Course Catalog

The Top Tourist Sights of the Solar System and the Galaxy*

What are the not to be missed "tourist sights" on the planets and moons with which we share the Sun? What are some of the most exciting places we could (someday) visit among the stars, glowing clouds, black holes, and star clusters in our Milky Way Galaxy? Join us on an illustrated tour of the cosmos as astronomers understand it today. The discussion will be accompanied with really dramatic color images from the latest space probes and the world's largest telescopes, many of them new. We'll learn about some of the most interesting vistas in deep space (including the steam geysers on one of Saturn's moons, and the places where great columns of cosmic material are being converted into new stars and new planets,) and we'll discover how we humans fit into the bigger picture. Designed like the Rick Steves travel shows on public TV, these tours are for the beginner and will assume no background in science. *This class will be only 4 weeks, 1 ¾ hours per week (with a ten minute break each time.) It is open to non-members. 1. Introduction and the Top Sights of the Inner Solar System 2. The Top Sights of the Outer Solar System, through the Kuiper Belt 3. The Stars, Planets, Failed Stars of our Immediate Neighborhood 4. The Most Beautiful and Interesting Nebulae and Star Clusters of the Nearby Milky Way (plus black holes as a place for tourists to avoid) This course will not be recorded.

This class is not available at this time.

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