Modern Astronomy (honours)

Moderne sterrenkunde (honours)

Owner	Bachelor Natuur- en Sterrenkunde (joint degree)
Coordinator	dr. S.M. Nissanke
Part of	Bachelor Physics and Astronomy (Joint Degree), year 1

Course manual 2022/2023

Course content

This course elaborates on the physical implications and the theoretical background of a number of interesting and topical issues ('hot topics') in astronomy. Examples of topics include the search for Earth-like planets and life, apparently faster than light travel, supermassive stars, gravitational lenses, the nature of dark matter, the expanding universe.

The two topics to be covered are not fixed; should there be a new fundamental breakthrough that lends itself to discussion it will be included in the program.

The topics will be considered sequentially, each block taking three weeks (1 lecture and 1 tutorial per week, each 2 contact hours). An introduction to the topic will be given in the first lecturer of each block, outlining the problem. The students will investigate the solution of this problem on their own and share their findings in the final lecture of the block, in which we will discuss the deeper implications and future vision.

Study materials

Syllabus

• Powerpoint lecture notes

Other

• Various articles, videos and websites for reference

Objectives

• Discuss some of the most fundamental problems in modern astronomy
• Describe methods that can contribute to answering these topics
• Understand how to gather and interpret information about current research on these topics
• Perform order-of-magnitude estimates to build intuition about physical problems

Teaching methods

• Hoorcollege
• Werkcollege

Lectures, tutorials and discussions

Learning activities

Attendance

Programme's requirements concerning attendance (TER-B):

• Each student is expected to participate actively in each component of the programme that he/she signed up for. A student that does not attend the first two seminars of a course, will be administratively removed from the seminar group. A request for reregistration for the seminars can be applied to the programme coordinator.
• If a student cannot attend an obligatory component of a programme's component due to circumstances beyond his control, he must report in writing to the relevant teacher as soon as possible. The teacher, if necessary after consulting the study adviser, may decide to issue the student a replacing assignment.
• It is not allowed to miss obligatory commponents of the programme if there is no case of circumstances beyond one's control.
• In case of participating qualitatively or quantitatively insufficiently, the examiner can expel a student from further participation in the programme's component or a part of that component. Conditions for sufficient participation are set down in advance in the course manual.
• In addition to the above mentioned rules, in the first semester of the first year a student should be present in at least 80% of the seminars. Moreover, participation to midterm tests and obligatory homework is required. If the student does not comply with these obligations, the student is expelled from the resit of this course. Students in the double Bachelor's degree programme Mathematics and Physics are exempted from this requirement. In case of personal circumstances, as described in OER-A Article A-6.4, a different study plan will be made in consultation with the study advisor.

Additional requirements for this course:

• Absence needs to be communicated to the course teaching assistant

Assessment

Item and weight	Details
Final grade

Fraud and plagiarism

The 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' applies to this course. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board of the programme will be informed. For the 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' see: www.student.uva.nl

Course structure

Timetable

The schedule for this course is published on DataNose.

Additional information

Dit vak is uitsluitend bedoeld voor honoursstudenten of studenten met een bijzondere belangstelling voor het onderwerp. Houdt er rekening mee dat het tempo van het vak hoog ligt.

Het honourscollege is faculteitsbreed, i.e. er wordt geen specifieke voorkennis in de sterrenkunde verwacht. De 'honours' kwalificatie van dit college impliceert dat theoretische en interpretatieve vaardigheden een pre zijn.

Processed student feedback

Below you will find the adjustments in the course design in response to the student feedback.

Contact information

Coordinator

• dr. S.M. Nissanke

Teaching Assistant: Mr. Mark Kuiack