Portal:Astronomy

The Astronomy Portal

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Astronomy

A composite image of Pluto from 11 July shows high-resolution black-and-white LORRI images colorized with Ralph data. Credit: NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI.

Welcome to the Department of Astronomy!

This is a relatively new Department at Wikiversity, and its growth depends on the participation of everyone who seeks to learn about astronomy. The basic philosophy of Wikiversity is to learn by doing. This is reflected in the content of lessons and activities. However, "learning by doing" means more than just reading a lesson and following the directions; hopefully you will participate in the process of creating lessons and sharing your experiences.

To get started try the lecture on Stellar evolution or the activity on Observational astronomy.

For a glimpse of some of the topics that we hope to cover in the future see the Portal:Astronomy/Courses.

If you have any questions about astronomy or requests for topics that you would like to learn, post them to the astronomy help desk.

Astronomy keynote lecture

This ultraviolet-wavelength image mosaic, taken by NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), shows a comet-like "tail" stretching 13 light years across space. Credit: NASA.

A nomy (Latin nomia) is a "system of laws governing or [the] sum of knowledge regarding a (specified) field." Nomology is the "science of physical and logical laws."

When any effort to acquire a system of laws or knowledge focusing on an astr, aster, or astro, that is, any natural body in the sky especially at night, succeeds even in its smallest measurement, astronomy is the name of the effort and the result.

Many of the terms and concepts of astronomy have been introduced to most students at or by a secondary level. Astronomical theory and fundamentals are worked on during courses at the university undergraduate level. Ultimately, this learning resource engages the student with the state of the art. Enjoy the challenge!

This learning resource serves both as an introduction to the field of astronomy and to connect together observational and theoretical astronomy.

Students interested in a course setting may enjoy introduction to astronomy or principles of radiation astronomy of which this resource is a part.

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< School:Physics and Astronomy

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Divisions

The majestic spiral galaxy NGC 4414 was imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of the HST Key Project on the Extragalactic Distance Scale

Amateur astronomy - The study and observation of objects in space by non-professionals.
Astrobiology - The study of the advent and evolution of biological systems in the universe.
Astrochemistry - The detection, occurrence and explanation for atoms, molecules, ions, and compounds in the universe.
Astrometry - The study of the position of objects in the sky and their changes of position. Defines the system of coordinates used and the kinematics of objects in our galaxy.
Astrophysics - The study of physics of the universe. Indepth discussion of the concepts and objects in the universe to someone who has a basic background in physics and mathematics.
Basic astronomy - Basic Description and properties (luminosity, density, temperature, chemical composition) of the universe. Description of astronomical concepts without alot of required background in physics or mathematics.
Cosmology - The study of the origin of the universe and its evolution. The study of cosmology is theoretical astrophysics at its largest scale.
Extragalactic astronomy - The study of objects (mainly galaxies) outside our galaxy.
Galactic astronomy - The study of the structure and components of our galaxy and of other galaxies.
Radiation astronomy - Nearly all observationally obtained information in astronomy comes from performing observational astronomy by receiving and analyzing various forms of radiation with telescopes.
Stellar astronomy - The study of the stars.
Undeveloped Astronomy Departments - These are waiting for your input.

Courses

All proposed courses can be found at Astronomy/Courses

Only Course Material that is well developed is included below; please sign by the course if you are willing to teach or assist someone in learning this material

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Research projects

Learning project: Astronomy Project - students access public astronomy databases and explore outer space.
Astrophysics Source Code Library = ASCL
Early telescopes - an original research effort to find and evaluate evidence that telescopes in some form have been in use well before 1609 (391 b2k).

Creating content

Get to work writing courses! Simply make a link to the name of the course and start writing!

See: Wikiversity:Naming conventions

Check the Stars/Courses, you can put a course together that meets your interests!

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2020 Department news

Portal:Astronomy/Department news/2020

More Department news

School news

August 17, 2006 - School founded!

Things to do

Here are some things you can do at this department...

Clean up Astrogeology and move it to become a subpage of a supporting main page learning project.
Cleanup all astronomy related pages and organize them
Link to information about supernova/asteroid online searches
Portal:Radiation astronomy
Link to data sources
Link to amateur astronomers societies (and get amateur astronomers to this page)
Clean up Astrohistory and move it to become a subpage of a supporting main page learning project.
Load in the astrophysics source code library
Create links at Wikipedia to related pages here

Active participants

The histories of Wikiversity pages indicate who the active participants are. If you are an active participant in this school, you can list your name here (this can help small schools grow and the participants communicate better; for large schools it is not needed).

User:Marshallsumter - since 14 October 2011‎ with Astronomy.

Are you interested in Astronomy? Would you like to create instructional material and help out with people studying this subject? Then be bold and start doing so! Play around; others will try not to bite. Sign up to be a participant by adding your username to this list, or just start editing Wikiversity anyway.