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General Information

Course ID (CB01A and CB01B)
ASTRD010.
Course Title (CB02)
Stellar Astronomy
Course Credit Status
Credit - Degree Applicable
Effective Term
Fall 2023
Course Description
This course analyzes the physical principles, logic, and development of stellar astronomy from ancient times to the present, with an emphasis on recent developments. The relationship of Earth to its deep-space environment and contrast the Sun to other types of stars will be examined. The organization in space and time of the hierarchy of the cosmos from stellar systems through the universe on its largest observable scale, and investigate the observational strategies and equipment that are used to investigate it will be synthesized.
Faculty Requirements
Course Family
Not Applicable

Course Justification

This course meets a general education requirement for °®¶¹´«Ã½, CSU GE, and IGETC, and it meets the °®¶¹´«Ã½ Liberal Arts Degree requirement. It is an introduction to the content and structure of stellar systems and the universe at large, the physical processes that have led to our cosmic (large-scale) environment, and their study by means of the scientific method.

Foothill Equivalency

Does the course have a Foothill equivalent?
Yes
Foothill Course ID
ASTR F010B

Course Philosophy

Formerly Statement

Course Development Options

Basic Skill Status (CB08)
Course is not a basic skills course.
Grade Options
  • Letter Grade
  • Pass/No Pass
Repeat Limit
0

Transferability & Gen. Ed. Options

Transferability
Transferable to both UC and CSU
°®¶¹´«Ã½ GEArea(s)StatusDetails
2GBX°®¶¹´«Ã½ GE Area B - Natural SciencesApproved
CSU GEArea(s)StatusDetails
CGB1CSU GE Area B1 - Physical ScienceApproved
IGETCArea(s)StatusDetails
IG5AIGETC Area 5A - Physical ScienceApproved

Units and Hours

Summary

Minimum Credit Units
5.0
Maximum Credit Units
5.0

Weekly Student Hours

TypeIn ClassOut of Class
Lecture Hours5.010.0
Laboratory Hours0.00.0

Course Student Hours

Course Duration (Weeks)
12.0
Hours per unit divisor
36.0
Course In-Class (Contact) Hours
Lecture
60.0
Laboratory
0.0
Total
60.0
Course Out-of-Class Hours
Lecture
120.0
Laboratory
0.0
NA
0.0
Total
120.0

Prerequisite(s)

Corequisite(s)

Advisory(ies)

EWRT D001A or EWRT D01AH or ESL D005.

Limitation(s) on Enrollment

Entrance Skill(s)

General Course Statement(s)

(See general education pages for the requirements this course meets.)

Methods of Instruction

Lecture and visual aids

Planetarium demonstrations

Quiz and examination review performed in class

Discussion of assigned reading

Assignments

  1. At least two one-hour exams with written and objective questions, which require short essay answers, problem-solving, and interpretive skills.
  2. Two-hour comprehensive final exam.
  3. Individual or group presentation that analyzes a historical astronomical perspective of another culture, such as the Native American, Mayan, Chinese, or Egyptian. Such an analysis must discuss the effect on the daily lives of the peoples involved. Identify and discuss contemporary practical applications, if any.
  4. Assemble and evaluate a file consisting of ten articles from reputable scientific journals, newspapers, and astronomical websites on differing topics of importance in stellar astronomy (new data from space-based observatories or new, large ground-based instruments, for example). Include a synopsis of each article or web resource. Include the date and source of each article or web resource, relate it to topics covered in this course, and evaluate the importance of this information to you -- for example, will it change your views on government funding of science projects?
  5. Collaborative in-class problem-solving exercises, such as the `lecture-tutorial' and `think-pair-share' questions that have been developed and promulgated by the community of astronomy education researchers

Methods of Evaluation

  1. Student responses on one-hour exams will be evaluated by comparison to grading rubrics.
  2. Student responses on two-hour comprehensive final exam will be evaluated by comparison to grading rubrics.
  3. Individual or group presentation that analyzes a historical astronomical perspective of another culture will be evaluated for clarity, accuracy, and correctness of identification of the place of that culture’s perspective in the global development of astronomical ideas.
  4. Students’ synopses of items in file consisting of ten articles from scientific journals, newspapers, and websites on topics of importance in stellar astronomy will be evaluated for clarity, accuracy, and their relevance to topics covered in the course.
  5. Student answers to collaborative in-class questions will be collected by means of anonymous student-response systems like `clickers' and `plickers', evaluated for accuracy by comparison to grading rubrics, and used as the basis for in-class discussions during and immediately following the problem-solving sessions.

