Out of Class Participation Activities
The following activities, if properly documented, are considered valid for participation credit (in place of, for example, index cards).
Attend one of the Astronomy Department-sponsored Star Parties, which occur on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday
evenings during the semester, weather permitting. The Wednesday night events are held on the roof of RLM Hall,
while the Friday and Saturday ones use the telescope on the roof of Painter Hall. See details
here. Important:
In order to receive credit for this activity, you must request a signed slip from the person in charge, and turn
it in to the T.A. within the next week. No more than two Star
Parties can count for participation credit.
A public lecture titled, "Walk Softly When Exploring the Dark Side of the Universe: Black Holes, Dark Matter
and Dark Energy," will be presented by Prof. Karl Gebhardt of the Department of
Astronomy on Saturday, February 6 at 1:00 PM in the Avaya Auditorium, Room 2.302 on the ground floor
of the ACES building, at the corner of 24th Street and Speedway. This is an opportunity to earn participation
credit through an out of class activity. In order to receive credit, you will need to turn in a brief write-up
summarizing what you heard and learned at the talk, no later than the start of class on Thursday, February
11. This must be turned in as hard copy (on paper), not emailed; I prefer it to be typed, since it must be
legible. You can earn 1 credit for this assignment, depending on the quality of your effort, not on
whether you understand everything you hear, which would not be fair since that is background-dependent.
You must personally attend the lecture in order to receive credit. I strongly advise you against copying
someone else's notes and trying to turn that in. Not only does that constitute a violation of UT's Honor
Code, but I have an uncanny ability to recognize attempts to cheat!
Public Lecture ~ Walk Softly When Exploring the Dark Side of the Universe...
Public Lecture: "A View of the Frontier: Exoplanet Research at the Crossroads," April 13
Prof. Adam Burrows
Princeton University
Tinsley Visiting Professor
RLM 15.216B
3:30 PM
Abstract
Approximately 500 exoplanets, mostly giant planets in the Jovian mass range, but also more than 70 "Neptune-mass" planets, have been detected orbiting stars in the solar neighborhood. More than 15% of these are transiting their primaries and these have collectively yielded a wealth of structural and physical information. A number of these exoplanets have recently been detected directly by the Spitzer infrared space telescope, NICMOS on HST, Kepler, and CoRoT in secondary eclipse and primary transit. These constitute the first remote-sensing data of extrasolar worlds, and JWST stands in the wings to push this science to the next level. I will present the embryonic theory of such irradiated giant planets and discuss what we have learned about their atmospheres, radii, and compositions. I will also address what we may soon learn from the variety of ground-based and space-based telescopes being planned or already under development as the exploding field of exoplanets accelerates into its future.
