Basic Course Information
- Class Meeting Times: Mondays 4:05-6:00pm, Fridays 4:05-4:55pm
- Classroom: BRT 3 (building location)
- Instructor: Prof. Ford
- Office: 212 Bryant Space Science Center
- Office hours: TBD or by appointment
- Email:
(please include AST7939 in subject line) - Text Book: None. My current plan is to assign weekly reading averaging ~2 short papers (e.g., 4 page ApJ Letters) or ~1 paper/conference proceedings (e.g., ~12 page review from Protostar & Planets V). The vast majority of these will be available via arxiv and/or UF's electronic journal subscriptions. I've asked the library to make pdf files for those that aren't.
About this course
This graduate elective will be targeted at graduate students from the Astronomy & Physics departments. There are no prerequisites and I expect that students will enter the class with a variety of backgrounds (e.g., physics undergrad degree and no astronomy classes). I will update this webpage with a syllabus during the summer. In the mean time, In the mean time, feel free to contact me via email or in person with questions or suggestions.
Update (7/22/08): I sent an email to known prospective students. If you did not receive this email and are interested in the class, please contact me.
Everyone taking the class should pick 2 planetary systems (including at least one multiple planet system and one transiting planet). There will be three homework assignments where you calculate some properties of "your" planets/planetary system. In November, I'll ask each student to give a short in class presentation describing the various observational and theoretical constraints for one of their planetary systems and highlighting what makes their systems interesting. After the student presentations are over, everyone should submit a short (~3-4 page) "proposal" for a possible project related to one of their systems. Your proposal could describe some desirable observations, a new instrument that would be be good for observing the system, a numerical method to model the system, etc. Then we'll exchange proposals and discuss how we could improve our proposals. Since most of the assignments will revolve around "your" planetary systems, let's try to pick ones with an above average amount of observational data, so we'll have a more interesting semester. This catalog is a good resource for browsing. I can pick out a couple of planets for you or you can choose some that you're already interested in. In either case, please let me know by Monday, August 4.
Last updated: July 22, 2008
Created: March 31, 2008
