links for the NCSSM Astrophysics course

table of contents

  • planets around other stars
  • the search for extraterrestrial intelligence
  • black holes
  • dark matter
  • brown dwarfs
  • the solar neutrino mystery
  • starbirth
  • starbirth summary table
  • planetary nebulae
  • supernovae
  • gravitational effects on time and space (including black holes)
  • galactic evolution
  • cosmology

  • properties of stars

    the 25 brightest stars
    the 30 closest stars
    the brightest 314 (m < 3.55) stars from The Observer's Handbook

    the surface of Betelgeuse the first image of the surface of a star other than the sun

    Blackbody Radiation (virtual reality)
    Doppler Effect Applet
    Binary Star Applet

    planets around other stars

    planets around a pulsar the first confirmed discovery of earth and jupiter-sized planets around any star.... but how did they get to be around a star that supernovaed? are they debris?

    in October '95 the discovery of the first planet orbiting a solar-type star (51 Pegasi) was announced and confirmed.... and in Jan '96, the discovery of two other planets (both around sun-like stars) followed... the complete list:
    SFSU's Planetary Search page details a comparison of the 100+ confirmed extrasolar planets around solar-type stars
    and the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia from France has exhaustive data


     

    the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence

    The Astrobiology Web
    the SETI Institute now at Greenbank
    SERENDIP at UC-Berkeley
    META/BETA at Harvard

    black holes

    black hole reference articles
    black hole candidates (in binary systems)
    black hole candidates (at centers of clusters or galaxies)

    dark matter

    tutorial on  Dark Matter, Cosmology, and Large-Scale Structure of the Universe
    Dark Matter page from the Center for Particle Astrophysics
    MACHO candidates one event in the LMC and four events near the galactic center
    the OGLE project 12 microlensing candidates near the galactic center
    MACHOs are 50% of halo dark matter ? so says a team from Lawrence Livermore and the Center for Particle Astrophysics
    Hubble rules out red dwarfs as dark matter

     

     
     

    brown dwarfs

    Gliese 229B verification of the first brown dwarf by Hubble, with a guide to the differences between planets, stars, and dwarfs

    the solar neutrino mystery

    a short introductory guide to neutrinos and how to detect them with water
    summary of current data from all solar neutrino experiments
    neutrino detection experiments links to theory and to all experiments
    (Magnetic?) Activity Cycles on other Stars
    Activity Dependence on Stellar Age
    Maunder minimum
    current Magnetogram, Dopplergram, Intensitygram, and Sunspot current

    starbirth

    CCS Observations of B335 the first Bok globule caught in the act of contracting
    EGGS: starbirth in M16 it made the front page of the Durham Morning Herald & the New York Times
    jets in Herbig-Haro objects
    Young Stellar Objects
    triggered star formation in NGC 2264: 6 daughters and 1 parent
    infrared view of the heart of the Orion molecular cloud

    protoplanetary disks around stars

    discovery of more than a hundred proplyds in the Orion nebula
    4 new protoplanetary disks in Orion and the Orion mosaic
    edge-on disk around Beta Pictoris from Hubble
    a Jan '96 Hubble image showing a warped disk around Beta Pictoris caused by a planet?
      images of Beta Pictoris

    planetary nebulae

      Planetary  Nebulae  Observers  Home Page
      Bruce Balick's Planetary page
    the Cat's-Eye (NGC 6543) a planetary nebula ejection in a double-star system
    NGC 7027 the first discovered to radiate in the IR (dust) and the radio (CO molecules)
    the Hourglass planetary (MyCn18) a dust cloud pinches the waist of the gas nebula
    Helix Nebula explosion thousands of "cometary knots" seen in the nearest planetary
    Cocoon of a New White Dwarf NGC 2440
    missing links between red giants and bright planetary nebula:
    Egg Nebula
    NGC 2346 the Butterfly the first photo released after the Feb. '97 fix
    Cepheid photometry and radial velocity archive from McMaster University
    doomed star Eta Carinae view it in 3-dimensions if you had red/blue glasses

    supernovae and their remnants

    a neutron star alone in space
    Crab Nebula: the Movie
    Hubble views the Crab nebula
    Supernova 1987A
    the Cygnus loop a shock wave from a supernova
    pulsar resources from Princeton


    gravitational effects on space and time

    Naked singularities are possible? The Stephen Hawking-Kip Thorne bet:
    Frequently Asked Questions about black holes
    Falling into a Black Hole
    movies of colliding black holes, wormholes, and more.... from the NCSA supercomputer
    virtual trips to black holes and neutron stars
    2 new Einstein crosses
    gravitational lensing in a cluster of galaxies
    images of 30 gravitational lenses
    the LIGO Project to detect gravitational waves your tax dollars at work
    Relativity Tutorial

    our galaxy

    Multiwavelength Milky Way a view of the Milky Way in 7 different spectral regions
     

    galaxies

    the 1920 Shapley-Curtis debate are galaxies island universes? what really happened

    NASA extragalactic database published info on any extragalactic object

    galactic evolution

    Hubble keeps looking farther into space & farther back in time:
    Hubble tries to solve the quasar mystery

    cosmology: the future of the universe

    the top 4 cosmology sites:

    the WMAP site offers a crash course in Big Bang cosmology  and  also great Images
    Ned Wright's cosmology tutorial  plus his Javascript Cosmology Calculator
    Wayne Hu's guide to the CMBR
    Max Tegemark's page has links to popular articles, CMB calculations and animations

    The Standard Cosmological Model, P. J. Peebles, Jun '98 abstract astro-ph/9806201
     
    tutorial on  Dark Matter, Cosmology, and Large-Scale Structure of the Universe
    1996 Scale of the Universe debate on the value of Hubble's constant
    May 9, '96 Hubble observers converge on value of Ho?
    The Evolution of the Universe  Scientific American, March '98, Peebles, Schramm, Turner & Kron

            the age problem: are the oldest things older than the universe?

    Hipparcos and the Ages of Globular Clusters, Krauss
            preprint astro-ph/9706128            ApJ 494 (1), pp96-110

            is the Universe's expansion accelerating?    so say these:

    High Redshift Supernova Search
    High-z SN- Home page
     

    inflation and the cosmological constant

    Living with the Cosmological Constant, J.D.Cohn, abstract astro-ph/9807128
    The End of the Age Problem, and the Case for the Cosmological Constant, Krauss et al.
            abstract astro-ph/9706227        ApJ 501(2),  pp.461-466
    Ten Things Everyone Should Know about Inflation, M.S. Turner, April '97
            abstract astro-ph/9704062

    the Big Bang

    take a trip back to the Big Bang on the NCSA cosmology page
    Cosmic Microwave Background - FAQs
    Anistropies in the CMB
    Cambridge cosmology page: black holes, cosmic strings, the big bang, & Stephen Hawking
     

    gamma-ray bursters

    the Distance to Gamma-Ray bursters 1995 Scale of the Universe debate
    Hubble id's optical counterpart of gamma-ray burst in distant galaxy
    Scientific American: Article: Gamma-Ray Bursts (full text and pictures with links) July '97 issue
     

    simulations, applets, virtual reality, movies

    Blackbody Radiation (virtual reality)
    Galaxy Cluster Simulation change the mass and watch the galaxy velocities change (applet)
    Doppler Effect Applet
    Binary Star Applet
        change the orbit size, eccentricity, inclination & see the radial velocity curves and the orbits
    watch a cluster H-R diagram evolve (movie)