University of Colorado Boulder - The Sun and the Total Eclipse of August 2017

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The Sun and the Total Eclipse of August 2017
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Coursera
Overview

Duration	8 hours
Start from	Start Now
Total fee	Free
Mode of learning	Online
Difficulty level	Beginner
Official Website	Explore Free Course
Credential	Certificate

The Sun and the Total Eclipse of August 2017
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Coursera
Highlights

Earn a shareable certificate upon completion.
Flexible deadlines according to your schedule.

The Sun and the Total Eclipse of August 2017
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Coursera
Course details

More about this course

A total eclipse is one of the most spectacular sights you can ever see! It looks like the end of the world may be at hand. There is a black hole in the sky where the sun should be. Pink flames of solar prominences and long silver streamers of the sun's corona stretch across the sky. It gets cold, and animals do strange things. People scream and shout and cheer, and remember the experience their whole life. But total eclipses are important scientifically as well. They let us see parts of the sun?s atmosphere that are otherwise invisible. A total eclipse presented the first chance to test Einstein?s prediction that matter can bend space ? like near a black hole. The best total eclipse in the United States in 40 years happens August 21st, 2017.
This course has two primary goals:
1) to get you excited for the total solar eclipse coming in August 2017 and prepare you and your community to safely view it
2) to provide an inviting overview of the science of the sun and the physics of light
If you are most interested in preparing for the eclipse, you can hop right into Week 5! If you want the full course experience, and to get some fun scientific context for what you'll be seeing on August 21st, start with Week 1 and move through the course week by week!
[Note: if you start with Week 1, you can skip through some of the repeated material once you get to Week 5.]
Overall this course will prepare you to...
* Safely view the total or partial solar eclipse
* Help others watch safely and even make money by leading a ?neighborhood watch? of the eclipse
* Review fundamental sun science, including the physics of light, how astronomers study the sun, how it formed, how we know what?s inside it, and where the energy that supports life on earth is generated

The Sun and the Total Eclipse of August 2017
at
Coursera
Curriculum

Introduction to the Sun and Eclipses

Meet astronomer Doug Duncan

1. Description and video of a total eclipse - watch people and animals freak out!

2. How to watch an eclipse

3. Overview of Course Topics and Goals

4. Eclipses of the sun.

5. Total vs. partial eclipses

6. How Astronomers Study the Sun. The Sun's size compared with earth.

7. Sunspots and the solar activity cycle

You can start final project now!

Week 1 Quiz

Most of what we know about the Sun is learned from Light

1. Why we mostly study the sun with different kinds of light, rather than spacecraft.

2. What is light? Differences between red, blue, ultraviolet, and X-ray light.

3. Properties of light. White light. Kirchhoff-Bunsen laws. How color tells you temperature.

4. Don?t be fooled by reflected light!

5. Is light a Wave? Is it a particle? It?s both! The strange world of quantum physics.

6. Spectrum lines ? how they tell us what the sun is made of; the quantum origin of spectrum lines.

7. How visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays reveal the sun?s photosphere, chromosphere, and corona. Magnetic fields and the solar wind.

Week 2 Quiz

How does the Sun work? What makes it shine? What?s inside?

1. Review of Week 2; overview of Week 3.

2. Newton's law of gravity

3. The "pefect gas" law that explains temperature, pressure, and density

4. Inside the sun; nuclear energy generation.

5. The transport of energy from the sun's core to the surface

6. Neutrinos and Sunquakes (solar seismology)

7. Einstein proved right by a total eclipse - gravity warps space!

Week 3 Quiz

How did the sun form?

1. What week 4 will cover

2. Regions of star formation in space.

3. Converting gravitational potential energy into kinetic energy heats forming stars.

4. Conservation of angular momentum causes a new star to spin.

5. A previous generation of stars made the elements that formed the sun and planets.

6. Different kinds of stars make different elements and recyle them into the galaxy.

7. The formation of the planets around the sun.

Quiz for Week 4

The Aug. 21, 2017 ?Great American Total Solar Eclipse?

1. Quick recap of weeks 1-4 and an outline of what week 5 will cover.

2. Eclipses of the sun and moon. Who sees a total eclipse and who sees a partial eclipse?

3. A personal description of the incredible drama of a total eclipse, how animals respond, how to watch safely.

4. How to conduct neighborhood eclipse watching. How to make money and friends by being the one who prepares before eclipse day. Answers to Frequently Asked Questions. How to SAFELY use binoculars with a group.

Week 5 Quiz