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...Solar System; the Sun and other stars; galaxies and the composition of astronomical objects...This free course, Galaxies, stars and planets, is a general introduction, including scale of the universe from the very large to the very small; orbits and gravity; the Solar System; the Sun and other stars; galaxies and the composition of astronomical objects....Galaxies, stars...

...energy. Even though you may be familiar with these types of metabolisms, the microbial world offers an enormous diversity of alternatives which mean they can be found in environments on Earth where other organisms could not survive. On Europa, the thick ice layer (4–20 km) prevents any light from reaching the ocean and so, if life is present, it must be sustained by the...

...Solar System, including how our own planet came to possess such vast oceans. To do this I look at water rich meteorites called CM chondrites, which probably come from very old asteroids formed early in Solar System history, and may have even brought water to Earth when the Solar System was in its infancy. I use the element oxygen to trace what water was up to all those...

...solar system. Finally you’ll think about the Milky Way, the galaxy of which our solar system is but one small part, and consider the history of the universe from the Big Bang to the present. Requirements You do not need a professional telescope for this course, but you may find at least a pair of binoculars extremely useful. No prior experience of the subject is...

...solar system? Samuel Jackson, PhD student in The School of Physical Sciences digs into the research... [City lights - Central America. Elements of this image furnished by NASA] ​ Can a space rock from Costa Rica reveal the origin of water on Earth? Ross Findlay, a Cosmochemistry PhD Student in The School of Physical Sciences, explores different types of meteorites which...

...solar system evolve? These are the kind of questions that inspire John Zarnecki, Professor of Space Science in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at The Open University. In the course of his 30 year career, Zarnecki has taken part in several high profile space probe missions. In this album, he recalls the landing of the Huygens probe on Titan, explains why space has...

...Solar System...The innermost planets, Mercury and Venus, don’t have moons, but Mars has two. Go beyond Mars to the giant outer planets and the number of moons per planet skyrockets. Mars’ moons are small irregular-shaped bodies, perhaps captured asteroids, but Jupiter has three moons bigger than our own, a fourth that is almost as big, and 75 known small...

...Solar System. Since Greek times, it had been assumed that the Earth was the centre of the Solar System, with other objects orbiting around it. Galileo’s observation, that these moons were orbiting Jupiter and not Earth, contradicted that long-held view and instead supported Copernicus’ proposal that the Earth and other bodies moved round the Sun (heliocentricity,...