Introduction to Astrophysics - YALE COURSE

Course Description :
This course focuses on three particularly interesting areas of astronomy that are advancing very rapidly: Extra-Solar Planets, Black Holes, and Dark Energy. Particular attention is paid to current projects that promise to improve our understanding significantly over the next few years. The course explores not just what is known, but what is currently not known, and how astronomers are going about trying to find out.

1. Introduction to Astrophysics
2. Planetary Orbits
3. Our Solar System and the Pluto Problem
4. Discovering Exoplanets: Hot Jupiters
5. Planetary Transits
6.Microlensing, Astrometry and Other Methods
7. Direct Imaging of Exoplanets
8. Introduction to Black Holes
9. Special and General Relativity
10. Tests of Relativity
11. Special and General Relativity (cont.)
12. Stellar Mass Black Holes
13. Stellar Mass Black Holes (cont.)
14. Pulsars
15. Supermassive Black Holes
16. Hubbles Law and the Big Bang
17. Hubbles Law and the Big Bang (cont.)
18. Hubbles Law and the Big Bang (cont.)
19. Omega and the End of the Universe
20. Dark Matter
21. Dark Energy and the Accelerating Universe and the Big Rip
22. Supernovae
23. Other Constraints: The Cosmic Microwave Background
24. The Multiverse and Theories of Everything