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Fall 2009
Welcome to the
ESC 1021, Planetary Astronomy Home Page.
ESC 1021 will
introduce students to the methods of astronomy and will lead all through a tour
of the solar system, the collection of bodies that circles our star, the
Sun. We will learn about the peculiarities and the similarities of the
members of our solar system, and become familiar with some of the speculation
about its origins. (For a nice Web tour of the solar system, check out The On this Web site, you will find the course syllabus and schedule, lab schedule, homework assignments and lab assignments as they are assigned, requirements for the term paper, as well as a long list of links that students may find valuable as we travel through our solar system together during the semester. Students are encouraged to explore the Internet resources listed here, especially the home page of our textbook. Links to that Web site are provided from both the Syllabus and Astronomical News pages, as well as right here. The textbook Web site offers late-breaking news items, addenda to the book, as well as practice tests useful for studying. |
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GEMINID METEOR SHOWER This weekend, Earth will pass through a stream of debris from extinct comet 3200 Phaethon, source of the annual Geminid meteor shower. Forecasters expect more than 100 meteors per hour to fly out of the constellation Gemini when the shower peaks on Dec. 13th and 14th. For most observers, the best time to look will be from 10 pm local time on Sunday night to dawn on Monday morning. Visit http://spaceweather.com for photos, a sky map, and live audio from a meteor radar. |
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