Astronomy

Dates for 4-Week Course: 
September 9 to October 4, 2024 

Note: For the final week of this course (September 29 to October 6, 2024), students have the option to join us in-person in Paonia, Colorado.

Times for Live Sessions:  Monday through Thursday, Starting at 9:30am MT (which is 11:30am ET and 8:30am PT).  Each session lasts around 60 minutes.  Additionally, the students spend around 20 minutes each day watching a record presentation.

Course Description

Astronomy has shaped and guided the development of math and science perhaps more than any other field. And yet, no other topic has become so neglected. Until quite recently, people looked up into the heavens with awe and a sense of security. The heavens provided guidance and wisdom to countless generations of cultures, and, at the same time, presented itself as a great, mysterious puzzle. Our goal together as a class is to become re-connected with the heavens and begin to comprehend some of the mysteries that they present to us.

Through this four-week course, we will become familiar with the motions of the sun, moon, stars, and neighboring planets through the sky, and gain an understanding of what they teach us about our place in the Cosmos. We will explore the different ways in which peoples and cultures around the world related to the heavens throughout history. How did people navigated using the stars, even across thousands of miles of open ocean? How can you tell time by the phase of the moon? What does the sky look like from the surfaces of other planets? Are we alone in the universe, and what would the answer mean to you?

We will explore all of these questions, and more, as we reconnect with the oldest science, elegantly on display above us every moment of every day.

Topics Covered (subject to change):

• The Celestial Sphere and Celestial Circles
• Earth’s seasons and what causes them
• Stargazing: Key Constellations and Stars
• The ecliptic and the constellations of the zodiac
• The daily and annual movements of the sun, moon, and stars through the sky depending upon where you are on the earth
• Comets, retrograde motion, and eclipses
• The phases of the moon.
• Cultural astronomies around the world
• The history and evolution of astronomy as a science
• Kepler’s laws of planetary motion
• Newton’s universal law of gravitation (and its limits)
• Basic anatomy of the solar system – what all is out there?
• Basic introduction to planetary science, modern cosmology, and active areas of study within the field of astrophysics.