Extreme Astrophysics

An extra-mural course presented by the
Department of Physics and Astronomy,
Commencing January 2007

Course Aims

From 'death stars' to superstrings, the universe abounds with phenomena of astonishing energy and power.
In this course we will review our current understanding of the cosmos at its most extreme, exploring such topics as:

the birth and death of stars
supernovae: things that go bang in the night
the awesome power of gamma-ray bursters
pulsars, neutron stars and white dwarfs
black holes: gravity at the limit
the search for gravitational waves
when worlds collide: the threat of asteroid impact
cosmic rays: ultra-energetic messengers from deep space
a recipe for galaxy formation
echoes of the Big Bang
welcome to quantum gravity!

Course Presentations

Lecture 1

Introduction - part 1	powers of ten video	powers of ten webpage
orders of magnitude webpage

Lecture 2

Introduction - part 2

link to quantum physics talk and background notes

Lecture 3

Introduction - part 3

Supernova movie

Lecture 4

Gravitational Wave Astronomy

Lecture 5

Cosmic ray astrophysics

Lecture 6

The threat from asteroid collision

Lecture 7

Gamma Ray Bursts

Lecture 8

Cosmology 1

Lecture 9

Cosmology 2

Lecture 10

quantum gravity presentation	quantum gravity IOP 1
quantum gravity IOP 2	quantum gravity IOP 3
quantum gravity IOP 4	quantum gravity IOP 5

Associated Movies

Some of the course presentations include movies; these are not embedded within the power point or pdf files.
They will need to be downloaded separately. The movies will appear here as the course proceeds.

Light bulbs (illustrating the inverse square law)

Please send any comments or questions on Extreme Astrophysics to Martin Hendry