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- Professor:
Olivia
Jensen ( course
e-mail |
web
service |
short
bio )
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TAs:
Audrey, Ben,
Chen, Debarati,
Justin RLA:
Younes
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Section
001 CRN 16490
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Time:
4:05 pm - 5:25 pm, Tuesdays and Thursdays, Jan 7, 2021 - Apr
16, 2021
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Place:
Macdonald Harrington Building G-10 and online via myCourses
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Audio/Video
files (Current sessions): See myCourses website for PowerPoint
and Video formats
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Audio/Video
files (2019 sessions):
http://lrs.mcgill.ca/ListRecordings.aspx?CourseID=20558
_____________________________
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Adobe
Acrobat reader:
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The
course notes are provided in PDF (Portable Document Format).
Get a recent version of the Adobe
Acrobat Reader for
your operating system... installation is very easy.
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Sentry
– Earth Impact Monitoring:
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The
Near Earth Objects Program has been renamed to “Sentry”.
I shall use this link from time-to-time in the course lectures.
In the meantime, you might explore it, choose an object from
the list to monitor and then click on its [example following]
“orbit
details” then
on “show
orbit diagram”.
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Celestia/KStars:
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You
might be interested in a very cool open-source program called
Celestia.
It requires a rather “fast” computer to work well.
With Celestia, you can change the laws of gravitation in order
to see how orbits would be changed in different universes.
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The
KStars
Desktop
Planetarium is a nice open-source code for Linux/Unix systems
running KDE (the K Desktop) or most other windowing
environments. There is a free Windows 10 App available from the
Microsoft Store. You may download
KStars here.
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Office
hours are electronic!
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Rather
than try to maintain physical office hours that might be
convenient to you, I promise to be available to help you after
class each day and, better, I think, to be available to
respond to your questions sent to me via e-mail. I believe
that I found time to answer every student’s queries last
year. If I have been unable to respond to your question after
class, for a prompt response concerning the course, please use
this e-mail address: terrestrial.planets@gmail.com
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Quizzes
and Final exams
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The
theme of the course has not changed but evermore new
information about the Solar System and Universe has been
discovered since the last version of the course. We try to
keep up-to-the-minute but with a somewhat critical acceptance
of the most recently published speculations. The midterm test
of previous years has been replaced, now, with one longer
essay option or by a series of online quizzes. The final exam
will probably have a character like examinations given last
year; this year 50 multiple-choice questions, 24 true-false
questions, 8 short-answer questions and 1 short opinion
essay/opinion question.
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Getting
started? Explore some other interesting and relevant WWW
services:
LADEE
LCROSS
LRO
(Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter)
Mini-RF
Moon
Mineralogy Mapper
Ranger
Surveyor
- Clementine
Mission
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Ice?...
on the Moon
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Results
from
Lunar missions.
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Apollo
11, first manned landing on Moon.
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Apollo
program story.
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Grail
– mapping the interior mass distribution of the Moon
InSight
Mars
Global Surveyor
Mars
Odyssey
Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter
Mars
Science Laboratory, Curiosity
– Currently
geophysically and geochemically mapping the surface rocks of
Mars. Its landing simulation
video!
MAVEN
Phoenix
Viking
Landers Missions to Mars
Mars
Pathfinder mission.
- Passport
to Knowledge website takes you to Mars.
. ... and to explore the Solar
System.
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Life
on Mars? Real estate values? (
Yahoo
pages)
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Current
missions to Mars – In the summer of 2003, Mars was
closer to Earth than it has been in the past 60000 years.
Several missions took advantage of its proximity. Beagle/2
mission – while we still hope that the Beagle lander
will be found to be functional, it seems that its Christmas
day, 2006 landing failed...
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Mars
Express – ESA's very high resolution Mars orbiter.
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Mars
Exploration Rovers – A wonderfully successful
mission, still on-going. The landing of the MERs... view the
simulation video!
- Magellan
mission
to
Venus
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The
Soviet Union's Venera missions to Venus: 9
and
other other
Venera missions.
- Mariner
10 – 35 years ago!
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Messenger
-- We return to map Mercury
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Other
similar courses on the web
- Some
useful additional materials
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