Meyer D.M. Experiencing Hubble: Exploring the Milky Way

Chantilly: The Teaching Company, 2020. — 169 p.On a dark, clear night, a magnificent band of hazy light arches overhead that ancient Greeks likened to a trail of milk spilled across the sky. It is the Milky Way, the galaxy where we live, seen edge-on from our vantage point on the inside. There are countless stars at all stages of stellar life, vast clouds of interstellar gas and dust, star clusters, and even satellite galaxies, but no close-up view can match that of the Hubble Space Telescope, which has been surveying the wonders of the Milky Way for three decades.Professor Biography
Course Scope
Lecture 1—The Unseen Face of Our Spiral Galaxy
The Vastness of the Milky Way
Edwin Hubble’s Observations
The Search for a Milky Way Look-Alike
Lecture 2—Viewing the Galaxy through a Comet
The Motion and Distance of Solar System Objects
Comet ISON
Lecture 3—A Cloud of Stardust: The Horsehead Nebula
Star Formation in Nebulae
The Horsehead Nebula
The Orion Nebula
Lecture 4—A Star Awakens: The Jets of Herbig-Haro 24
Bipolar Jets of Outflowing Gas
HH 24
Lecture 5—A Star Cluster Blossoms: Westerlund 2
Main-Sequence Stars
The Westerlund 2 Star Cluster
The Future of Young Massive Star Clusters
Lecture 6—An Interstellar Cavity: The Bubble Nebula
Stellar Winds and Mass Loss
The Bubble Nebula
Superbubbles
Lecture 7—The Interstellar Echo of a Variable Star
Reflections and Light Echoes
The Pulsations of RS Puppis
The Period-Luminosity Relation
Lecture 8—Tracing the Veil of a Prehistoric Supernova
Elemental Composition of Stars
Types of Supernova Explosions
The Veil Nebula
The Big Picture
Lecture 9—The Stellar Vortex at the Galactic Center
The Galactic Center Star Cluster
Supermassive Black Holes
Lecture 10—The Galactic Halo’s Largest Star Cluster
Globular Clusters
Omega Centauri
Lecture 11—Satellite Galaxies: The Magellanic Clouds
The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds
The Tarantula Nebula
Galactic Interactions
Lecture 12—The Future of the Milky Way
Spirals in the Galactic Neighborhood
Future Interactions
The Milky Way–Andromeda Merger
Quiz