Web+Links+for+Astronomy+110

Web Links for Astro 110 (Solar System Astronomy)

Excellent General Astronomy Websites:
Astronomy magazine Sky & Telescope Magazine Phil Plait's "Bad Astronomy" pages about all the stuff the rest of the world tends to get wrong. NASA's Solar System Pages CalTech's Cool Cosmos, The Khan Academy has more Astronomy videos. Excellent stuff. Be sure to check it out!

The Universe is Big!

 * The scale of astronomical studies Prof. Rieke's U of Arizona website on the scale of the Universe.
 * Powers of Ten (video) A classic movie...amazing for its time, and still great!
 * Understanding the metric system (video) An elementary school take on the metric system.
 * Think Metric! Great site.
 * Figuring out significant figures in computational questions is, well, SIGNIFICANT!
 * Scientific notation is also notable!

What is Science?

 * Bruce Railsback’s take of “science” A professor of Geology at the University of Georgia, he has written a wonderful introduction to the subject.
 * Bad Astronomy Phil Plait's astronomy pages of many common misconceptions concerning astronomy related subjects.
 * Horoscope vs telescopes A excellent article that explains the non-scientific nature of astrology.
 * Creationism vs. science A wonderful article detailing why intelligent design is not a "science."
 * The Scientific Method
 * Just for fun: What does a scientist look like?
 * Huffington Post Op Ed: Why America's Darwin Problem is a Science Problem

**Overview of the Solar System**

 * [|From the good folks at "nineplanets"] (unfortunate name though...given it's inaccuracy since 2006)
 * The wikipedia page on the [|Solar System] has some good basic information.
 * Definition and list of planets in our solar system, and how those lists have been added to and subtracted from, over time.
 * Definition of Ephemeris & the related table of elongation values and distances from the Earth to a particular planet.
 * Table of planetary information compiled by the nice Windows to the Universe people.

__Archeoastronomy__:
 * Historic Views of the Solar System**
 * Wikipedia's list of archeoastronomical sites. You should verify, using another source, that these sites do in fact have some astronomical significance though.
 * Astronomy in culture.
 * Stonehenge is a famous circle of standing stones in southwest England (this is a commercial site, mind, so keep that in mind as you navigate through it).
 * El Castillo in Chichen Itza is wonderfully impressive!
 * The great pyramids are lovely also, and have some astronomical significance, as my old prof, Dr. Fernie, explains.

__Greek Astronomers__:
 * [|Wikipedia on Greek Astronomy]
 * [|How the Greeks Used Geometry] to Understand Astronomy
 * [|Aristarchus of Samos], the heliocentric-believing Greek.
 * [|The Universe of Aristotle and Ptolemy]
 * A nice page explaining the "The Universe of Aristotle and Ptolemy."

__Renaissance Astronomers__:
 * [|Nicolaus Copernicus (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)]
 * [|Tycho Brahe], the dude with the fake nose.
 * [|Johannes Kepler] A brilliant mathematician.
 * __Everything is in motion (Keplerian model)__:
 * Kepler's three laws of planetary motion a technical explanation, for teachers, from NASA.
 * Kepler's Second Law of Planetary Motion (keep in mind that this applet takes a long time to load.)
 * [|Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion]
 * [|Kepler's Laws of planetary motion, with Interactive Tools]
 * [|Video: Carl Sagan Explain's Kepler's Laws]
 * [|Gallileo Galilei], the "first, real scientist."
 * [|Gallileo & The Inquisition] A short YouTube video.
 * [|Sir Issac Newton], all round amazing guy.
 * __Everything is in motion (Newtonian mechanics and Newtonian Gravity)__:
 * Newton's three laws of motion (sort of juvenile, but fun nonetheless.)
 * Newton's three laws of motion (the slightly more grown up version.)
 * Newton's Third law of Motion: Astronauts in Outer Space YouTube video. Who knew?!
 * Newton's laws of motion, using LEGO (excellent YouTube, stop motion video, by a grade nine student. This is the one that was shown in class.)
 * Wikipedia's pages about Newtonian gravity (The first part is great. Then it tends to get very detailed and above the level required for this course. However, it's a good read for those of you who like a Challenge.)
 * About.com's pages on Newton and gravity.
 * Here is a VERY cool gravity simulator by the folks at the Polish-Canadian Kourier newspaper! (No, I didn't find this, one of my students did!)

