Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics

Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics is Charles Bailyn's Spring 2007 course ASTR 160, recorded for Open Yale Courses as 24 lectures of about 50 minutes plus two short updates. It concentrates on three fast-moving areas. The first unit covers planetary orbits and the discovery of extra-solar planets by transits, microlensing and direct imaging; the second covers special and general relativity, tests of relativity, stellar-mass black holes, pulsars and supermassive black holes; the third covers Hubble's law and the Big Bang, dark matter, dark energy, supernovae and the cosmic microwave background.

The syllabus describes weekly problem sets that mix quantitative problems with essay questions, two in-class tests and a final exam, none of which is graded for online viewers. Lectures are available as streaming or downloadable video, audio and searchable transcripts, with reading assignments listed per lecture. Open Yale Courses is free, needs no registration and offers no certificate or credit.