Astronomy C162/EPS C162: Planetary Astrophysics

Planetary Astrophysics is one of the three upper-division choices offered by the Astronomy department, the other choices being Astronomy 160: Stellar Physics and Astronomy C161: Cosmology. The course starts by building upon the basic physics and scaling relations covered by Astro 7A/B and the lower-division physics sequence, applying them to the solar wind, solar cycle, and Earth's magnetic field; afterward it covers topics in orbital mechanics, such as the Jacobi equation, Lagrange points, and multipole expansion of gravitational fields (pursued in more depth in various upper-division Physics courses). Thereafter, the course covers various forms of phenomenology including atmospheres and bombardment—this part is on some level a mix of loosely connected concepts and equations. The lecture portion of the course concludes with a discussion of extrasolar planets, for which it is easier to see how the various ideas come together into a coherent whole.

The unique part of this class is the final project, in which pairs of students are required to survey the background literature, create a research question, develop methods to investigate it (almost invariably numerical simulations or data analysis), and finally present their findings in a three-page report and five-minute presentation. Each student gives an individual presentation, while the report is a group effort. Be prepared for your results to be rather underwhelming compared to what you initially set out to achieve!

Because of the final project, problem sets were only assigned for the first 10 weeks of the course, and are very reasonable, taking roughly 2-3 hours each to complete. The two midterms, the second one month after the first, are somewhat more painful, but the study material definitely helps a lot. Overall, the course is quite doable and a great way to balance a schedule full of Physics technicals. This descibes the course as taught by Imke de Pater; in the future Courtney Dressing will be teaching this course and it may end up being considerably different.

Past instructors: Imke de Pater, Eugene Chiang


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