HET604 Exploring Galaxies and the Cosmos
Credit Points:12.5 Duration & Workload:
One semester, equivalent to a 5 contact hour per week lecture course Prerequisites:
HET603 Exploring Stars and the Milky Way (or equivalent) and introductory tertiary-level (college or university-level) mathematics & physics (or equivalents) Aims:
This Unit is designed to provide an introduction to galaxies & galaxy clustering, theories of
dark matter, galactic evolution and introductory cosmology.
Content:
- The Milky Way: structure, rotation curve & dark matter, spiral arms & density wave theory, galactic centre, modelling the origin of the Milky Way
- The structure and classification of normal galaxies: spiral, elliptical & irregular galaxies, Hubble's classification
- Estimating galactic distances: "standard candles", sizes & masses, redshifts & Hubble's Law; the beginnng of cosmology
- Galactic clusters: the Local Group, rich & poor clusters, dark matter in clusters, superclusters & voids
- Active galaxies & AGN: host galaxies, radio galaxies, Seyfert galaxies, unified AGN model
- Quasars, host galaxies, unified model, gravitational lensing
- Searching for black holes: black holes and AGNs, black holes and masers
- Interacting galaxies, galactic cannibalism & mergers, starburst galaxies, modelling galactic evolution
- Hubble expansion, Ryle/Hoyle debates, the cosmic microwave background
- Galaxy formation, COBE, fluctuations, Jeans mass, dark & baryonic matter, N-body simulations, Cold Dark Matter
- Faint blue galaxies, Population III stars, the evolution of clusters, the birth of quasars
- QSO absorbers, evolution of gas in the Universe, lensing searches, new discoveries & outstanding problems.
This Unit will be presented in online delivery mode, with contact via newsgroup and email. Assessment Method:
Assessable newsgroup contributions, assignments and project. Textbook:
For information about the textbook, follow this link