AST101H1 Lecture Notes - Absorption Spectroscopy, Semi-Major And Semi-Minor Axes, Radial Velocity

• School: UTSG
• Department: Astronomy & Astrophysics
• Course: AST101H1
• Professor: Michael Reid

Document Summary

Why are neutrinos so difficult to detect: they pass through just about anything without interacting. Which is inferred rather than observed: the convection zone is cooler than the radiation zone. Why do sunspots appear dark: they are fairly bright, just dimmer than the rest. What do sunspots, flares, and prominences have in common: all are shaped by the suns magnetic field. A planet orbiting a star other than the sun. Eg. trying to see a firefly in car headlights or distinguish between 2 tennis balls across continents (los angeles vs. new york) We rarely see planets orbiting stars, we usually find stars orbiting indirectly. First detection of extrasolar planets were in 1990s. There are 5 main ways to find exoplanets. We discuss only the successful techiques: radial velocity technique (velocity toward or away from us) ; sometimes called doppler method or wobble method. Looking for motion in a star that is somehow related to a planet.