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ASTR 1020
Stellar and Galactic Astronomy

Study Guide: Final

The student should be able to know and understand the following things:

• Scientific Method

  • The definition and purpose of science.

  • The characteristics of a good experiment and it's role in the scientific method.

  • The role of serendipity in the scientific method.

• Spectra

  • The three types of Spectra observed and what physical conditions form them.

  • What a Blackbody Radiation Curve is.

  • How Emission and Absorption Lines are created using the Bohr Model of the atom.

  • What physical information can be gained from studying spectra and how (Doppler Effect).

• Light

  • The electromagnetic spectrum.

  • The blackbody radiation curve.

  • Stephan's Law relating energy output and temperature.

  • The inverse square law of light intensity and distance.

• Optics and Telescopes

  • The laws of reflection and refraction

  • How magnification is computed

  • How refracting and reflecting telescopes are built

  • Why a bigger objective lens or mirror is better

  • Why astronomers look in different wavelengths

  • What wavelengths our atmosphere is transparent and opaque to.

• Gravitation

  • Kepler's Three Laws of Motion

  • Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation

  • Why the Moon orbits the Earth.

  • What factors will effect the gravitational force between two objects

• The Sun

  • The structure of the Sun's interior and atmosphere

  • How the Sun's light is produced/The Proton-Proton Chain

  • What are sunspots and how are they produced/Babcock Magnetic Dynamo model?

  • The Neutrino Problem

• Stellar Measurement

  • How we define the meter and use it to define the AU.

  • What parallax is and how it is measured for stars.

  • How luminosity be determined from apparent magnitude and distance measurements.

  • How mass can be determined from binary star motions and Kepler's Third Law.

  • What the Mass-Luminosity relationship is and what it looks like when it's plotted.

  • What spectral classes are (OBAFGKM) and how they are determined.

  • The relationship between spectral class, color and temperature for a star.

  • What the HR Diagram is and how it is plotted.

• Interstellar Medium (ISM)

  • What the ISM is made of. 

  • What states the hydrogen gas is found in.

  • What a giant molecular cloud is.

  • How we observe hydrogen in its various states.

• Stellar Evolution

  • How stars are formed.

  • The role of velocity fields in star formation.

  • When a star becomes a star.

  • A low mass star's path on the HR Diagram from birth to death.

  • Why a star becomes a Red Giant.

  • What a Helium Flash is.

  • What the different types of supernovae are and why they occur.

  • How stars die.

  • The end products of a star of less than 4 solar masses, a star of 4-9 solar masses and a star of greater than 9 solar masses.

• The Milky Way Galaxy

  • Describe and draw its structure and components, including: The disk, the bar, the nuclear bulge, the halo.

  • List and describe the two types of stellar populations that make up our galaxy.

  • Describe our position in our Galaxy and how it was determined by Harlow Shapley.

  • What the Dark Matter problem is and what the two major candidates for Dark Matter are.

• Galaxies

  • List and describe the four types of galaxies including: stellar populations, shape and morphology, composition. 

  • Know the different type of active galaxies and how astronomers tell them apart.

  • Describe how Hubble determined the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy.

  • Know the three criteria for a good standard candle.

  • List and describe 5 commonly used standard candles.

  • Know Hubble's Law and what it tells us.

  • What the large scale distribution of galaxies is throughout the universe.

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Revised: July 17, 2006