__Astronomy of the Indigenous Peoples of the World__:
 * Andrew Fraknoi's resource guide of the astronomy of non-western cultures has lots of references to books and non-internet sites, but also has a number of links to very interesting websites.
 * Australian Aboriginal Astronomy
 * Inuit Astronomy
 * Astronomy of the Ojibway and Cree (as told by a Pasadena resident of all people!)

__Planetary Motion__:
 * [|Apparent Motions of the Planets]
 * [|Planetary Motions]
 * [|Retrograde Motions of Mars]

Formation of the Solar System:

 * A nifty YouTube video about the Formation of the Solar System.
 * A possible sequence of events for the formation of the Solar System.
 * Wikipedia's Formation and Evolution of the Solar System page.
 * A graphic lecture on the formation of the solar system.
 * MinutePhysics's three minute [|video] explaining why the solar system is disk shaped.
 * The Universe (History Channel show), season 6, episode 3: How the Solar System was Made.
 * Gravity makes this all possible...
 * Wikipedia's pages about Newtonian gravity (The first part is great. Then it tends to get very detailed and above the level required for this course. However, it's a good read for those of you who like a Challenge.)
 * About.com's pages on Newton and gravity.
 * Here is a VERY cool gravity simulator by the folks at the Polish-Canadian Kourier newspaper! (No, I didn't find this, one of my students did!)

**How Observations are Made (light, telescopes & Observatories)**
__Light__: __Telescopes and Observatories__: __Atmospheric Seeing__: __Adaptive Optics__ (For the curious among you...you will not be tested on this cool stuff):
 * About.com's pages on photons.
 * An interesting article on the history and how light "works" from the HowStuffWorks.com pages.
 * Electromagnetic radiation as told by the excellent pages at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. Follow the links around these pages to learn a lot!
 * The next two links are for those of you who want a little more information about the production of electromagnetic radiation, by electrons transitions within an atom. You won't be tested on this material, but it's really interesting stuff!
 * A really nice series of webpages covering the basics of atomic structure and electron orbitals.
 * Animation of photon production from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Astronomy pages
 * Simple lenses and mirrors**Scroll to the applet second to the bottom**...it is an excellent tool to help you understand how different types of lenses refract light differently and how different types of mirrors reflect light differently. (Telescopes use mirrors and lenses to gather and focus the light from distant objects.)
 * Lenses and mirrors Why go to UCLA when they post such wonderful stuff online?
 * How Does a Telescope Work? by YesMag. A great introduction.
 * Wikipedia's telescope pages.
 * How spherical mirrors & parabolic mirrors reflect light (youTube video).
 * How spectrographs work: an introduction and a more advanced description.
 * Telescopes are housed in Observatories.
 * The Seeing Observations Database is a good place to start to understand the effects of the atmosphere on astronomical observations.
 * A simple-ish introduction.
 * The wikipedia page is very detailed, and more complicated than you'll need, but it's got good stuff: Adaptive Optics.

The Sun
__The Sun & Thermonuclear Fusion__:
 * The Sun today: spaceweather.com
 * Convection, as seen in the photosphere.
 * "The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent" A very corny, 1950s song...one that will stick in your brain.
 * Wikipedia's pages on the Sun Again, more then you'll ever need to know, but if you have a Sun question, likely the answer is here!
 * An excellent, in depth introduction to The Sun from the Astrophysics Group at the Imperial College of London.
 * The Sun from NinePlanets.org (a bit out of date, that website, isn't it?!)
 * The Sun from AstronomyToday.com
 * The Sun from UniverseToday.com
 * Thermonuclear Fusion, the Sun's energy source, as explained by the folks at the University of Oregon.
 * Thermonuclear Fusion, thermo (hot), nuclear (not "nucular") & fusion (joining) see these atoms join!

Lectures #11 & #12: The Earth & The Moon
__Planet Wide Phenomena__:
 * Cratering: Wikipedia's page has some fascinating history about our understanding of craters. Lots of pretty ones can be seen here. The interactive map with craters that I showed in class is also really cool.
 * __Greenhouse Effect__: Visible light from the Sun in through the Earth's atmosphere heats up the land and the resulting infrared radiation cannot escape because of the "greenhouse" gases (eg. CO_2) in the atmosphere. Best told with the help of images.
 * __Magnetic Fields__: The dynamo effect is the theory that seeks to explain how planet wide magnetic fields form.