Essential Student Materials/Essential College Facilities

Essential Student Materials: 
  • None.
Essential College Facilities:
  • Access to the planetarium

Examples of Primary Texts and References

AuthorTitlePublisherDate/EditionISBN
Fraknoi, A., Morrison, D., and Wolff, S.C. (2019) "Astronomy", freely available at https://openstax.org/details/books/astronomy, ISBN-13 1938168284.

Examples of Supporting Texts and References

AuthorTitlePublisher
The University of California Observatories website for Lick Observatory in California and the Keck Observatories on Mauna Kea, Hawaii: http://www.ucolick.org
The European Southern Observatory in Chile is operated by the ESO Consortium of eleven European nations, headquartered in Garching, Germany: http://www.eso.org
All of the observatories atop Mauna Kea, the consensus optimum site for groundbased astronomy, are introduced at http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/mko/
Achievements of astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope are related and archived at http://www.hubblesite.org
Alic, M., Hypatia's Revenge (The Woman's Press: London, 1986): a history of women in science from antiquity to the late nineteenth century.
Ferris, Timothy, Coming of Age in the Milky Way (Morrow: New York, 1988): shows how human ideas of cosmology evolved as we learned more about the cosmos. See especially "Newton's Reach," pp. 103-122.
Gingerich, O. (ed.), The Nature of Scientific Discovery (Smithsonian Institute Press: Washington, 1975): a symposium commemorating the 500th anniversary of Copernicus' birth, with papers and discussions on the Copernican revolution, the interplay of art and science, and the nature of scientific knowledge.
Hadingham, E., Early Man and the Cosmos (Walker and Company, 1984): account of early astronomy from an archaeologist's perspective. Particularly good discussion of the cultural context for astronomy.
Sky & Telescope, website: http://skyandtelescope.com/
Scientific American, website: http://www.scientificamerican.com/
Astronomy, website: http://www.astronomy.com
Mercury, The Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, website: http://www.astrosociety.org
Women in Astronomy: An Introductory Resource Guide, a very large website about women's contributions to astronomy, historical and current, maintained by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific: http://www.astrosociety.org/education/astronomy-resource-guides/women-in-astronomy-an-introductory-resource-guide/
Audio-visual and pre-recorded planetarium programs in the Fujitsu Planetarium's collection, DeAnza College.
Debunking astronomical misconceptions such as the "Moon hoax" and egg-balancing at the vernal equinox: Astronomer Phil Plait's "Bad Astronomy" website, http://www.badastronomy.com/index.html

Learning Outcomes and Objectives

Course Objectives

  • Describe the development of astronomy as a discipline, including the place of early cultures' worldviews in that development.
  • Describe motions of the sky, identify which of these have been useful in our discovery of the scale of the universe, and compare distances to various stars based on their parallax motions.
  • Identify the constituent parts of atoms and explain why nuclei of some were formed in stars.
  • Use an understanding of how electromagnetic radiation is produced to demonstrate how stars' basic physical characteristics are measured.
  • Appraise the applicability of various observational equipment and strategies to the investigation of different astronomical phenomena.
  • Classify stars on the basis of their physical characteristics to identify common stellar properties.
  • Use the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram to compare and contrast stars' individual characteristics and to infer that those characteristics change over time.
  • Differentiate between the ultimate fates of stars with different masses.
  • Classify galaxies according to their morphology, appraise various methods for estimating their distances, and explain their relationship to other large-scale, deep-space phenomena.
  • Compare and contrast current theories of the origin and future of the observable universe (cosmological models) and identify measurable phenomena that can be used to test those models.

CSLOs

  • Appraise the benefits to society of astronomical research concerning stars and stellar systems.

  • Evaluate the impact on Earth's characteristics of the evolution of stars and stellar systems.

  • Evaluate astronomical news items or theories about stellar astronomy based upon the scientific method.

