Astrophysicssome introductory remarks

Astronomy is with mathematics one of the oldest branches of science. It has served as
basis for calendars, navigation, has been an important input for religions and was for a
long time intertwined with astrology.

Some of the most important steps in modern astronomy were:

Galileo performed 1609 the first astronomical studies using a telescope. He discov-
ered among others four Saturn moons and sun spots.
Kepler (1571-1630) developed his three laws of planetary motions, based on obser-
vations of Tycho Brahe.
Newton established 1687 his laws of motion and gravitation.
The measurement of the distance to Venus 1761 and 1769 during its transits of
the Sun with the help of the first global measurement campaign and to the nearest
stars 1838 by Bessel using trigonometric parallaxes established the first rungs in
the cosmic distance ladder.
Fraunhofer discovered around 570 spectral lines in the solar light in 1814 and
catalogued them. This opened together with the spectral analysis of Kirchhoff
and Bunsen (1859) the way to study the physical properties of stars.
Einsteins general theory of relativity (1916) provided the first consistent basis to
study cosmology.
The Great Debate in 1920 was concerned about the question Does the Milky
Way represents the whole Universe or is it just one island among many others?
Opik, Shapley and Hubble showed that the latter is true.
Hubble discovered 1926 that galaxies are recessing and that their velocity is increas-
ing with distance: The universe is expanding and, extrapolating this expansion
back in time led to the idea of the Big Bang.
Nuclear fusion was suggested in 1920 by Eddington as source for stellar energy, the
main principles were worked out after the advent of quantum mechanics by Bethe
and v. Weizsacker in the 1930s.
The discovery of the cosmic 2.7 Kelvin background radiation 1964 by Penzias and
Wilson gave credit to the Big Bang theory.

Few other examples for the interconnection of astrophysics and physics, where astro-
nomical observations were an important input for fundamental physics, are:
Olaf C. Romer (1644-1710) showed 1676 that the speed of light is finite by obser-
vations of Jupiter moons: Light needs around 20 min to cross the Earth orbit.
The 1919 solar eclipse was the first crucial test passed by the theory of General
Relativity of Einstein, while a binary system of two pulsars discovered by Hulse
and Taylor in 1974 became the first experimental evidence for the existence of
gravitational waves.

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Observation of neutrinos from the Sun and produced by cosmic rays in the Earths
atmosphere gave in the 1990s first firm evidence that neutrinos have non-zero
masses.
The need for a new form of dark matter to describe correctly the formation and
dynamics of galaxies requires a yet unknown extension of the current standard
model of elementary particle physics. The same holds true for a new form of dark
energy required for the explanation of the accelerated expansion of the universe.

Astronomy as a purely observational science is unique among natural sciences; all others
are based on experiments. Since the observation time is much smaller than the typical
time scale for the evolution of astronomical objects, we see just a snapshot of the uni-
verse. Nevertheless it is possible to reconstruct, e.g., the evolution of stars by studying
large samples. On the extragalactic scales, we can use that looking far away means
looking into the past because of the finite speed of light, while on the cosmological scale
we can use relics formed soon after the Big Bang as testimonies for the state of the early
universe.

The cosmological principle is based on the belief that the mankind and the Earth
have no special role. Thus physical laws derived on Earth are valid everywhere and at
all times.

Astronomers and especially cosmologists are said to live these days in a golden age:
There has been a tremendous increase of knowledge in the last 15 years: Telescopes and
detectors on satellites explore new wavelength ranges, while new automatized ways to
analyse data allow astronomers the comparative study of e.g. millions of galaxies.

Astrophysics needs input of practically all sub-disciplines of physics and thus a course on
astrophysics cannot be self-contained. However, the course should be accessible to students
with just a general introduction to physics. Few sections of the text that are somewhat more
advanced and that can be omitted are marked by stars.

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