Announcements

Please check this page often for important news about the class, exam updates, supplemental information, etc. It would be a good idea to bookmark it and reload the page frequently.

May 7
Soooo the final is graded and the results for the exam are available on the results page. First find your score, and then look at how the test was "curved." The average was right at the curved A/B line, so you did a very good job and I can tell that most of you studied hard! Your final grades will be available shortly. Also note that the exam solutions are provided in the usual place, in case you're wondering about something you couldn't figure out.
April 28
The study guide for the final exam is now available for your reading pleasure. I'll make the time of day for the review session next Wednesday more definite in the coming days.
April 20
This upcoming Sunday, April 26, at 7pm, you will have the opportunity to get an extra 50 points of homework credit by attending a public lecture in the Corbett Center. Remember, homework points are 25% of your final grade. That night, you will need to find me and get a sheet which you will fill out and hand in during class on April 28.

There are two advertisements for the lecture which you can view here and here. It should be fun!

April 14
The exam 2 results are now available in the results section.
April 13
The solutions to the homeworks 6,7,8, and 9 are all available now. These are the relevant homework sets for the exam tomorrow.
April 7
Ok, the confirmed date for the review session for exam 2 is Monday, April 13, 7:00pm in BX 102. Bring your questions! The study guide is here.
April 2
The scores from today's quiz are available in the results section. They were pretty good!
March 30
Welcome back from spring break everyone! We're going to get things going again tomorrow by talking about the interiors and surfaces of the planets. You'll love it.

To refresh your memories and give you some updates on things:

  • Homework 8 is due Thursday.
  • We will have a short quiz Thursday in class on simple planetary properties. All you should do is review chapter 7 of the textbook, and your corresponding lecture notes.
  • It looks like the second exam will be on April 14. It will cover the material from the last exam (so starting in mid Chapter 5) through Chapter 9. That's roughly lectures 12-19 or so. More info later.
March 19
For those of you who missed Thursday's lecture (today), lecture 17, please find some time before next class to read it and look it over. It is very important for what we will be learning in the next few classes about planetary interiors. You can download it from the usual page.

Have a relaxing, or not, spring break!

March 5
Note the new "comments" link on the left. Please take a few minutes and leave some anonymous feedback about the class. You can do this as many times as you wish. It can only benefit you!
March 3
The exam and solutions are available for your viewing pleasure in the schedule section, as are the results, comments, and plots of the score distribution in the results section.

PLEASE NOTE: Thursday's lab, "Kepler's Laws", will take place in Jabobs Hall, room 129. It will be done on the computers there.

February 24
ALL of the homework solutions are now online and you should study them with your solutions for the exam on Thursday. Bring all questions to the review session Wed. night.
February 19
A review session for the first exam will take place at 7pm in the lecture room on Wednesday, Feb. 25. Bring any and all questions you have on the first part of the semester, especially on homework problems. Here is the study guide.
February 17
The solutions to Homework 3 are now available in the class schedule table.
February 12
Two important announcements:

(1) A short QUIZ will be given on Tuesday, Feb. 17. The topics are Newton's Laws and Gravitation. Please review those notes.

(2) The first exam will take place Thursday, Feb. 26, on the first 4-5 chapters and the first 5 labs. More info next week.

Also, now you can view your lab grades anytime you like at the following link: Lab grades

Here is a photo of the scale model lab at the football stadium.

February 5
If you enjoyed our guest speaker, Ashwin Vasavada, and the Mars Science Laboratory project he talked about, you can look at more details about this exciting mission on the mission website.
January 31
You can see the results of last week's quiz on lunar phases on the results page. If you didn't do so well, take a deep breath ... it's not too critical at this point. As I mentioned, you can make up a lot of points by just doing your homework (well). Plus, it is likely one quiz score may be dropped. But that means you have to do well on future quizzes. If you are having any problems whatsoever, just come see me and we'll work it out. Make sure you learn these Moon phases because it's important, and they'll certainly show up on an exam and in labs

If you did very well on the quiz, congratulations! Keep it up.

January 27
Short QUIZ on Thursday, January 29 on the phases of the Moon. Please read and study the relevant sections from Lecture 4 that you can find and download in the lecture section.
January 20
Please note the addition of an example calculation on scientific notation in the "article" and "html" version of the lecture 2 notes.

On the left you now see a link for "results." Please click on that to see your attendance, homework, and eventually quiz and exam scores. For those who still haven't completed homework 1, your i.d. number is 0000 and your score is 0 (for now). For the rest, you can use the i.d. that you provided to find your scores.

January 15
CORRECTION: In the syllabus I handed out in class, the lab time was incorrect. The labs will take place from 2:30-4:30 on Thursdays. Sorry.
January 14
Welcome everyone to the beginning of the semester! I think we are all going to enjoy this course and learn some interesting astronomy.

Here are a few exciting recent news items from around our solar system:

  • A movie about two little robotic rovers still exploring Mars today.
  • Read about Jupiter and its largest moon, Ganymede.
  • Find out why Venus has no water anymore.
  • See this story and animation to learn where comets come from.