Prerequisite: both of the following: (74:152 or 74:162) and 62:181 or permission of Instructor. (74:184/185 can't be used as prerequisites for this course.)

An intermediate level specialty course for majors, minors and to students specializing in the natural sciences. The first third of the course will introduce students to the basic structure and life-cycle of stars; stellar atmospheres, stellar interiors, energy sources and radiative transfer, the process of star formation, main-sequence and late stages of stellar evolution, the deaths of stars in super- nova, and the remnants of core-collapse such as white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes. The middle third introduces the interstellar medium of the Milky Way, the phases and motions of interstellar gas, spiral patterns in galactic disks, and the "galactic ecosystem" of gas/star recycling and new chemical element creation (astrochemistry). The final third of the course will introduce basic cosmology: the origin, expansion and fate of the large-scale universe, and discuss the recent discoveries concerning dark matter and new ideas of dark energy.

3 lecture hours per week, one term.