__ The Earth __ :
 * The Khan Academy has reorganized and all the Earth Science stuff is located in one spot. Check the videos out, they're great!
 * Cross sectional images of the interior of the Earth are very informative, especially those that show how the seismic waves propagate through the Earth.
 * Heat release from the core drives both plate tectonics (see above section) and the dynamo that produces the magnetic field.
 * Plate Tectonics: The Earth's crust is divided into plates that move on the convecting mantle.
 * The atmosphere acts as a shield for the Earth, absorbing types of radiation that would be harmful to animals (notice the numbers are a bit different from those I gave in class...I've checked, different websites show slightly different concentrations. So "approximately," is a good way to describe how much nitrogen is in the atmosphere, for example.)
 * The Oceans can absorb CO_2 in a complicated, but fascinating way. Our oceans have evolved over the eons, and a brief summary is followed by more details about the (questionable) extra-terrestrial origins of water.

__Diurnal Motion (result of the Earth's rotation)__:
 * A nice explanation from of diurnal motion can be found as this australian site.
 * Wikipedia's take on diurnal motion.
 * Optional but cool: [|Stellarium a free downloadable Planetarium]
 * [|Diurnal (Daily) Motion overview]
 * Video:[|The Sky in Motion]
 * A cool simulator for the apparent motion of the Sun.

__Solar Motion (results of the Earth's revolution)__:
 * An interesting Chinese website (in English) that discusses Earth's motion, and how that affects what we see form Earth.

__Seasons (results of the Earth's revolution and the tilt of the obliquity of the ecliptic)__:
 * There are many good links that explain the reasons for the seasons. You can find some of them here, here and here (keep in mind this last one was written in June)!
 * Images to help you understand the two primary reasons for the seasons can be found all over the internet, by a simple google search.
 * ScienceNetLinks has a page explaining some of the common misconceptions about the seasons.
 * A somewhat repetitive video explaining the causes of the seasons.
 * ScienceU's link on seasons...a lovely way of explaining away the misconceptions.

__The Moon__:
 * Moon rocks were brought back to Earth by the Apollo astronauts. These rocks are similar to Earth rocks (especially the isotopic ratios of oxygen) though are "dried out" (non-hydrated). They are rare, which naturally has led some less than sterling individuals to hatch all sorts of nefarious plans. (Lesson = don't mess with NASA!)
 * Moon phases, as explained for kids
 * The Large Impact hypothesis (shown here & here in these videos) is the leading theory to explain the formation of the Moon, and it's compositional similarity to Earth. A summary can be found here. And, in the news, that "Mars-sized impactor" is now named! It's called (or it was, since it was destroyed 4.5 Gyr ago!) Theia.
 * A cool space.com video is shown here...it shows how the Moon has changed over time, and has high resolution imagery from the LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter).

__Lunar Motion__:
 * A nice animation for the Moon phases can be found at McGraw-Hill's website, as well as explanations and exercises to help further your understanding of when and where you can see different phases.
 * [|Explanation of Lunar Phases]
 * [|Moon Phase Simulator]
 * There are many (confusing) images that show the different phases of the Moon.
 * StarDate shows the current month's Moon phases.
 * WHY we see the Moon go through its phases, as told by the folks at UNC, MoonConnection,
 * the UniverseToday andHowStuffWorks.
 * You also might be interested in the fact the only one side of the Moon faces the Earth, due to tidal locking.
 * Also, ever notice that the full Moon looks bigger when it is near the horizon? Well, surprise, it actually doesn't. That's an optical illusion.
 * Yes, the Moon does look orange/red/yellow at the horizon. That's because of the way the ... well, just read this!

__Eclipses__:
 * [|Eclipses described in Wikipedia]
 * [|NASA's Eclipse Site]

Lecture #13: Mercury

 * MESSENGER's website at NASA gas a lot of great images and information about Mercury.
 * Wikipedia's Mercury pages are also a treasure trove of information

Lecture #14: Venus

 * Latest and greatest data on Venus is available at the ESA's Venus Express website.
 * And as usual, wikipedia's Venus site is filled with fascinating stuff too, as is Solarsystem.NASA.gov!

