Overview

This unit aims to provide an introduction to galaxies and galaxy clustering, theories of dark matter, galaxy formation and evolution.

Requisites

Teaching periods
Location
Start and end dates
Last self-enrolment date
Census date
Last withdraw without fail date
Results released date
Study Period 1
Location
Hawthorn
Start and end dates
03-March-2025
01-June-2025
Last self-enrolment date
16-March-2025
Census date
24-March-2025
Last withdraw without fail date
02-May-2025
Results released date
24-June-2025

Learning outcomes

Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:

  • Identify the “big questions” in galactic and extragalactic astronomy, and recognise the current state of our knowledge on these questions
  • Explain the concepts of galaxy formation and evolution
  • Describe the way galaxies are classified and select the approaches used to discover their properties
  • Discuss the basic principles and concepts about our and other galaxies, their properties and their constituents in a non-technical way understandable to the wider public
  • Formulate solutions to problems in galactic and extragalactic astronomy
  • Assessing current knowledge using credible sources of astronomical information and research articles
  • Use software tools to analyze astronomical data collected from telescopes

Teaching methods

Hawthorn

Type Hours per week Number of weeks Total (number of hours)
Online
Learning activities		 1.84  13 weeks 24
On-Campus
Class		 2.00 12 weeks 24
Unspecified Activities
Independent Learning		 7.84 13 weeks  102
TOTAL     150

Assessment

Type Task Weighting ULO's
Class Exercises Individual 10 - 20% 1,2,3,5,7
Essay Group  40 - 60%  6 
Newsgroups Individual/Group 5 - 15%  1,2,3,4 
Online Tests Individual  20 - 30%  1,2,3,5 

Content

  • The Milky Way: structure, rotation curves and dark matter, origin
  • The structure and classification of normal galaxies: Hubble's classification
  • Estimating distances: standard candles, sizes and masses, redshifts
  • Galactic structures: the Local Group, dark matter in clusters, superclusters and voids
  • Star formation: measuring rates and evolution
  • Quasars and active galaxies: host galaxies, unified active galactic nuclei model, black holes, gravitational lensing
  • Interacting galaxies, galactic cannibalism and mergers
  • Galaxy formation and evolution, fluctuations and galaxy seeds, N-body simulations, Cold Dark Matter
  • First stars and galaxies: the dark ages, Population III, galaxies and quasars at high redshift
  • Quasar absorbers, evolution of gas in the Universe, the intergalactic medium

Study resources

Reading materials

A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.