Videos in the Solar System Astronomy course

This is a list of the short videos which accompany the lectures in this course.

• Lecture 1A:
  • Welcome to the course
  • How to use the homework system
  • Designing a scale model of the Earth and Mars
• Lecture 1B:
  • Using radioactive decay to compute age (simple version)
  • Using radioactive decay to compute age (logarithm version)
  • The raisin-bread animation and expanding space
  • An example of using the cosmic calendar
• Lecture 2A:
  • Mean free path and collision time calculations
• Lecture 2B:
  • Using the spectrum of an object to determine its temperature
  • Computing the Doppler shift for the spectrum of Arcturus
• Lecture 2C:
  • How to calculate escape velocity
  • Will a planet's atmosphere escape? Let's find out
• Lecture 3A:
  • Using Kepler's Third Law to find the mass of a planet
• Lecture 3C:
  • A simplified explanation of the greenhouse effect
• Lecture 4A:
  • Will CO₂ remain in the atmosphere of Mars, or escape?
  • What can you learn from a map of the surface of Mars?
• Lecture 4B:
  • Why are there some orbits in which asteroids cannot be found?
  • Using Kepler's Third Law to find the radius of an orbit from its period
• Lecture 4C:
  • How aliens could use the radial velocity technique to detect Jupiter
• Lecture 5A:
  • An analysis of the dangers of radiation on Mimas
• Lecture 5C:
  • Can we take pictures of planets orbiting other stars?
• Lecture 6A:
  • How fast will a star move due to the pull of an orbiting planet?
  • How the transit of a planet reveals its size

Copyright © Michael Richmond. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.