Astronomy: Take-Away Points

Steven Dutch, Professor Emeritus, Natural and Applied Sciences, Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay

Some Basic Stuff You Have to Know

  1. Astronomy is Chemistry and Physics
  2. The Sun is a Star
  3. We Are Made of Star-Stuff
  4. What You Need to Learn in College: Facts, Relationships, Processes and Events
  5. In Science, Everything is Metric
  6. Scientific Notation
  7. Light Years
  8. Temperature
  9. Light is made up of waves
  10. Measuring in the Sky
  11. Telescopes
  12. All Telescopes Are Limited By The Wave Nature of Light

The Universe: Table of Contents

  1. Matter, The Forces of Nature, Atoms
  2. The Near Sky
  3. The Solar System
  4. Stars
  5. Dust and Gas Clouds
  6. Star Clusters
  7. Galaxies
  8. The Large Scale Universe

Finding Your Way In The Sky

  1. Star Brightness and The Magnitude Scale
  2. Names of the Stars
  3. Constellations
  4. Important Stars and Constellations
  5. Latitude and Longitude in the Sky
  6. The Ecliptic

How The Solar System Works

  1. Motions of the Earth: Rotation, the Seasons, Precession
  2.  Orbits and Kepler's Laws
  3. The Moon's Motions
  4. Close Encounters: Conjunctions, transits, eclipses
  5. Motions of the Planets
  6. Resonances
  7. Synodic Periods

How Planets Work

  1. Bulk Density
  2. Shape Why Are Planets Round? Equatorial Bulges
  3. Gravity and Atmospheres
  4. Oceans
  5. Defining elevation on planets
  6. Latitude and longitude on planets
  7. Names of planetary features
  8. What Is A Planet?

The Earth and Moon

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Venus and Mercury

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Mars

  1. Mars is about half the size of Earth
  2. Mars has a thin carbon dioxide atmosphere
  3. Mars has volcanoes and faults but no plate tectonics
  4. Mars had liquid water early in its history
  5. Evidence for life on Mars is debatable

The Gas Giants

  1. The Solar System is "Jupiter plus debris."
  2. The four large planets are mostly gas with rocky cores
  3. All the gas giant planets have rings
  4. All the gas giant planets are hot inside
  5. Planetary rings are made of swarms of orbiting particles
  6. Planetary rings are circular and in the plane of the equator

Minor Planets, Comets, and other Small Objects

  1. Small objects in the solar system are leftovers that never accreted into planets
  2. Minor planets mostly orbit between Mars and Jupiter
  3. Meteors and meteorites are pieces broken off larger bodies by collisions
  4. Occasionally comets or minor planets collide with larger objects like the earth
  5. Comets formed in the outer solar system and were flung outward by close encounters with other planets
  6. Comets can be trapped in the inner solar system by planetary encounters
  7. The head and tail of a comet glow from sunlight shining on gases evaporated from the comet

Our Star: The Sun

  1. The Sun is an ordinary middle-sized star
  2. The sun creates energy by nuclear fusion in its core
  3. The visible surface of the Sun is called the photosphere
  4. A thin cool layer, the chromosphere, allows us to determine what the sun is made of
  5. A very thin but very hot outer layer is called the corona
  6. Convection in the sun is revealed by granulation
  7. Features on the sun include sunspots, prominences, spicules and faculae
  8. Disturbances on the sun affect electrical and electronic equipment on Earth.

Other Stars

  1. Stars vary in brightness because of distance and actual differences in size
  2. With stars, color equals temperature
  3. The spectra of stars reveal their motions and compositions
  4. Almost everything about the life of a star is determined by its mass
  5. The Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram helps track the evolution of stars
  6. Stars evolve from protostars to main sequence stars to giants
  7. Stars may end as white dwarfs, neutron stars or black holes
  8. Some stars destroy themselves in supernova explosions

The Deep Sky

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Galaxies

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The Universe

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The Universe

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Life in the Universe

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Created 16 June 2009, Last Update 17 January 2020