Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA
Students have a weekly online reading assignment (hosted by SurveyMonkey.com), where they answer questions based on reading their textbook, material covered in previous lectures, opinion questions, and/or asking (anonymous) questions or making (anonymous) comments. Full credit is given for completing the online reading assignment before next week's lecture, regardless if whether their answers are correct/incorrect. Selected results/questions/comments are addressed by the instructor at the start of the following lecture.
The following questions were asked on reading textbook chapters and previewing presentations on problems caused by the atmosphere for telescope observing, Earth, and the impacted worlds: the moon, and Mercury.
Selected/edited responses are given below.Describe something you found interesting from the assigned textbook reading or presentation preview, and explain why this was personally interesting for you.
"That we are literally living in the ocean of air. This was interesting because I never thought of all the ripples and things we see underwater in a scientific way."
"Atmospheric turbulence and the explanation of our 'ocean of air.' I had no idea that the atmosphere could cause views through a telescope or the human eye to be distorted. I enjoyed the super neat way you chose to explain it, too."
"That turbulence causes the twinkling that I see in stars. I had never really thought of it that way, and it really served to cement a thought in my head about nature."
"The reason behind why stars twinkle--I just assumed their brightness caused that but it is how its light bounces around once it goes through our atmosphere."
"Light pollution interested me because depending on where you are and how little or how much light pollution is in the sky affects how many stars you can see with the naked human eye."
"The greenhouse effect; more specifically the dangers of too much greenhouse effect. When the suns energy is converted to infrared light and is unable to escape the interior becomes too hot and almost deadly. The child being trapped in the car and in danger of dying from heat exhaustion is the perfect example of too much greenhouse effect."
"What really caught my attention was the continental drift, and the comparison to gravy skins. I am a huge fan of the day after Thanksgiving leftovers and know very well what the gravy looks like when its not hot. This was a very personal and easy visual for me."
"The youngest and oldest features of the moon and Mercury, because it's really cool that some parts of the moon are older than others, especially since it had never occured to me that some parts were older than others."
"I had never heard of the large impact hypothesis which explains how the moon was supposedly formed and that was just interesting because id always wondered where the moon comes from."
Describe something you found confusing from the assigned textbook reading or presentation preview, and explain why this was personally confusing for you.
"I guess that the only thing that would be confusing for me is that of adaptive optics. Is the mirror that is flexible an actual mirror? How does the computer measure what is actual disturbance?"
"Active optics confuses me because I am not sure how it affects the atmosphere turbulence."
"How someone can make an image such that is has the actual shape after turbulance from the atmosphere (twinkling stars)."
"The problem of the opacity of our atmosphere. And mostly the electromagnetic spectrum."
"I didn't really understand the history of Earth's moon and how it formed. I am also confused about how lava plains were made. Please go over that."
"I was having a really hard time understanding the order the things that shape the moon and Mercury. The book was really unclear and I read it multiple times but I am still confused."
"How Mercury actually formed is still confusing."
A large modern optical telescope in outer space would have images with better __________ than a comparable ground-based telescope.
brightness. *** [3] resolution. **************** [16] magnification. ** [2] (None of the above choices.) [0] (Two of the above choices.) **** [4] (All of the above choices.) ****** [6] (Unsure/guessing/lost/help!) **** [4]
Stars to appear to "twinkle" in the night sky because of...
"Stars twinkle because of turbulence in the atmosphere of the Earth. As the atmosphere churns, the light from the star is refracted in different directions. This causes the star's image to change slightly in brightness and position"
"Stars twinkle from our perspective because we are seeing them through our turbulent atmosphere, which bends the light and creates the apparent flashing look."
"They are moving?"
"Gases reacting with one another and causing flares?"
Identify how carbon dioxide enters and how it is taken out of Earth's atmosphere.
(Only correct responses shown.)
Enters atmosphere from: volcanoes [41%]
Taken out of atmosphere by: oceans [38%]
(Only correct responses shown.)
Craters partially filled in with flat lava plains: oldest (formed longest ago) [43%]
Flat lava plains: middle [20%]
Craters on top of flat lava plains: youngest (formed most recently) [31%]
(Only correct responses shown.)
Large crater basins: oldest (formed longest ago) [57%]
Lava-filled lowlands: middle [40%]
Long curving ridges: youngest (formed most recently) [57%]
Ask the instructor an anonymous question, or make a comment. Selected questions/comments may be discussed in class.
"Is there less atmospheric turbulence in Hawaii, where a lot of the largest telescopes are? Is that why Hawaii is such a good place for telescopes?" (I think the one of the main reasons why is that the jet stream (the main source of upper atmospheric turbulence) does not typically pass right over Hawaii most of the time.)
"Could you please go over the details of the surfaces of the Moon and Mercury?"
"How do they decide what a young/old feature on a planet is?"
"I was a little bit confused by the explanation of the creation of the moon. Is there a definite answer as to how it was created, or just the high probability that it was created as fragment of a planetary collision?" (The large impact hypothesis is actually not only supported by geologic evidence in rocks brought back from the moon; it is the only hypothesis remaining that is supported by that evidence.)
"Will there be study guides posted for the midterms and final?" (Yes, and there will be review sessions as well.)
"Where does P-dog get his fresh haircuts?"
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