S283: The Exam

It has to be done - another exam. Why do we go through this I wonder?
Well I'll tell you - well actually, I'll tell you why I think its good to do an exam.

• This is where the course really comes together. There is no avoiding it, you have to confront your weaknesses. You can't go back to the books in the exam and reread a subject and go "Oh yes, I must have skipped that the first time around". I find a lot of things become clearer when you have to be prepared to answer questions on it.
  
• You feel validated. I have this nagging feeling that others may be able to do the course, just by reading from the books and repeating stuff without understanding it. I expect this is not true, but if so - well you can't do that in exams. So though its stressful, you feel having done it you understand the subject.
• For those few weeks of revision - you are a real expert on the material. Sadly it fades sooner or later after the exam, but for a while, should someone make the mistake of asking you a simple question on the topic, they'll find themselves pinned to the wall for an hour or more as you hold forth.

What I don't like about exams is:

• Memory stuff. In this exam for instance, you really need to know the distance of the planets in AU for the exam. That's just wrote memory test, not much more.
• That feeling when you open the paper, read a question, and realise you don't know anything about this.
• All that revision

Anyway - this exam consists of
Part A - 8 multiple choice questions

• Q1 is about Venus, how far is it from the sun and whats in it atmosphere
• Q2 is about the structure of planetary bodies
• Q3 is about the structure of an unidentified planet.
• Q4 is about the orbit of an asteroid, and needs some of Keplers laws.
• Q5 is about the requirements for life.
• Q6 is about Titan and its environment
• Q7 is about Doppler spectroscopy for detecting exoplanets.
• Q8 is a graph you have to identify.

Part B - About the solar system and stuff - answer 3 questions from 4.

• Q9 gets you to normalise rock samples based on mineral components and plot a graph.
• Q10 is more an essay question about how planets form, where you have to write some of the steps in their formation.
• Q11 is about some craters on Mars, and how they form. Again you have to describe mechanisms.
• Q12 is about meteorites and their inclusions.
  

Part C - Astrobiology and the search for life - again 3 from 4.

• Q13 is about evolution, the requirements for life and Panspermia.
• Q14 looks at Europa and gets you to label images and say what is going on in resurfacing terms.
• Q15 is about habitable zones around stars, and is maths based, which you then have to comment on.
• Q16 is exoplanet detection using doppler and astrometry. Then follows this up by exploring what else you might find out.

I've had worse exams, I've also had better ones. I think I passed, but possibly not as well as I might have hoped. Oh well, nothing I can do now.

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S283: TMA-4

The last TMA. I need a big score to up my OCAS average on this one. Alas not to be, despite spending far too long on it, repeatedly reworking it. I'm just not putting what is in the marking template apparently.

Question 1 is about evidence for water flow on Mars. You have to download a paper discussing recent evidence for water flow on Mars and compare the paper with details in the book.

Question 2 concerns rainfall on Titan, and the atmospheric structure there.

Question 3 concerns the Drake equation, and asks you to calculate civilisations based on some given numbers.

Question 4 is about extra solar planet detection using the Doppler method. It also includes details about transit detection, what its probably density is in comparison to Jupiter, and so what sort of planet it is. Also how it might have got there through migration.

Question 5 is all about suitability for life based on IR and light spectrum. Discussing possible spectra and what they might tell you, and what you would hope to see in some cases. Also reasons the planet might be habitable but still nto show up on the spectrum results.

Last TMA, not the mark I was hoping for, and in general the marks for this course have been hard to get compared to all the other courses I have done with the OU. I still got reasonable scores, but found it very difficult to get a good score on a TMA, as it seems very picky about minutia of detail. If you answer is right, but not what is wanted, you score less than otherwise.

Anyway - now just the exam.

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S283: TMA-3

Well, my worst TMA of the series (so far). One stupid mistake which probably accounts for a couple of lost points, and several questions where I miss the point.

So
Question 1: This is about ¹⁷O and ¹⁸O ratios, and what they say about stars. You have to calculate a few quantities and the rest is interpreting the results.

Question 2: Is about geochemical data for asteroids, and looks at rare earth element ratios. You have to calculate some data in a spread sheet for 3 different sample, and then plot it on a graph. You also have to do the same thing with δ¹⁷O and δ¹⁸O ratios. Then armed with this data make a case for the origins of the various samples.

Question 3: This looks at possible biological molecules, asks you to identify the general type of molecule, its use as a biomarker. Then you have to draw the chiral equivalents of them in a chemistry program.

Question 4: This asks you to discuss the habitable zone around a star, and also looks at habitable zones around larger planets and similar.

Question 5: This is about the martian meteorite ALH 84001 and the possibility that it shows evidence of microbial life on Mars. You have to discuss the evidence for and against. Finally it asks you to critically evaluate the evidence for the emergence of life on earth, but says you should do it in 50-100 words - which to be indicates a short answer. The sample answer contains a number of points that I missed.

Anyway, there it goes, hope to do better in the next one.

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S283: Book2 - An introduction to astrobiology

Book 2 starts to get to some biology, and leave behind some of the geophysics, so its more in my comfort zone.

