Level 5 · Science S5.15

Astrophysics and cosmology

Physics lets us measure the stars and trace the universe back to its beginning.

Planned. This book is not written yet. Below is its plan, which a teacher can already use.

You are ready for this book if

You can explain how the Doppler effect changes the light from a moving source.

The plan

  1. S5.15.1 Telescopes
    • Compare refracting and reflecting telescopes
    • Explain why some telescopes are placed in space
    • Calculate resolving power from aperture and wavelength
  2. S5.15.2 Measuring distances in space
    • Use parallax to find distances in parsecs
    • Convert between light years, parsecs and astronomical units
  3. S5.15.3 The brightness of stars
    • Use apparent and absolute magnitude to compare stars
    • Calculate luminosity from brightness and distance
    • Explain how a planet passing in front of a star dims it
  4. S5.15.4 Black body radiation
    • Use Wien's law to find a star's surface temperature
    • Use the Stefan-Boltzmann law to find a star's size
  5. S5.15.5 Classifying stars
    • Classify stars by spectral class
    • Read a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram
  6. S5.15.6 The life of stars
    • Describe how stars of different masses live and die
    • Explain how stars make heavier elements
  7. S5.15.7 The expanding universe
    • Use red shift to find the speed of a galaxy
    • Use Hubble's law to estimate how long ago the universe began
  8. S5.15.8 The Big Bang and beyond
    • Explain how the cosmic background radiation supports the Big Bang
    • Explain the evidence for dark matter and dark energy

For parents and teachers

Level 5 fits learners who can already: read a textbook. use functions and graphs. In many schools that is about 17 to 20, but start wherever the learner is.

Strand: Earth and space. Written and drawn by attnom. Free to read, print and share.