray bursters. 

39.  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.

40.  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.

41.  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.

42.  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.

43.  Bang: Identify the evidence for cosmic expansion and inflation.  Describe the history and possible fates 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.

44.  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.