The Big Picture:

So why would anyone be interested in Astronomy? Is it just interesting or does our understanding of Astronomy affect our lives in any meaningful way? Why is astronomy a lab science, don't you just look at the sky? These are the questions that I hope you can answer clearly by the time you have completed this class.

In the begining:

It has been said that one of the primary tasks of being human is to find patterns in life around us. This seems to be such a compelling imperative that we often see what look like patterns that actually aren't. Roughly half of our lives are spent at night under a dark sky filled with stars and things that seem a little different. These days, with indoor and city living many folks have a pretty tenuous relationship with the night sky but in times past the patterns in the night sky were important for survival and way finding. Knowing which stars move through the night, which stars change with the seasons, and which stars can be used as a fixed reference point were all important ideas.

It is easy to imagine that ancient cultures knew much less than we do now but its probably fair to say there have always been smart and curious humans in the world since there have been humans several ancient peoples figured out remarkably complex cycles and patterns in the stars long ago. In some cases the modern discipline of astronomy didn't sort out those patterns until relatively recently. The builders of Stonehenge are thought to have tracked a multitude of patterns from eclipses to solar cycles and some as long as 10's of thousands of years. You and I would be hard pressed to repeat their successes using the tools they had available.

First Peoples on this continent also understood a great deal about the cycles in the heavens and some of geometric construction is quite stunning. I am working to try and find effective references for the cosmologies of first peoples and I clearly haven't asked in the right places yet. It is quite unfortunate that most histories of astronomy are largely unable to see beyond a western european origin. I'll let you know if I find resources....

Early History:

In Western tradition we think of astronomy as having early roots in Greek science and philosophy. They entertained many possible views of the solar system and astronomy although we often only hear about the earth centered model as if that were the only proposal. The early Greeks figured out the size of earth from a brilliant experiment that we will talk about long before later European science tried to answer the same question. We have all be taught about Kepler, Copernicus, and Galileo and the emergence of the sun centered view of the solar system (heliocentric) but we've been fed a pretty abreviated version. As science developed as a practice and discipline astronomy became one of the early observational sciences because there was so much to look at. In addition telescopes became steadily better over the centuries offering new objects to look at and more detailed observations. There were a number of women who were deeply involved in this effort whose work has been under reported due to the societal biases which we are still working to overcome.

20th Century:

The 20th Century was a fertile time for astronomy like most of the sciences. Einstein developed his theory of relativity (probably with a lot of input from his wife Mileva who was also a very capable physicist) which led to other changing perspectives on the universe. It was early in the 20th century when we first imagined that there are other galaxies full of stars like ours and not just us. Better technical tools allowed us to notice the red shift of stars and galaxies and peer deeply into the composition of stars. New mathematical tools gave us ways to look at the universe and extrapolate the life cycles of stars which sometimes live only a few 10's of millions of years and sometime are a old as the universe. Many of these ideas and understandings are what we will explore in this class since they form the basis of our basic understanding of our place in the universe.

At the same time that we were peering deep into the universe and seeking to understand its structure we were also exploring our own solar system in every way that we could. In this day and age we speak casually of the possibility of humans traveling to Mars but for most of the 20th century nothing had ever left the atmosphere of the earth. This is a startling transformation in our thinking about our possibilities as humans in the solar system. Given the challenges we face on this planet it's possible that this knowledge will someday be more than just a grand human adventure. We will spend some time getting a sense of the scale of the solar system and a little bit about the planets and objects in it.

Hubble:

The Hubble Space Telescope is a tool/instrument that, I would argue, changed everything about how we see ourselves in the universe. The Hubble and the other space based telescopes that followed it gave us vast amounts of new information that made us rethink some scientific models we had and pushed other ones forward. For students who have grown up in the last 30 years Hubble is what led to the information we all take for granted now. We will use many images from Hubble and other telescopes in our discussions in this class.

James Webb Space Telescope:

You may have heard something about the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that was launched on the morning of Christmas 2021. Check on the NASA JWST website for loads of fascinating information. When you finish this class I hope that you will understand why the JWST is an infra-red telescope, what it means to 'look back to the dark age', and why the telescope has to be far from the earth and have the fancy kapton heat shield. Unfortunately we're unlikely to get any images from JWST before this class ends but who knows....we can always hope.

Cosmology:

Cosmology is the ultimate question that Astronomy seeks to address. Where did the universe come from and where is it going? This is the stuff of NOVA episodes, Carl Sagan, Brian Greene, Stephen Hawking, and Neil deGrasse Tyson (note the apparent lack of women who were actually deeply involved in these efforts). An interesting effect of all of this cosmology for the public is that people often feel like they have a pretty good understanding of these very complex ideas. We will look more directly at the process of developing these models and the data they depend on to get a richer and more nuanced understanding.

What is Science?

Because this is a science class we would be wise to consider what science is in it's most general sense. I know you have heard or 'learned' a variety of definitions of science. This video from Tim Minchin has lots of useful life lessons as well as one of the best articulations of what science is that I have experienced. It is consistent with what we will do. This is also one of the best commencement addresses I have heard. Enjoy....just the first 12 minutes!

 

So...

"... science is not a body of knowledge or a belief system, it is just a term that describes humankind's incremental acquisition of understanding through observation. Science is awesome. The arts and sciences need to work together to improve how knowledge is communicated." ~ Tim Minchin

You'll notice this definition says nothing about truth or rightness or answers or facts. This is what we will endeavor (humbly) to do this term, incrementally improve our understanding of astronomy and the role it might play in our lives....or not.

Questions: (pick one)

Do you think astronomy is important or just interesting? Why?

What is your current thinking about life elsewhere in the universe? Why?

How does astronomy impact our world in ways that we can physically experience?

HW Assignment: Pick one of the questions above or create your own on a related topic. Write a paragraph expressing your perspective and submit it to the assignment in Week 1 of the LMS (Canvas).

Reading Ahead: Next time we will check in about the class, syllabus, grade policy, textbook, and any other questions you have. Read the Getting Started Breadcrumb to prepare.