PHYS 2151

Introduces concepts in modern astronomy including: the celestial sphere, eclipses, parallax, and Kepler's laws; radiation; the Sun; spectroscopy; telescopes, resolution, and detectors; magnitudes, spectral classifications, and the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram; the interstellar medium, star formation, stellar evolution, nucleosynthesis, white dwarfs, neutron stars, pulsars, nebulae, supernovae, black holes, and gamma-ray bursts; galaxies, dark matter, and active galactic nuclei; cosmology, the cosmic microwave background, inflation and dark energy; and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.