1/3/2019 Had my first Space class today. I guess that makes me an Astronomer in training.

ASTR 800 is a Readings paper course held at AUT for postgraduate students looking to do a Mathematical Science Postgraduate Degree related to Astronomy field.

The class is being taught by Dr. Willem van Straten of the IRASR.

Dr. Willem van Straten

We will have to do a lit review on various topics in Astronomy. Hopefully to get a guideline of what we will do in our research methodologies paper.

Some takeaways from today:

The Lives of Stars

"Whats the similarity between Ogres, Onions and Stars? They all have layers"

The Class Started with some basics of Stellar Evolution. The idea is that Stars end up as either 1 of 3 things (Stellar Core Remnants) depending on their mass. White Dwarves, Neutron Stars or Black Holes.

As Stars deplete their fuel they burn different elements until there is nothing left but the iron core.

Our Star the Sun is bound to expand into a Red Giant and then shed off its layers into a white Dwarf star which has the mass of the Sun but the volume of planet Earth. After of course it has swallowed up the Earth and the Inner Planets during its Red Giant phase. No one left to sing songs of the Earth by then.

Big Stars Live Fast and Die Hard with a bang as after they undergo core collapse and Explode in Supernova event they either turn into a Neutron Star which is a super dense, super Gravitationally Intense object or a Black Hole which is also Gravitationally Intense.

Pulsars and Pulsar Timing 

"Pulsars are like Lighthouses in the Universe"

We then talked about something that Dr. van Straten was involved with personally, that is the search for Pulsars. Pulsars are rapidly rotating Neutron Stars that have a strong magnetic field. An Electromagnetic Beam is emitted along the Magnetic Axis which not necessarily the same as its Rotational Axis

Pulsars are interesting things because they represent places where Nature may exist in its most Extreme. Their Magnetic Fields definitely represent a key area of study.

Fast Radio Burst

"We are Baryons"

ASTR 800 subject is called "Advanced Topics in Astronomy and Astrophysics" and the subject title is definitely not misleading.

It was the first class and already we were studying something completely new in the field of Astrophysics and something that Dr Willem was involved in which are Fast Radio Bursts.

Strange Signals from Outer Space

Fast Radio Bursts or 'Lorimer Bursts' as they were initially known, were discovered about 20 years ago. They very brief and intense flashes (Saturated the Receiver) of electromagnetic energy emanating from Extra-galactic Sources (Places outside the Milky Way).

Those sources could range from hypothetical Magnetars or copious other violent phenomena in the Universe, perhaps even extraterrestrial technology...

Why should we hunt for FRB signals? Because it may give us insight into the Interstellar Medium (ISM) and Intergalactic Medium (IGM).

If we can know more about the ISM and IGM then we can know more about the the density/ distribtion of stuff in the Universe. By doing survey survey of all the mass in the Universe, we can understand more about Baryonic Matter. (We are made of Baryons btw) and if we can know more about Baryonic matter then we could perhaps build a better model to fit Dark Matter and Dark Energy, and if we can build a suitable model to understand DM/DE we could perhaps unlock some new physical laws down the line.