The School of the Physical Universe · physics, chemistry, earth & sky
Astronomy & Astrophysics
The observed sky and the physics behind it — from constellations you can learn tonight to the lives and deaths of stars.
Learn the sky as a place you can navigate — stars, planets, and the Moon, with nothing but your eyes and patience.
Sun, planets, moons, and the small worlds between — what each one is like and how we found out.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~16 hours
Unit I — The Sun and the Inner Worlds
The Sun as a star · Mercury and Venus · Earth as a planet among planets · Mars and its water story
Unit II — Giants and Their Moons
Jupiter and the Galilean moons · Saturn and its rings · The ice giants: Uranus and Neptune · Ocean moons: Europa and Enceladus
Unit III — The Small Worlds
Asteroids and the belt · Comets and their tails · Pluto and the Kuiper Belt · Meteors versus meteorites
Unit IV — How We Explore
Flybys, orbiters, and landers · The great missions, Voyager to now · What a sample return can teach · The next targets
How a star ignites, shines, and dies — pressure against gravity from nebula to white dwarf, neutron star, or black hole.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~30 hours
Unit I — Measuring Stars
Distance by parallax · Brightness and luminosity · Spectra and stellar classification · The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram
Unit II — How Stars Work
Hydrostatic equilibrium · Fusion and the proton-proton chain · Energy transport inside a star · The Sun as a laboratory
Unit III — Stellar Lives
Star formation in nebulae · Main-sequence lifetimes · Red giants and helium burning · Planetary nebulae and white dwarfs
Unit IV — Violent Ends
Supernovae: types and mechanisms · Neutron stars and pulsars · Stellar black holes · The origin of the heavy elements
Our galaxy mapped from the inside, then the billions beyond — spirals, ellipticals, mergers, and the dark matter that binds them.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~24 hours
Unit I — The Milky Way
The shape of our galaxy and how we know it · The galactic center and its black hole · Stellar populations · The rotation-curve puzzle
Unit II — The Kinds of Galaxies
Spirals, ellipticals, and irregulars · Dwarf galaxies · Active galactic nuclei and quasars
Unit III — Galaxies Together
Groups and clusters · Collisions and mergers · The Local Group and its future · Large-scale structure
Aperture, focal length, and mounts — what a telescope actually does, and how to pick and use one well.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~14 hours
Unit I — Optics That Gather Light
Why aperture matters more than magnification · Refractors versus reflectors · Focal length and eyepieces · Common aberrations and what they look like
Unit II — Mounts and Alignment
Alt-azimuth versus equatorial mounts · Polar alignment · Finding targets: finderscopes and go-to systems · Collimation basics
Unit III — At the Eyepiece and Beyond
Observing the Moon and planets well · Deep-sky technique · A first astrophotograph · Care and maintenance