Determine a galaxy’s type from its appearance, and describe the motions of its stars.
Explain the distance ladder and how distances to galaxies are measured.
Describe the evidence suggesting that galaxies are composed mostly of dark matter.
Discuss the evidence indicating that most large galaxies have a supermassive black holes at their center.
Understand the structure of the Milky Way Galaxy as a case study for other large galaxies.
Explain the evidence for a dark matter halo and for the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Describe how the motion of the observer affects the observed velocity of objects.
Discuss the observable consequences of the relationship between space and time.
Explain how gravity is a consequence of the way mass distorts the very shape of spacetime.
Explain why the most massive stars end as black holes, and describe the key properties of these stellar black holes.Sketch post-main-sequence evolutionary tracks on the H-R diagram.
List the stages of evolution for low-mass stars.
Describe how planetary nebulae and white dwarfs form.
Explain how some close binary systems evolve differently than single stars.
