Galactic Astronomy

Course objectives

• Illustrate the size/structure of our Milky Way Galaxy, how we are able to measure motions of stars/gas clouds, map its overall structure and determine our place within which;
• Compare/contrast the shapes, sizes & compositions of: spiral, elliptical, peculiar & irregular galaxies; being able to classify to which type they belong based upon imagery, orbital motions of bodies within which and/or physical content descriptions;
• Evaluate the likelihood of various astrophysical objects being found within the spiral, elliptical, peculiar & irregular galaxy types;
• Evaluate observational evidence to differentiate between the top-down and bottom-up models describing galactic formation;
• Critique the competing models explaining the presence of galactic spiral arms;
• Explain the methods of determining distances to galaxies within the cosmological distance  ladder, applying them to various galactic structures;
• Compute the distances at which galactic systems tidally disrupt each other.
• Breakdown the historical classifications of active galaxies into the subcategories of: radio galaxies, Seyfert galaxies, quasars & blazars; understanding their impact on galactic evolution and why they are observed only at cosmological distance;
• Describe the various pieces of evidence for dark matter within most galaxies and clusters of galaxies, computing galactic masses when possible;
• Relate how observations of distant supernovae led to the discovery that our universe is accelerating in its expansion rate;
• Identify the key predictions/observations for the origin of our universe.