Lecture #15: Mars

 * Naturally, wikipedia's Mars pages are extensive.
 * Sedimentary rock on Mars was initial evidence of flowing water.
 * Mars is small. It has cooled. It used to have a magnetic field, but that was lost when it cooled. Mars lost its atmosphere likely as a result of the loss of it's magnetic field which allowed the sputtering (see linked article) to occur. With no atmosphere (or ozone), the UV radiation (237nm or 123nm, depending on reaction) dissociated the water molecules on Mars surface. The oxygen reacted with the iron in the crustal rock and the hydrogen was lost to space.

Lecture #16: The Objects of the Asteroid Belt

 * Scott Manley's video of asteroid discovery that I showed in class.
 * Near Earth Objects (NEOs) as told by NASA.
 * Meteorite studies are fascination and tell us about the solar nebula.
 * The IAU's Minor Planet Center lists all the known NEO, comets, other "minor planets" and small irregular moons of the major planets that have been discovered to date. A neat website to visit!

Lecture #17: Jupiter & its Moons

 * NASA has great pages on all the planets and moons: Jupiter is linked here, as are its 76 moons (17 "provisional" - including 2 discovered in 2011 by a Carnegie Astronomer using the Magellan telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile!)
 * Of course, wikipedia has a decent Jupiter page too.
 * Europa is the Galilean moon to watch though...life or no life? Only time (and expensive explorations) will tell!
 * Ganymede is the largest moon of Jupiter though...one that has its own magnetic field!

Lecture #18: Saturn & its Moons

 * NASA's Saturn page is great. You can learn all about its fabulous rings, and 62 moons (including those "provisional ones") from various websites: wikipedia, the Cassini Mission's pages, space.com & National Geographic.
 * The more interesting moons of Saturn are Titan (the largest) Iapetus (with the greatest discrepancy of albedo), Enceladus (showing ice volcanism) and Mimas (the "death star" moon).

Lecture #19: Uranus, Neptune & their Moons
__Uranus__:
 * The web, including NASA, has all sorts of pages on Uranus and information about its 27 moons (Titania included) as well as details about its odd magnetic field (including images).

__Neptune__:
 * Ah Neptune, that last, lonely planet. It's about 30 A.U. from the Sun, where it's really cold and dark.
 * Neptune has 14 known moons, including Triton (ice volcanism) and Nereid (very elliptical orbit).

Lecture #20: Small Solar System Bodies, far from the Sun.
__Pluto and the dwarf planets__:
 * Ahhhh, Pluto!! Poor-not-alive-Pluto-that-doesn't-care-how-we-classify-it! Read all about the reclassification of Pluto by the IAU on August 24th, 2006. The official definition of a planet is now set, though some argue that it is vague.
 * As always, NASA has great pages on the solar system objects, including Pluto (it's five moons) and the other dwarf planets.
 * Wikipedia also has good pages on these smaller objects, as does the web in general.

__Kuiper Belt Objects and Trans-Neptunian Objects__:
 * A Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) is an object that orbits the Sun (and is named after Gerard Kuiper), roughly co-planar with the ecliptic and with an A between 33 & 55 A.U. There are likely thousands, if not millions of them, but they are far away, and better, bigger scopes are likely needed to be able to image them.
 * Wikipedia's page on KBO is pretty comprehensive, as are Prof. Mike Brown's (CalTech) pages.

__Oort Cloud Objects__:
 * The Oort cloud, like the Kuiper Belt, is a region of space far from the Sun through which small, icy bodies move. This region is named after Jan Oort...what an awesome name, eh?!) These bodies orbit the Sun, but with an A > 55 A.U. (up to tens of thousands of A.U.).

Lecture #21: Other Planetary Systems.

 * As of 22 June 2015, exoplanet.eu has confirmed 1932 extra solar planets. These are planets orbiting other stars. There are 1222 planetary systems out there, so clearly some of those stars have more than one planet. Well, the Sun certainly does, but it isn't the record holder...HD 10180 is with seven confirmed and other two suspected planets.
 * The most recently discovered "Earth like" planet, [|Kepler-186f], is described [|here].
 * There are various telescopes dedicated to exoplanets, including the (now defunct) Kepler mission, JWST, TESS and will detect those exoplanets by a variety of methods.