Outline

  1. Describe the development of astronomy as a discipline, including the place of early cultures' worldviews in that development.
    1. Compare and contrast practical applications of astronomy in early cultures, including at least three from:
      1. Native American calendar development
      2. Polynesian navigation
      3. Chinese timekeeping and observatories
      4. Large calendrical structures: Anasazi, Stonehenge, Angkor Wat
      5. Other, such as Babylonian celestial measurement and record keeping, and 13th and 15th century astronomical observatories in Persia and Uzbekistan.
    2. Evaluate and interpret theories about and measurement of the "moving stars" in selected early cultures, including Greek and African advances to 1500 AD.
    3. Examine the influence of the European Renaissance and the Copernican Revolution on the development of physical science in general and astronomy in particular.
    4. Identify our position in the observable universe (i.e. state our "cosmic address.")
  2. Describe motions of the sky, identify which of these have been useful in our discovery of the scale of the universe, and compare distances to various stars based on their parallax motions.
    1. Examine the apparent motions of the sky.
    2. Identify prominent constellations in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
    3. Compare the size of our solar system to the distances to nearby stars.
    4. Examine and demonstrate how trigonometric parallax is used to determine distances to relatively nearby stars.
  3. Identify the constituent parts of atoms and explain why nuclei of some were formed in stars.
    1. Identify the fundamental particles of matter (include the Curies' work on radioactivity).
    2. Examine the relationship of stars to atoms (i.e. nucleosynthesis and stellar energy production.)
  4. Use an understanding of how electromagnetic radiation is produced to demonstrate how stars' basic physical characteristics are measured.
    1. Examine the sources of electromagnetic radiation and contrast their spectra.
    2. Compare and contrast the ways by which electromagnetic radiation is produced.
    3. Introduce Kirchhoff's Rules of Spectroscopic Analysis and use them to identify a variety of spectra.
    4. Apply our understanding of electromagnetic radiation, spectroscopy, and the Doppler effect to determine stars' motions, compositions, and temperatures.
  5. Appraise the applicability of various observational equipment and strategies to the investigation of different astronomical phenomena.
    1. Compare and contrast reflecting and refracting visible light telescopes.
    2. Introduce telescopes for "invisible light", i.e. those for use in the radio, microwave, infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray, and gamma ray regions of the spectrum.
    3. Identify optimum telescope-detector combinations for several different current research questions and for amateur recreational use.
    4. Evaluate the usefulness and current applications of space-based astronomical facilities.
  6. Classify stars on the basis of their physical characteristics to identify common stellar properties.
    1. Identify what sorts of stars are common or unusual, based on a survey of the nearest known stars.
    2. Investigate the properties of known planetary systems of nearby stars and evaluate the techniques whereby the existence of those systems are inferred.
    3. Evaluate the methods by which astronomers identify and classify nearby stars.
  7. Use the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram to compare and contrast stars' individual characteristics and to infer that those characteristics change over time.
    1. Assess the usefulness of the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram in surveying stars' physical characteristics and populations. (Include Annie Jump Cannon's pioneering contributions in stellar spectral classification.)
    2. Examine the usefulness of an understanding of variable and binary stars' characteristics in measuring distances to and masses of some stars. (Include Henrietta Leavitt's analysis of Cepheid variables and that work's later ramifications on our understanding of the nature of galaxies.)
    3. Evaluate the evidence for stellar evolution (ageing) that is provided by the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram.
  8. Differentiate between the ultimate fates of stars with different masses.
    1. Introduce numerical (computer) modeling of stellar ageing processes and compare their results to characteristics of the observed stellar population.
    2. Compare and contrast the endpoints of evolution of stars of various masses as computed by numerical models. Assess the role of observations of white dwarfs, supernovae, neutron stars, and black holes in refinement of those models.
  9. Classify galaxies according to their morphology, appraise various methods for estimating their distances, and explain their relationship to other large-scale, deep-space phenomena.
    1. Trace the development of our discovery that stars are grouped in galaxies. Compare and contrast various distance-estimation techniques for galaxies, including the pivotal role of Henrietta Leavitt's discovery of the period-luminosity relation for Cepheid variables and Hubble's application of that discovery to the Andromeda galaxy.
    2. Examine the observational strategies and interpretive techniques that led Margaret Geller and subsequent researchers to the "filaments and voids" model of the large-scale distribution of visible matter in the universe.
    3. Classify galaxies according to their structure; compare current classification schemes to the initial ones of Hubble and his contemporaries. Analyze the strengths, weaknesses, and uncertainties of physical interpretations of galaxies' morphologies.
    4. Examine peculiar galaxies' and quasars' observed characteristics. Critically evaluate current theories of the relationships among quasars, active galactic nuclei, and normal galaxies.
  10. Compare and contrast current theories of the origin and future of the observable universe (cosmological models) and identify measurable phenomena that can be used to test those models.
    1. Examine and evaluate the evidence that a "big bang" took place: the expansion of the universe and the cosmic background radiation.
    2. Enumerate and assess the assumptions that modern cosmologists make in the interpretation of that evidence, such as the cosmological principle and the doppler nature of galaxies' redshifts.
    3. Compare and contrast current theories of the future of the large-scale universe, including open and closed big bang models and the inflationary universe.
    4. Assess the evidence for "dark matter" and "dark energy" and evaluate their impact on current cosmological models.
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