Background: In the course we’ve had first look at celestial bodies and of the relative units that are used to measure them. Let’s try to apply this to concrete examples you will briefly research.
Learning outcome: You will demonstrate your ability & motivation to navigate a field that is alien to you (pun intended), i.e. the field of astronomy. Indeed, you are not an astronomy expert. But thanks to wikipedia, NASA and ESA websites, Astronomy Picture of the Day, Sky&Telescope, etc., you can nowadays easily discover what celestial bodies inhabit the sky.
Your task (and rubric): Your task is to submit a PDF with all of the following information (graded out of 1 point):
– a planet (in our Solar System) of your choosing: its name, a picture, its radius in km, its main composition, and type (rocky? gaseous?).
– an asteroid of your choosing: its name, a picture (if it exists), its radius or diameter in km, its composition if known.
– a comet of your choosing: its name, a picture (if it exists), its radius or diameter in km, year of last appearance, and composition if known.
– a dwarf planet of your choosing: its name, a picture (if it exists), its radius or diameter in km, its composition.
– a moon of your choosing (check Jupiter or Saturn moons for example): its name, a picture (if it exists), its radius or diameter in km, and a sentence or two on its interesting characteristics.
– a star of your choosing: its name, no picture needed, but its distance from the Solar system (in parsecs), its radius in km (or in Solar radii), and reason for choosing it
– a galaxy of your choosing: its name, a picture, its size (in light-years or parsecs), its distance from the Milky Way/Sun (in kiloparsecs), the number of stars it’s estimated to have.
– an exoplanet (= a planet outside of our Solar System): its name, no picture needed, its radius, its type (rocky? gaseous? icy?), and how far it is from its host star (= the star it orbits) in astronomical units.
