Links for the curious

• Important definitions
• A few necessary assumptions
• The scientific method | more complete pdf version
• Competing cosmologies: an historical example of hypothesis testing
• The principle of doubt
• Other related links

GENERAL

• What's up in the sky? Follow the observing link at Sky & Telescope
• Powers of Ten
• Galileo's leaning tower of Pisa experiment - on the moon: Apollo 15
• Computer Programs
  • Interactive Physics Simulations
  • Open source planetarium program: Stellarium
  • N-body code from Sverre Aarseth, pioneer of N-body computation.
  • Astronomical Programs specifically created for this course by Prof. Hamilton. Build your own solar systems, learn about astronomical distances and giant impacts, practice scientific notation and working with equations, and more!
  • JavaLab for the curious. Collide or cannibalize your own galaxies, explore the expansion history of the cosmos, and more!
• Supplementary Information for UMD Introductory Astronomy. This site includes useful practice multiple choice questions which the computer will grade for you.
• Astronomy Picture of the Day This site is updated daily and has a nice archive of pretty astronomy images.
• Map of the Universe on a logarithmic scale to show it "all."
• Artificial Satellites
  • Predictions for artificial satellites, including
  • Satellite forecasts specific to College Park.
• H.S. in epicycles

• Human history timeline.
• Statigraphy of the Grand Canyon
• Plate Tectonics including continental drift animation.

• Definition of the Astronomical Unit.
• MESSINGER mission to Mercury
• Current Mars Rover missions: Spirit & Opportunity.
• Current Cassini-Huygens mission to explorte Saturn and its rings and moons.
• NEAR mission to asteroid Eros.
• Hayabusa asteroid sample return mission.
• Welcome to the Planets Information about planets and spaceprobes from JPL.
• A Tour of the Solar System This page contains information about the planets, satellites, asteroids, comets, and Solar System related topics.
• Deep Impact: Maryland Astronomy's NASA mission to crash into a comet.
• Comet Crash pictures and movies.
• Spacewatch This page contains information about this program which searches for near Earth objects.
• Extra Solar Planets Astronomers have discovered planets around other stars. The list lengthens all the time!

• Light and the Electromagnetic Spectrum Good information about light.
• The Stellar Spectral Sequence. The colors and spectra of stars.
• Structure and Evolution of Stars What happens when a star runs out of fuel?
• Novae and Supernovae The most violent events in the Universe!
• Binary Stars This page contains general information on binary stars.
• Pulsars Hear them tick!
• Black Hole Candidates This page contains information on Cygnus X-1, LMC X-3, and other black hole candidates.
• Videos of compact objects, including the expected appearance of things in the vicinity of black holes.

• Galaxy appearance and classification.
• Movie of stars orbiting the two million solar mass black hole at the center of the Milky Way (credit: Reinhard Genzel et al., Max-Planck-Institut fur Extraterrestrische Physik)
• Merging Galaxies - Josh Barnes's pedagogical sequence: initial conditions | merger | snapshot of merger in progress.
• The Really Cool Merger Simulation which appeared in the IMAX film Cosmic Voyage (courtesy of Chris Mihos). Warning: may require excessive download time
• Relativity Everything that you want to know about General Relativity, curved spacetime, and gravitational radiation!
• Cosmology How did the Universe begin? How will it end?
• Large Scale Structure Clusters & Superclusters of Galaxies. What do they look like?
• Dark Matter: What is dark matter? What is it made of?
• Some alternatives to dark matter.