WEEK 7 ASSIGNMENTS

1.

a. See the week 7 instructor notes for a brief summary of this week's material.

b.  For images and information on active galactic nuclei, as well as numerous links to images of gravitational lensing, go to the following:  AGN & LENSING INFORMATION

c.  See the following a tutorial on the Big Bang Theory:  http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm

d.  Click on the following to go to a page of URLs for supplemental information concerning the cosmic microwave background radiation.  The links show COBE images not in your text as well as the most recent sets of observations by the MAP mission - very important results for cosmologists.

e.  The following link takes you to a report from a thorough sky survey effort, and the conclusion that correlating the observed galaxy distribution with the recent MAP observations requires dark energy to explain both data sets.   This evidence is independent of that described in item g & f below.
http://www.sdss.org/news/releases/20030721.darkenergy.html

f.  Click on the following for streaming video of an HST press conference explaining the observation and huge significance of the most distant Ia supernova in understanding the expansion of the universe:
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2001/09/live-replay.html
The panelists are some of today's most famous astrophysicists, and they address in understandable terms the acceleration of our expanding universe.  I particularly enjoyed the discussion of 'serendipity' (which played a major role in the discovery) near the end of the 40 minute video.  This critically important discovery apparently almost cinches the case for an accelerating universe (with the strange concept of 'dark energy') that began with a Big Bang.  Since 2001, the two SN Ia teams have jointly discovered and used several more very distant supernovae, using the Hubble Space Telescope:  for example, see:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040227.html and
http://www.space-explorers.com/internal/common/offsite.asp?link=http://hubblesite.org/news/2004/12

2.

Week 7 Discussion Questions  Respond with written answers.

3.

Week 7 homework  Print out and circle your answer choice for each question.   Turn these in the first day of week 8.