Swinburne University of Technology - Melbourne Australia
Future Students - Courses
Duration
Contact Hours
Campus
Prerequisite
Corequisite
1 Semester
Equivalent to 60 hours
Online
Nil Preclusion: Students who have completed HET604 Galaxies and Their Place in the Universe cannot take this unit.
Nil
Credit Points: 12.5 Credit Points
A unit of study in the Graduate Certificate of Science (Astronomy), Graduate Diploma of Science (Astronomy) and Master of Science (Astronomy)
Aims This Unit aims to provide an introduction to galaxies and galaxy clustering, theories of dark matter, galaxy formation and evolution. Objectives After successfully completing this Unit, students should be able to: • appreciate the “big questions” in galactic and extragalactic astronomy, and the current state of our knowledge on these questions; • understand the concepts of galaxy formation and evolution; • understand the way galaxies are classified and the approaches used to discover their properties; • communicate basic principles and concepts about our and other galaxies, their properties and their constituents in a non-technical way understandable to the wider public; • research an astronomy topic in depth, using dependable sources of astronomical information on the internet and refereed journal articles.
Online Delivery Mode, Contact via Newsgroup & Email.
Assessable newsgroup contributions, essay , online tests and project
• The Milky Way: structure, rotation curves and dark matter, spiral arms & density wave theory, galactic centre, modelling the origin of the Milky Way • The structure and classification of normal galaxies: spiral, elliptical & irregular galaxies, Hubble's classification • Estimating galactic distances: standard candles, sizes and masses, redshifts & Hubble's Law • Galactic structures: the Local Group, dwarf galaxies, dark matter in clusters, superclusters & voids • Star formation: measuring rates and evolution, techniques and relationships • Quasars and active galaxies: host galaxies, radio and Seyfert galaxies, unified active galactic nuclei model, black holes, gravitational lensing • Interacting galaxies, galactic cannibalism & mergers, starburst galaxies, modelling galaxy interactions • Galaxy formation and evolution, fluctuations and galaxy seeds, Jeans mass, N-body simulations, Cold Dark Matter • The first stars and galaxies: the dark ages, Population III stars, galaxies and quasars at high redshift, the evolution of clusters, faint blue galaxies • Quasar absorbers, evolution of gas in the Universe, the intergalactic medium.
Universe, Freedman, Keller & Kaufmann, 9th edition, 2010 (New York: W.H. Freeman & Co.)ISBN: 142923153X (and 1429259515 which includes Starry Night)
Galaxies in the Universe - An Introduction, Sparke & Gallagher, 2nd edition, 2007 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press), ISBN-13: 9780521855938 (hc), ISBN-13: 9780521671866 (pb)
