Title: Week 6: Black Holes, Small & Large
Course: ASTRON103: The Evolving Universe: Stars, Galaxies, and Cosmology (001) DHH SU18 > Section: Week 6

Overview

Welcome to Week 6! The theme for this week is Black Holes, Small & Large. Black holes are some of the weirdest objects in the universe. This week, we'll start out by learning about the basic physical principles that lead us to expect black holes to exist. We'll then explore how we can actually find them out in the cosmos. We'll finish by looking at our own galaxy, the Milky Way, which harbors a super-massive black hole at its center.

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, At Play in the Cosmos, 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 24: Black Holes and Curved Spacetime (sections 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 & 7)
- Chapter 25: The Milky Way Galaxy (sections 1, 2, 3, 4 & 6)

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).

- Introduction to General Relativity (2m55s; video, summary)
- Spacetime & Gravity (2m28s; video, summary)
- Black Holes (3m2s; video, summary)
- Finding Black Holes (2m53s; video, summary)
- The Milky Way's Supermassive Black Hole (2m34s; video, summary)
- Mass of the Milky Way (2m19s; video, summary)
- How a Galaxy Forms (1m27s; video, summary)

Whiteboard

In these more in-depth lectures, DK explores a variety of topics with the aid of white-board sketches.

- The Milky Way (7m56s; video)

Crash-Course Astronomy

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

- Black Holes (12m25s; 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.

- Journey of a Gravitational Wave (2m55s; YouTube video)
- What the Discovery of Gravitational Waves Means (10m58s; YouTube video)

Activities

Writing Assignment

This week's writing assignment invites you to reflect on a black hole from popular culture. 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, July 25^th.

At Play in the Cosmos Assignment

In this week's game assignment you'll use Exploration Mode to classify the spectra of some stars. The deadline for uploading your report is 11:59 PM on Friday, July 27^th.

Discussion

This week's discussion asks you to consider the practicalities of a galactic civilization — would it work, or is it just science fiction? 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, July 28^th.

Quiz

This week's quiz tests your understanding of the topics covered throughout the week, and is drawn from Chapters 24 and 25 of the Astronomy book. It consists of ten questions with written answers. You can take it anytime up until 11:59pm on Sunday, July 29^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 2, which is due by 11:59pm on Sunday, July 29^th, you will be analyzing light curves for a few of the target stars from Part 1, looking for the signatures of orbiting planets. Note that Part 2 will not unlock until Tuesday, July 24^th.

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.

© 2018 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System