Title: Week 8: Life, The Universe & Everything
Course: ASTRON103: The Evolving Universe: Stars, Galaxies, and Cosmology (001) DHH SU18 > Section: Week 8

Overview

Welcome to Week 6! The theme for this week is Life, The Universe & Everything. This week we'll learn about the Big Bang -- the cataclysmic event that began the Universe. Then, we'll explore the prospects of life beyond the Earth -- both in our own solar system, and at greater distances.

To get started, watch the video below where Rich and DK provide an overview of the week ahead. Then, dive into the Content (book and videos) and start planning how you'll undertake the weekly Activities (writing assignment, discussion forum, weekly quiz, and longer-term project). To help you organize these tasks, we provide a Schedule and Checklist at the bottom of the page.

Content

Readings

The following readings from the Astronomy book cover the topics that we'll be focusing on this week:

- Chapter 29: The Big Bang (sections 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5)
- Chapter 30: Life in the Universe (all sections)

Two-Minute Universe

In these mini-lectures, Rich and DK cover a single topic from the book in a couple of minutes, by building up a page of notes and visuals summarizing the key facts and concepts you need to know. The summary page is available for download separately from the video, as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file).

- The Age of the Universe (1m37s; video, summary)
- Models of the Universe (2m59s; video, summary)
- The Beginning of the Universe (2m13s; video, summary)
- The Cosmic Microwave Background (1m58s; video, summary)
- Life in the Cosmos (2m12s; video, summary)
- Habitable Environments (3m2s; video, summary)
- The Search for Life Beyond Earth (2m31s; video, summary )
- The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (2m20s; video, summary)

Crash-Course Astronomy

In these videos created by PBS, Phil Plait (the Bad Astronomer) delves into various topics in more depth.

- The Big Bang (13m22s; YouTube video)
- Dark Energy (11m22s; YouTube video)
- A Brief History of the Universe (12m35s; YouTube video)
- Deep Time (15m14s; YouTube video)
- Everything, the Universe... and Life (11m22s; YouTube video)

Other Online Content

These online videos, from a variety of sources, fulfill a similar role to Crash-Course Astronomy (although no Phil Plait): more in-depth information about specific topics.

- The Huygens Probe Landing (4m41s; YouTube video)
- Why the Search for Alien Intelligence Matters (21m23s; YouTube video)

Activities

Writing Assignment

This week's writing assignment invites you to devise a travel plan to your target planet that resides in the habitable zone (relating to the project). Review the writing assignment and begin reflecting on relevant themes early during the week; summer courses move quickly, so it's to your advantage to think ahead.  The assignment is due by 11:59pm on Wednesday, August 8^th.

At Play in the Cosmos Assignment

As was the case last week, there is no game assignment this week, in spite of what we say in the introductory video above.

Discussion

This week's discussion asks you to debate what skills your initial crew of colonizers will entail. You need to make an initial post in order to see other students' responses, and you must make a total of three posts by the deadline of 11:59 PM on Saturday, August 11^th.

Quiz

This week's quiz tests your understanding of the topics covered throughout the week, and is drawn from Chapters 29 and 30 of the Astronomy book. It consists of ten questions with written answers. You can take it anytime up until 11:59pm on Sunday, August 12^th.

Final Project

This week you'll be continuing the final multi-week project, which is split over the last four weeks of the course. You'll be considering a scenario where we must leave Earth and move to an exoplanet around another star. For Part 4, which is due by 11:59pm on Sunday, August 12^th, you will be determining TK.

Weekly Schedule & Checklist

Use the schedule below to pace yourself during this week, and the check-boxes to mark off your progress.  Each horizontal line represents an important task and the corresponding days on which you should focus on that task. It is important that you keep pace to perform well on the weekly quiz, and to participate fully in the discussion forum.

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