This course focuses on three particularly interesting areas of astronomy that are advancing very rapidly: Extra-Solar Planets, Black Holes, and Dark Energy. Particular attention is paid to current projects that promise to improve our understanding significantly over the next few years. The course explores not just what is known, but what is currently not known, and how astronomers are going about trying to find out.
Introduction
Planetary Orbits
Our Solar System and the Pluto Problem
Discovering Exoplanets: Hot Jupiters
Planetary Transits
Microlensing, Astrometry and Other Methods
Direct Imaging of Exoplanets
Introduction to Black Holes
Special and General Relativity
Tests of Relativity
Special and General Relativity (cont.)
Stellar Mass Black Holes
Stellar Mass Black Holes (cont.)
Pulsars
Supermassive Black Holes
Hubble's Law and the Big Bang
Hubble's Law and the Big Bang (cont.)
Hubble's Law and the Big Bang (cont.)
Omega and the End of the Universe
Dark Matter
Dark Energy and the Accelerating Universe and the Big Rip
Supernovae
Other Constraints: The Cosmic Microwave Background
The Multiverse and Theories of Everything