Confronting The Big Questions: Highlights of Modern Astronomy

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Confronting The Big Questions: Highlights of Modern Astronomy

Instructor: Adam Frank

26,570 already enrolled

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4 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

501 reviews

Beginner level

No prior experience required

Flexible schedule

1 week at 10 hours a week

Learn at your own pace

4 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

501 reviews

Beginner level

No prior experience required

Flexible schedule

1 week at 10 hours a week

Learn at your own pace

What you'll learn

Students will be able to summarize foundational principles related to the life of planets, stars, galaxies, and the universe.

Skills you'll gain

Details to know

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Assessments

4 assignments

Taught in English

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There are 4 modules in this course

An introduction to modern astronomy's most important questions. The four sections of the course are Planets and Life in The Universe; The Life of Stars; Galaxies and Their Environments; The History of The Universe.

Planets and Life in The Universe - Exoplanets searches, exoplanet census, astrobiology

What's included

20 videos8 readings1 assignment

20 videosTotal 132 minutes

Introduction8 minutes
Scientific Notation5 minutes
Our Place in the Cosmos6 minutes
Comparative Planetology5 minutes
Terrestrial Planets10 minutes
Giant Planets10 minutes
Gas Vs Ice Giants6 minutes
Construction Debris9 minutes
Exoplanets7 minutes
Understanding Ellipses3 minutes
Radial Velocities and the Doppler Shift4 minutes
Transiting Planets3 minutes
The Habitable Zone8 minutes
What Exoplanets Have Taught Us8 minutes
Condensation Theory7 minutes
Planet Formation6 minutes
Basic Chemistry3 minutes
DNA and RNA6 minutes
Appearance of Life9 minutes
Are We Alone?9 minutes

8 readingsTotal 80 minutes

General Overview10 minutes
Grading and Logistics10 minutes
Syllabus10 minutes
About the Professor10 minutes
About the Teaching Assistant10 minutes
Optional Readings10 minutes
Exercises and Activities10 minutes
Lecture Notes10 minutes

1 assignmentTotal 30 minutes

Week 1 Quiz30 minutes

The Life of Stars - Star formation, fusion and stellar middle age, black holes and stellar death-

What's included

19 videos1 assignment

19 videosTotal 127 minutes

Stars - Introduction6 minutes
Nuclear Fusion10 minutes
The Nature of Light9 minutes
Quantum Physics9 minutes
Measuring Stars11 minutes
Forming a Protostar7 minutes
Brown Dwarfs And Very Low Mass Stars8 minutes
The Structure of a G2 Main Sequence Star5 minutes
Solar Magnetic Features8 minutes
Red Giants and Planetary Nebulae8 minutes
White Dwarfs3 minutes
Supernovas and Neutron Stars7 minutes
Frames of Reference3 minutes
Special Relativity7 minutes
General Relativity6 minutes
Escape Velocity3 minutes
Black Holes7 minutes
Journey into a Black Hole7 minutes
Answering the Question4 minutes

1 assignmentTotal 30 minutes

Week 2 Quiz30 minutes

Galaxies and Their Environments - Galaxy types, Active Galactic Nuclei, Clusters of Clusters of Galaxies

What's included

17 videos1 assignment

17 videosTotal 89 minutes

Galaxies Introduction4 minutes
Interstellar Medium7 minutes
Galactic Distances3 minutes
Climbing the Cosmic Distance Ladder5 minutes
Type Ia Supernovae4 minutes
Metallicity4 minutes
The Milky Way5 minutes
The Galactic Disk6 minutes
The Stellar Halo and the Bulgy Bar6 minutes
The Galactic Center6 minutes
Galactic Zoology7 minutes
Introduction to Dark Matter4 minutes
Types of Active Galactic Nuclei5 minutes
Unified Model for AGN6 minutes
Galaxy Groups and Clusters6 minutes
Superclusters7 minutes
Answering the Question4 minutes

1 assignmentTotal 50 minutes

Week 3 Quiz50 minutes

The History of The Universe - Why the Big Bang? A History of Time, What Happened Before the Big Bang

What's included

15 videos1 assignment

15 videosTotal 86 minutes

Introduction3 minutes
Hubble’s Law and the Big Bang6 minutes
Space-Time and Quantum Fields5 minutes
The Standard Model of Particle Physics10 minutes
Dark Matter5 minutes
In the Beginning4 minutes
Phase Transitions in the Early Universe4 minutes
BBN and Recombination8 minutes
Observational Evidence5 minutes
The Beginning of Large Scale Structure6 minutes
The Era of Quasars5 minutes
Dark Energy and Cosmic Destiny7 minutes
The Multiverse5 minutes
Recap-History of the Cosmos5 minutes
Answering the Question7 minutes

1 assignmentTotal 30 minutes

Week 4 Quiz30 minutes

Instructor

Instructor ratings

(89 ratings)

Adam Frank

University of Rochester

1 Course26,569 learners

Offered by

University of Rochester

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Reviewed on Apr 20, 2020

I like this course very much. Special about this course was the Mr. Adam Frank, his skills of teaching are one of the best in the world. Thank you for this.

Reviewed on Aug 7, 2017

Outstanding. Nuanced, yet accessible. Love the professor's infectious passion about the subject, and also his rather lovely choice of words at times!

Reviewed on May 2, 2024

More explaination can be provided in the quiz feedback. The simulator on stellar evolution is not working hence the quiz questions related to it should be updated

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