Physics 101 - Astronomy - Spring 2019 - extra credit writing assignment


Extra credit paper due May 2

Most of the students in this class could use some extra credit. Here is an assignment that should not take too long. It is due May 2 so that I have time to read these papers and grade them before the end of finals week. I may not get them back to you before the final exam.

For 10 points possible credit, write a paper on one of these 3 topics:

1. Exoplanets: seven Earth-sized planets have been found in orbit around a single star called TRAPPIST-1.

2. Exoplanet around Barnard’s star: An exoplanet with around 3 times the mass of Earth has been found orbiting Barnard’s star, which is the second-closest stellar system (after the Alpha Centauri system).

3. Interstellar asteroid: an object from outside the Solar System has been found travelling relatively close to Earth. Search for the name  Oumuamua

The paper should contain at least 2 pages of text (double-spaced), not counting a title page (which is optional) and not counting any figures (which should be included only if they contribute to the content and meaning of the paper). If you quote material, use quotation marks and indicate which reference you got it from (you could put "ref. 1" in parentheses, for example, to refer to reference 1 in your reference list). Your paper should not be more than 20% quotations. The rest should be in your own words. You should find at least three news articles or descriptive articles, and you must list 3 or more of these at the end of the paper. Of course you don't need to use all the material in the articles you find; some of them might be quite long. The reference list at the end of the paper should list the article's title, author(s) (if listed), and the source (newspaper website, magazine website, NASA, etc.) and the URL (web address) if the material is on the internet. (You might find an article I haven't read, so I would like to know where to find it!) Be sure to include your name on the paper.

The paper is due by the end of class on Tuesday, May 2, but it will be accepted any time earlier. Early papers may be brought to class or put in the folder by my office door in Currens 532 (top floor). Please turn in a printed paper.

Guidelines for researching the paper

Possible web sites that may have accurate articles are
www.astronomy.com
www.skyandtelescope.com
www.nytimes.com
www.washingtonpost.com
www.latimes.com
www.nasa.gov
apod.nasa.gov
en.wikipedia.org (may be too technical)
www.space.com (may have lots of ads)

Try using google.com and search for TRAPPIST-1, exoplanet Barnard's, or Oumuamua
You can restrict the search to a particular site by adding the expression site:astronomy.com or something similar, and you will only get articles from that web site. As an example, I went to www.google.com and entered this line:

oumuamua site:skyandtelescope.com

Several articles resulted from this search, along with some index or table of contents pages (which are not so useful).

Another example of a search on google.com is

exoplanet Barnard's site:nytimes.com