ASTRO 480Galaxies and Cosmology
Fundamental issues in extragalactic astronomy and modern cosmology, including the contents of the Universe, its origin and fate, and formation and evolution of cosmic structures. Topics covered include the basic properties of spiral, elliptical, and irregular galaxies and their quantitative classification, the extragalactic distance scale, the photometric and chemical evolution of galaxies, the physics and evolution of galaxy clusters, active galactic nuclei, the formation of large-scale structure, the physics of the early universe, and the basic equations of cosmology.