Open Lectures in Astronomy and Cosmology

What is out there? Are we alone? Did time have a beginning? What is a black hole? Is there another Earth? What are planets made of? How did the solar system form? How hot is the sun? What is a star made of? How did the universe form? How large is the universe? Will the universe last forever? etc etc. We have numerous questions about the world beyond the Earth's atmosphere and the Earth itself, from the very beginning of the universe to the ultimate fate of the universe.

This is a collection of open lectures in astronomy and cosmology discussing the origins, physics, and evolution of celestial objects and the universe as a whole. They can help us better understand the physical nature of the universe and our place in the universe.

Survey of Astronomy (Missouri State Univ.)
What is a star made of? How hot is the sun? What's the difference between a galactic cluster and a globular cluster? How did the Solar System form? Taught by Prof. Becky Baker, this course tries to answer these questions and many more, providing a comprehensive overview of the objects and events beyond the Earth's atmosphere and the Earth itself, as a planetary member of the Solar System.

Introduction to Planetary Science and Astronomy (csuDHTV)
Instructor: Dr. Bruce Bett. This course will be an introductory astronomy survey course with a strong emphasis in planetary science. There will be overviews of all the major bodies in our solar system, as well as stars, galaxies, origins and evolution of the solar system and the universe, and the possibility of life in the universe.

Introduction to General Astronomy (UC Berkeley)
Instructor: Professor Marc Davis. This course provides a description of modern astronomy with emphasis on the structure and evolution of stars, galaxies, and the Universe.

The Planets (UC Berkeley)
What are planets made of? Why do they orbit the sun the way they do? How do planets form, and what are they made of? What makes the Earth hospitable for life? In this course, Prof. Geoffrey Marcy will introduce basic physics, chemistry, and math to understand planets, moons, rings, comets, asteroids, atmospheres, and oceans.

Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics (Yale Univ.)
Instructor: Professor Charles Bailyn. This course focuses on three particularly interesting areas of astronomy that are advancing very rapidly: Extra-Solar Planets, Black Holes, and Dark Energy.

The Early Universe (MIT OCW)
Taught by Professor Alan Guth, this course provides an introduction to modern cosmology. The first part of the course deals with the classical cosmology, and later part with modern particle physics and its recent impact on cosmology.

Cosmology (UC Irvine)
Instructor: Professor James Bullock. Cosmology is the study of the origin and evolution of the Universe itself - the totality of phenomena of time and space. During this course, you'll have the opportunity to study the cosmos from the modern perspective - what we know and what we're not sure about.

Cosmology (Stanford Univ.)
Taught by Professor Leonard Susskind, this course concentrates on cosmology, the science of the origin and development of the universe. Topics covered include the Big Bang, the geometry of space-time, inflationary cosmology, cosmic microwave background, dark matter, dark energy, the anthropic principle, and the string theory landscape.

Cosmology and Black Holes (Stanford Univ.)
Instructor: Professor Leonard Susskind. This course focuses on string theory with regard to important issues in contemporary physics. Topics include: 1) the impact of string theory on the pursuit of black holes; 2) the string theory landscape and the implications for cosmology; and 3) the Holographic Principle and its applications.

Life in the Universe (UC Irvine)
Instructor: Professor James Bullock. This course provides an overview of the scientific quest to discover life elsewhere in the universe. Topics include the origin of life on Earth, Mars, extrasolar planets, interstellar travel, and extraterrestrial intelligence.

Origins: From the Big Bang to the Emergence of Humans (UC Berkeley)
Taught by Prof. Charles Marshall and Prof. Eliot Quataert, this course will cover our modern scientific understanding of origins, from the Big Bang to the formation of planets like Earth, evolution by natural selection, the genetic basis of evolution, and the emergence of humans.

Astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life (University of Edinburgh)
Instructor: Professor Charles Cockell. Over two thousand years ago, the ancient Greeks wondered if other worlds were habitable. In the coming years this question will be experimentally tested. This course is an introduction to astrobiology. It explores the origin and evolution of life on the Earth and its potential to exist elsewhere.

Astrobiology and Space Exploration (Stanford Univ.)
Instructors: Professor Lynn Rothschild and other scientists and astronauts. This course discusses evolution in the context of space and time, focusing on the emergence of life in a planetary context on Earth and possibly elsewhere as well as the evolution of intelligence and the search for it elsewhere.

Are we living in a multiverse?

About a decade ago, we completed an epochal transformation in the understanding of our cosmos, unraveling a broad and deep understanding of how the observable universe has evolved from a hot, dense state 13.7 billion years ago. Yet a second, even bigger transformation may now be taking place, because this understanding points to a crucial early epoch of "inflationary" cosmic expansion, during which it expanded at a stupendous rate to create the vast amount of space we can observe. But cosmologists are coming to believe that inflation may do much more: in many versions, inflation goes on forever, generating not just our observable universe but also infinitely many more such regions with similar or different properties, together forming a staggeringly complex and vast "multiverse". Dr. Aguirre will trace the genesis of this idea, explore some of its implications, and discuss how cosmologists are currently seeking ways to empirically test this idea by actually searching for hints of other "universes".

About the Lecturer
Anthony Aguirre, Professor of Physics. Department of Physics and Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, UC Santa Cruz.

Dark Matter, Dark Energy and Inflation: The Big Mysteries of Cosmology

Dr. Michael S. Turner, Professor, Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago. Our current cosmological model describes the evolution of the universe from a very early burst of accelerated expansion (known as inflation) a tiny fraction of a second after the beginning, through the assembly of galaxies and large-scale structure shaped by dark matter, to our present epoch where dark energy controls the ultimate fate of the universe. As successful as it is, this model rests upon three mysterious pillars: inflation, dark energy and particle dark matter. All three point to exciting and important new physics that have yet to be revealed and understood - or possibly, to a fatal flaw in the paradigm.

Related Links
Dark Matter and Dark Energy

Is Our Universe Part of a Multiverse?

This lecture was given by the 2009 winner of the Isaac Newton medal, Professor Alan H Guth, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was chaired by Professor Michael Rowan-Robinson, Imperial College.

In 1981 Alan Guth proposed that many features of our universe, including how it came to be so uniform and why it began so close to the critical density, can be explained by a new cosmological model which he called inflation. Inflation is a modification of the conventional big bang theory, proposing that the expansion of the universe was propelled by a repulsive gravitational force generated by an exotic form of matter.

Through his invention of the inflationary universe model, Alan Guth has changed the way that cosmologists view the universe. Motivated by ideas of grand unified theories that attempt to unite the electromagnetic and nuclear forces, Professor Guth explored the cosmological consequences of a hypothetical new substance called the false vacuum. Read More >>

Is Our Universe Part of a Multiverse? Part I

Is Our Universe Part of a Multiverse? Part II

Related Links
The Early Universe

To Infinity and Beyond

An overview of the development of cosmology over the last 100 years from the Big Bang models of the Universe to the astounding revelation of recent years in that we have no real understanding of 96% of its content! Or even that our Universe could just be one small part of a Multiverse that extends beyond our imagination!

About the Lecturer
Ian Morison is Emeritus Gresham Professor of Astronomy and Fellow of Gresham College.

Related Links:
400 Years of Telescope

Exploring the Universe from the South Pole

The study of the origin, evolution and make-up of the universe has made dramatic and surprising advances over the last decades John E. Carlstrom, Professor at the University of Chicago and the deputy director of the UCSB Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, describes new measurements being carried out with the 10-m South Pole Telescope to test the inflation theory of the origin of the Universe and to investigate the nature of dark energy.