Lecture 22: The Family of the Sun

We follow our tour of our Solar System with an in-depth comparison of the Terrestrial Planets. In particular, we want to contrast and compare their geological and atmospheric histories. This will inform our inquiry into whether or not we expect to find life on these worlds. Recor ...  عرض المزيد

We turn our attention to the Giant Planets of the outer Solar System: the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, and the ice giants Uranus and Neptune. We will review their structure and properties, and then examine their systems of moons, with special attention to the giant moons. While ...  عرض المزيد

How can we search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and what are we looking for? This second part of a 2-part lecture picks up where we left off yesterday by examining SETI, the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, and reviews what we might look for and how. We will use thi ...  عرض المزيد

What is Astronomy? What is Science? What is the course all about? Brief introductory remarks after going over course mechanics on the first day of Astronomy 161 for Autumn Quarter 2007. Recorded 2007 Sep 19 in 1000 McPherson Lab on the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University ...  عرض المزيد

Are we alone in the Universe? This lecture explores the question of how we might go about finding life on planets around other stars. Rather than talking about speculative ideas, like the Drake Equation or SETI, I am instead taking the approach of posing it as a problem of what t ...  عرض المزيد