• Chapter 1 starts by looking at the origin of life on earth. What it needs in terms of components, how it might have started and the clues left behind both fossil and molecular.
• Chapter 2 looks at environments for life, and considers the habitable zone around the sun.
• Chapter 3 is all about Mars, and the various attempts to find life there, including the notorious Martian meteorite.
• Chapter 4 looks at the possibility of life on icy moons such as Europa and other places.
• Chapter 5 is devoted to the moon Titan.
• Chapter 6 is about exoplanets, those planets orbiting other stars and mostly about how they are detected.
• Chapter 7 looks at exoplanets as possible habitats for life, and some of their properties that may aid or otherwise life development.
• Chapter 8 looks at the potential to detect life on exoplanets from Earth, and the technology required for that to take place.
• Chapter 9 considers SETI and CETI, interaction with extraterrestrial civilisations and how we haven't had any, and why that might be.

Whilst I found the first few chapters interesting, and the exoplanet chapters happened to coincide with a IYA lecture locally that was excellent, I found the book rather seemed to fizzle out at the end., or maybe it was me that fizzled out.

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S283: TMA-2

TMA 2 comes around, and there is more work to do on book 1 in this one. It has just the 4 questions.

Question 1 is about atmospheres. You have to start by discussing techniques for analysing atmospheres. This is followed up by some calculations on partial pressures and what sort of conditions could make for frozen carbon dioxide on the Earth and Mars.

Question 2 is about Keplers laws. It starts by getting you to state them, and then apply them to an asteroid. Based on this and some other data you then have to work out what sort of asteroid it is, and whether it is a potential threat to the Earth.

Question 3 is an essay! Its 600 words comparing and contrasting the atmospheres, structures and properties of Jupiter and Neptune. Well 600 words is either a lot, or not much depending on how much you have to cover. In the end, with some diagrams and tables and a couple of photos this turns into not too bad an account, but its when do you declare it finished!

Question 4 you are asked to discuss various theories of solar system formation. Based on the latest exoplanetary observations, it seems fairly clear that the current models are inadequate, but anyway to get the marks you have to describe what the books tell you.

Not too bad a TMA, and a lot better mark than the last one.

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S283: TMA-1

Well compared to the chemistry I'm doing alongside this, I find this TMA reasonably easy. Possibly too easy as I get a less than expected mark for it. That will teach me!
Lets see - what does it have in store?

Question 1 is about the formation of the solar system. When it formed, why rocky planets are in the inner and gas giants in the outer. Stuff about ring systems and density, and the asteroid belt. Not too bad for a start.

Question 2 is geology. What the structure of the earth is, what the layers are, how they are defined and stuff like that. Some bits on mineralogy and seismic data, and rounded off with xenoliths and what they can tell us about the structure.

Question 3 looks at various moons, and gets you to fill in a table. How old is the surface of each, what if any caused the resurfacing, and what was it made up of. Then you are given data about two imaginary satellites, and asked to work out from density and other information what sort of body they are likely to be.

Question 4 is about volcanism and cryovolcanism. What basalt is so common, what makes it so and so on. More geology...

Question 5 is interesting, as you are given a picture of part of the moon, and have to work out various dimensions of the craters pictured, and then determine if they are simple or complex craters. I found acrobat reader has a great tool for this sort of measuring. Then you have to make various observations and hypotheses about the craters such as age and relative order.

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S283: Book 1 - An Introduction to the Solar System

Book 1 is a fairly weighty tomb, but about the size of the S282 books, and similar to the 2nd book in the course as it happens. Its 412 pages in total, and split into 9 chapters.

Chapter 1 is an introduction to the solar system. We briefly visit all the major bodies of the solar system in turn and look at the general layout of things. It gets you oriented into whats where and what will be looked at in the next few pages.

Chapter 2 looks at terrestrial type planets and their internal structure. There is a fair smattering of geology in this part, and stuff about tectonics and inner cores and stuff like that. There is also some parts on what happened over its life as the rocks were 'cooked' and changed.

Chapter 3 looks in depth at volcanism. So there is a lot about volcanoes and eruptions of lavas and what that can do to surfaces. It also considers cryovolcanism, where water and ice errupt in the more frozen worlds giving similar results.

Chapter 4 looks at planetary surfaces and in particular at cratering and what it can tell us about what has happened. We go into quite a lot of depth (NPI) on different types of crater and how they can be recognised.

Chapter 5 looks at plaentary atmospheres - for those lucky enoguh to have them. It also looks at clouds, and atmospheric motion, and the different layers that they tend to split into.

Chapter 6 looks at the gas giants, and what they're structure might be.

Chapter 7 is concerned with the more minor bodies of the solar system. So things like asteroids, comets, the Kuiper belt and even interplanetary dust.

Chapter 8 looks at how the solar system was formed, and what that was all about.

Chapter 9 ends up looking at meteorites and what they can tell us about what happened at various stages in its evolution.

So - that was quite a tour, but in some ways it wasn't as detailed as the earlier planets course I did. Many of the mechanisms we gone into in a lot more depth, but I didn't come out of it feeling I knew a lot more about the planets, but knowing a fair bit more about their formation.

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S283: Planetary science and the search for life starting-

In 2009 I have a few things going on, so decided not to complete the 3rd level courses I was planning. Instead I decide to go for the S283 course which will complete me a certificate in astronomy, which would be good.
S283 is called Planetary science and the search for life, and seems like a fun course, although its alleged to have a certain amount of geology in it, my least favourite of the hard sciences. Anyway, I signed up and the books arrived in short order! Very similar sized books to the S282 course.

What you get is:
Book 1 - An Introduction to the solar system
Book 2 - An Introduction to astrobiology
A course handbook
A study calendar
A guide to submitting electronic assignments
An applications CD.
A DVD specific to the course

The books are very similar in layout to the S282 - lots of pictures and quite readable, and I can't help starting on them despite the ongoing chemistry assignments!

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