Fundamentals of Astronomy

Catalog description

This course introduces students who are not majoring in science to the principal areas, traditional and contemporary, of astronomy. Traditional topics include a historical background to astronomy, telescopes, the sun, the moon, the major and minor planets, comets, and meteors. After discussing these subjects in detail, the course covers areas appropriate to modern astronomy such as the composition and evolution of stars, star clusters, quasars, pulsars, black holes, and cosmological models.