MASTER of SCIENCE in PHYSICS
Semester III
Course Code: PH-OT542
Course Name: Introductory Astronomy
Marks: 100 Duration: 60 Hrs (45L+ 15T)
Course Objectives
Since this course is an open elective, with students from diverse background opting for it, the
primary objective is to impart a basic knowledge about the oldest branch of physical science
through a conceptual mode, relying less on mathematics and more on physical
understanding. Since exciting new developments have been taking place in the astronomy
of 20-th and 21-st centuries, with India playing crucial roles, the idea is to enable students to
have a flavour of both historical and modern aspects so that they acquire a perspective of
their place in the universe..
Contents:
Unit I (3 lectures)
Antiquity of astronomy: Planets and stars in Egyptian and Babylonian civilizations;
Possible reference to stars and planets in Indus Valley Civilization; stars and constellations in
Rig Veda as well as in other vedic literature; reference to Halley's comet in a Babylonian clay
tablet; Far Eastern astronomy - comets and Crab supernova; reference to cosmic objects in
mythologies, classic literature and science fictions.
Unit II (4 lectures)
Early astronomical measurements: Measurement of Earth's radius by Eratosthenes; Lunar
and solar motion studies by Hipparchus - equinoxes and solstices, lunar and solar eclipses;
Aryabhatta I and his seminal contributions to astronomy - relative motion, spinning Earth,
eclipses, etc.; Varahamihira, Brahmagupta and other siddhantic astronomers of India;
symbiotic relation between mathematics and astronomy; evidence of the precession of
equinox from vedic literature; Jai Singh and his Jantar Mantar.
Unit III (4 lectures)
Solar system: geocentric model - Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe and Samanta Chandrasekhar;
retrograde motion of Mars and theory of epicycles; Copernicus and the heliocentric model;
Kepler's laws of planetary motions - a formulation based on a set of mathematical laws for
the first time in physical sciences; Galileo's pioneering work - length and time measurements,
telescope, lunar craters, moons of Jupiter, rings of Saturn, corroboration of Copernican
model, Pisa tower and equivalence principle.
Unit IV (6 lectures)
Laws of gravitation- motion of the Moon around the Earth, falling bodies, Newton's genius;
Halley's comet and laws of gravity; importance of gravity as a force in astronomy; Physics of
the Sun; Thermonuclear reactions; discovery of Neptune and Pluto; asteroid belt, meteors
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and comets; Tidal forces and the oceanic tides; precession of equinox and change of seasons;
dating Rig veda using the precession of equinox; Distances - parallax method; standard
candles - Cepheid variables and Henrietta Leavitt, Type Ia Supernovae; Spectroscopy -
atomic spectra, emission and absorption lines, their widths and Doppler shifts.
Unit V (8 lectures)
Stellar population and Hertzsprung-Russell diagram; Meghnad Saha, ionized element, Saha
equation and birth of astrophysics; Wilson-Bappu effect and stellar distances; Stellar structure
and evolution- evolution of low mass stars and high mass stars; white dwarfs - Fowler,
Chandrasekhar and Eddington; Chandrasekhar's mass limit; Baade and Zwicky - supernova
and neutron stars; supernova explosion; pulsars.
Unit VI (10 lectures)
Milky Way and other galaxies: Shapley-Curtis debate; measurement of Doppler shift in
emission lines by Humason, Slipher and Hubble; Cepheid variable and distances of galaxies;
Classification of galaxies - spirals, ellipticals, irregulars, dwarfs, lenticulars, etc.; Hubble's
law and birth of cosmology as a scientific discipline; big bang and steady state models;
Hoyle-Narlikar cosmology;radio source counts, evolution of radio-sources and setback to
steady-state theory; angular resolution, radio interferometry and large baselines; detection of
apparent superluminal motion; radio telescopes in India - Govind Swarup and his
collaborators
Unit VII (6 lectures)
The Universe: Penzias, Wilson and the cosmic microwave background; corroboration of
thermal history in big bang cosmology as predicted by Gamow and his collaborators; Big
bang model, singularity and Raychaudhuri equation; clusters of galaxies; Zwicky and the
dark matter; the observed large scale structure; Vera Rubin and the evidence of dark matter
from galactic rotation curves; Type Ia supernovae and accelerating universe; the puzzle of
dark energy; new astronomy - X-ray and gamma ray astronomy, gravitational waves, neutrino
astronomy, thirty metre telescope and the square kilometre array; discovery of exoplanets.
Course Learning Outcomes
A historical perspective of the development of Astronomy. Conceptual understanding of basic
principles involved. A flavour of current developments in this field and India’s role in them.
Appreciation of laws of nature that are discovered on Earth but which explain successfully
distant cosmic objects and the universe as a whole
Suggested Readings
1. The Physical Universe, Frank Shu (University Science Books, 1982)
2. Cosmology: The Science of the Universe, Edward Harrison (Cambridge University
Press, 2000)
3. From Black Clouds to Black Holes, J. V. Narlikar (World Scientific, 1985)
4. Archeoastronomy- Introduction to the Science of Stars and Stones, Giulio Magli
(Springer, 2016)
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