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In 2020-21, this course is an online-only course. Video clips of the lectures can be found in the Outline section.

The course is primarily designed for students who need a science context credit. At the same time, the course is highly recommended as an elective for science students, in particular those who plan to become teachers, because of its strong emphasis on the scientific method and how we came to know what we currently know about our amazing universe.

The study of astronomy has inspired humans to revolutionize the way we understand the universe and our place in it, and has led to the development of modern science. Knowing something about this beautiful chapter in the story of intellectual history is an important goal of this course.

(from NASA)

"We succeeded in taking that picture of Earth [from the outskirts of our solar system], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam."

-- Carl Sagan

• Have You Ever Really Seen the Moon? (The Atlantic)
• Astronomy picture of the day
• Weekly Stargazing Tips
• Tonight's Sky
• Astronomy Resources at STScI
• Royal Astronomical Society of Canada - Niagara Centre
• Scale of the Universe 2 (interactive)
• Mars flyover video (German Aerospace Center (DLR))