AST 251 - 2008/2009     

Life on Other Worlds

Outline: AST 251 is a scholarly discussion of how common extraterrestrial life is, what forms it may take, and how we might find it and potentially communicate with it. It will not include any science fiction material, but will involve scientific speculations based on astronomy, biology, geology and data from interplanetary probes. All of these fields have greatly contributed to the topic in the last few years, and promise exciting developments in the future.

• Elements of very basic physics. Theory of gravity of Newton and Einstein. Light as electromagnetic radiation.
• Elements of astronomy: Our place in the Universe. Cosmic distance and time scales. The Big Bang. Origins of elements. The solar system. The Milky Way, our own Galaxy. Other galaxies. The Universe. Formation of the Solar System.
• Our home, the Earth: Elements of geophysics and geology. Eons, eras and periods. Volcanism. Plate tectonics. The terrestrial atmosphere. Magnetism.
• Conditions for life: Nature of life. Theory of evolution. Cells. Metabolism. DNA & RNA. Elements of genetics. Natural selection. The tree of life.
• The evolution of life on Earth in five episodes: The beginnings. The oxygen and eukaria. The Cambrian explosion. The K-T event. Humans.
• Life from Mars? Life from meteors? Search for life in the Solar System: Mars & Venus in detail. Planetary satellites of Jupiter and Saturn.
• Extra solar planets: Habitable zones. How to find planets around stars?
• Are we alone? Extraterrestrial civilizations and communication. Can we travel to other worlds? Have we been visited?

Prerequisites: OAC Biology/OAC Chemistry/OAC Physics/SB14U/SCH4U/SPH4U.
A strong Physics/Chemistry/Biology background will be an asset.

Instructor: Dr. Slavek Rucinski, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Astronomy Building #126 (416-946-5439), e-mail: *rucinski@astro.utoronto.ca (remove asterisk before using), Web page: www.astro.utoronto.ca/~rucinski. Requests to meet during office hours must be submitted by e-mail in advance. Because of the large size of the class, the instructor will normally NOT respond to e-mail questions related to the course material; they should be directed to the TA's, as below.

Required text: "Life in the Universe" by J. Bennett and S. Shostak (Addison-Wesley, 2nd edition 2007) [BS2007; the 1-st edition was differently organized]. Both the textbook and the lecture notes should be used. However, priority will be given to the lecture notes which will be normally available as PDF files before lectures.

The Publisher will offer via the UofT Bookstore a bundled text & clicker REBATE COUPON package (ISBN 01 3815 4384). The coupon entitles a student to receive a $10.00 rebate off of the price of the clicker when they purchase a new textbook for the course.

Please read on for an important change to the clicker rebate program: Pearson has recently learned that the third-party company, Continental Promotion Group (CPG), that processes their student rebate program filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. This disruption in service has impacted the Pearson clicker rebate program, as well as rebate programs for Canon, Costco, Home Depot and many other retail companies. Unfortunately, this means that Pearson has been unable to include the rebate coupon in your textbook package. Pearson is providing a "customer care" package for students - a coupon entitling them to a discount off of Pearson products as follows:
- 15% off coupon for MyPearsonStore
- 15% off coupon for any title on penguin.ca
- free VangoNote chapter download

Supplementary text: "Rare Earth" by P. D. Ward and D. Brownlee, Copernicus Books (Springer Verlag, 2000 and 2004).

Required: Classroom Response System
Type: i-clicker (i>clicker)
Available for purchase both new and used at the University of Toronto bookstore.
The clickers will be tested during the 2nd class and will be used for the participation mark starting on the 3rd class. Details of the clicker registration process will be described in the course internal Web page (to be activated in the first days of January 2009, at the start of the lectures).

The mid-term and final exams and the term paper are described in detail in the course internal Web page.

Turnitin use for the research papers:
Normally, students will be required to submit their course essays to Turnitin.com for a review of textual similarity and detection of possible plagiarism. In doing so, students will allow their essays to be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database, where they will be used solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism. The terms that apply to the University's use of the Turnitin.com service are described on the Turnitin.com web site.
Read the full Conditions of Use and the Student Guide for detailed instructions.

Lectures: Room MC102 (MC = Mechanical Engineering).
The course enrolment limited by the capacity of the room to 350. Mondays 4-6pm.

Classes:
Lecture 1: January 5, 2009
Lecture 2: January 12, 2009;
Lecture 3: January 19, 2009; clickers will be tested
Lecture 4: January 26, 2009; use of clickers started for the participation mark
Lecture 5: February 2, 2009; paper outlines due after the class
Lecture 6: February 9, 2009; midterm exam during 2nd hour
Lecture 7: February 23, 2009
Lecture 8: March 2, 2009
Lecture 9: March 9, 2009
Lecture 10: March 16, 2009; papers due after the class and submitted via Turnitin
Lecture 11: March 23, 2009
Lecture 12: March 30, 2009
Lecture 13: April 6, 2009; marked papers returned

Lecture notes in the PDF format: Available through the protected internal Web page.

Update: January 12, 2009