Astronomy Course Overview

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Astronomy Course Overview

• Units of Study
• 1. Scale, a little math
• 2. The sky
• motion of sun, earth, moon
• cycles of seasons, moon
• 3. Origin of Modern Astronomy
• 4. Astronomical Tools Telescopes
• 5. The Solar System
• 6. Stars
• 7. The Universe
• galaxies
• black holes
• 8. Life on Other Worlds

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• Themes
• 1. understand our place in the universe
  and how we know this.
• 2. develop questions and gradually find
  scientific answers.

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• Measurement
• A. Astronomy is the science of BIG numbers

• 1. Scientific Notation is an easier way to write
  numbers without using many zeros.
• a. 47,500,000 ? 4.75 x 107
• 2. Common Units of Measurement
• a. AU average distance from sun to earth
• 1. 1.5 x 10 11m
• b. LY distance light travels in one year
• 1. 10 13 km or 63,000 AU
• 2. speed of light is 300,000 km/s

B. Scale 1. Earth ? Solar System ? Galaxy
? Clusters ? Universe
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• V. Conversions
• A. English Miles ?? feet ?? inches
• B. Metric Km ?? m ?? mm
• C. English ?? Metric