PHY 101: Previous Links


Earth Impacts

Fix, Chapter 7.2 (gases) and 15.6 (impacts)
Manicouagan crater: shown and explained
K/T mass extinction: Chicxulub then and now
Buckyballs and noble gases: Was the Permian-Triassic mass extinction impact-related?
Have we found the actual P/T impact crater?
Optional:
        More satellite images of terrestrial impact craters
        Was Chicxulub really what killed the dinosaurs?
        More on Bedout
        Why biblical literalism is lousy science

Lunar Impacts

Fix, Chapter 5.5 (tides) and all of 9 (Moon)
Evidence for a Lunar Cataclysm (a.k.a. Late Heavy Bombardment)
Optional:
        Moon overview
        More general moon links: one and two
        Yes, Virginia, the Apollo astronauts really went to the Moon

The Moon's Early History

Fix, Chapter 6.1 - 6.2 (electromagnetic waves and photons)
The giant impact theory of lunar formation
Tides as the cause of synchronous rotation (and here's an animation)
Lunar absorption spectra and a global magma ocean

Venus & Goldilocks

Fix, Chapter 10.2
How radar works
Radar altimetry and synthetic aperture radar
Terrestrial vs. Venusian topography
Goldilocks links one, two, and three
Optional:
        General overview of Venus (click the "Next" button until you reach Mars)
        Another look at the greenhouse effect
        Evidence for Venus' young surface
        In-depth treatment of Venusian volcanoes
        Remote sensing and false-color images

Mars

Fix, Chapter 11
Thermal emission spectroscopy (TES)
Rovers: their scientific instruments and their discovery of past water in Meridiani Planum
Mars Odyssey finds indirect evidence for subsurface ice
Phoenix Mars finds ice and also clays and calcium carbonate
Optional:
        More on Opportunity and past water
        Spirit's discovery of silica-rich soil
        Martian meteorite ALH 84001: The hypothesis of life in 1996 and 2002
        Shockwave: Using neutrons to detect ice near our Moon's poles
        Detailed treatment of Mars Odyssey and subsurface ice
        Images taken by Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and Mars Express

Jupiter

Fix, Chapter 12
Weather basics on Earth and Jupiter
Liquid metallic hydrogen in Jupiter's interior
Jovian aurorae
Origin and chemical similarity to the Sun
Optional:
        The Galileo mission
        Another origins page

Europa

Fix, Section 14.4
Evidence for a subsurface liquid ocean:
Life (?) residing on Europa either within surface cracks or else deeper within the ocean
tidal heating
Optional:
        Another general overview of Europa
        Io and its volcanoes

Saturn & Titan

Gravity assists
Gravity assist animation
Titan overview
Huygens landing
Using radar to detect methane lakes that contain much more liquid hydrocarbons than Earth does
Saturn's rings
Optional:
        Parts one, two, three, and four of a Huygens lecture
        Cassini Web site
        Images of moons: Enceladus, Iapetus, Mimas, Hyperion, and Phoebe
        Images of the rings

Asteroids & Meteorites

Fix, Sections 15.2 and 15.3
Meteorite classification (first half of page only)
Vesta viewed with the Hubble telescope
Main-belt asteroid Ida visited by Galileo
NEAR's flyby of main-belt object Mathilde
Near-Earth asteroid Itokawa orbited and (perhaps) sampled by Hayabusa
Radar analysis of Kleopatra
Optional:
        More Mathilde images and description, plus a movie of the flyby encounter
        NEAR eventually orbited and landed on Eros, one of the largest near-Earth asteroids
        NEAR Eros images
        Radar analysis of binary near-Earth asteroid 1999 KW4 (and a radio interview)

Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud

Fix, Section 15.4
General info on Centaurs, the Kuiper Belt, and the Oort Cloud
Discovery images of the first known Kuiper Belt object
Diagram of Trans-Neptunian objects
2003 UB313 (
Read through "Is this object really a planet?")
Pluto
Optional:
        Eris' moon Dysnomia
        Sedna
        Another perspective on Sedna

Extrasolar Planets: Detection Methods

Some methods for finding extrasolar planets (turn on your sound)
Transit method (and an animation of the spectrum of an evaporating planet)
Gravitational microlensing
First direct images of exoplanets (?)
Optional:
        An almost Earth-sized planet found via gravitational microlensing
        Nulling interferometry (and the figure that goes with the article)


Basic Math and Physics

Online practice with scientific notation and the metric system
Online practice with rounding off computations (and a full discussion of rounding rules)
Light (including Kirchhoff's laws) and spectral lines
Reflectance spectroscopy
Optional:
        The electromagnetic spectrum
        Emission and absorption lines
        Blackbodies


Study Guide for Exam I

Study Guide for Exam II


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PHY 101: Previous Links
Written by Chris Magri

URL: http://academic.umf.maine.edu/~magri/phy101/prevLinks.html