Please check both this page and syllabus every week; they will keep being
updated. In case some dates are in disagreement in different places
on these pages, please notify the lecturer. Normally the syllabus takes
precedence.
Urgent messages will be sent to you via Quercus, as well as
comments on your submitted assignments. However
Quercus does not provide updates.
Only this page and the syllabus spell out all the rules & the conduct of
this course. Please make a bookmark for this webpage.
LEFT: The first known visitor from interstellar space known as 1I/2017 U1
(Oumuamua). 1I stands for 1st Interstellar. Discovered in 2017 by a
military Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii at a distance of 0.22 AU from Earth,
the object came from the direction of the constellation Lyra, cruising through
interstellar space at 26.33 km/s. Its classification as a small comet
vs. asteroid ejected from another planetary system has changed over time:
c,a,c,neither.
RIGHT: A visitor from Oort Cloud has been spotted in March 2022 by Californian
astronomers. The Green Comet or C/2022 E3 (ZTF) flew closest to us on
1 Feb 2023, at a safe distance of 0.28 AU. Green light was due to a complex
interaction of UV sunlight with C2 molecules it ejected
(among others).
This comet was initially classified as an asteroid, and may or may not become
interstellar after this passage through the inner Solar System.
As indicated above, this course deals with the origin, structure and lives of planets, the latter both in our solar and the other (extrasolar) planetary systems. In fact, we know 100s more of the latter kind, although not so intimately. Starting from basic physical principles and utilizing mathematics as a language, we will build a basic understanding of how planets form, function, and evolve. We will confront the presented theories with assorted observational facts, including some of the newest discoveries. Yet we put emphasis not on the observational but the theoretical and conceptual astrophysical aspects of such current issues as: mechanisms of formation of the solar and extrasolar planetary systems, physics of dusty circumstellar disks etc. At the end of the course, we will consider basic astrobiology issues such as our chances to meet extraterrestrial civilizations.
"Fundamental Planetary Science: Physics, Chemistry and Habitability"
by Jack J. Lissauer and Imke de Pater (2013, 2019). I will mention where
to find the book in the tutorial.
Be careful not to confuse it with the book "Planetary Sciences" (by the
same authors), which is a different, graduate-level, version of the book I mention
in the section on other books.
You don't have to read the whole book. Several chapters might give you
another angle on or another wording of issues than Lectures, but they are not
required reading. Only Chapter 15 is obligatory, please read it.
There are some other books worth reading listed on a subpage. They are not obligatory but some you may find them interesting, and can be good choices for extra book reading (activity points, see next subsection).
Grading is standard: minimum percentage marks for letter grades
(for orientation only, since grades are reported as percentages)
A+ 90%, A 85%, A- 80%, B+ 77%, B 73%, B- 70%, C+ 67%, C 63%, C- 60%,
D+ 57%, D 53%, D- 50%, F 49% or less.
*)- the activity points are awarded for participation in lectures and tutorials, and asking questions. Full points will be awarded for coming to office hour and sharing the knowledge gained from reading an optional book, if the level of the book is appropriate, subject concerns planetary systems, and I find that you understood the book. Examples of appropriate books are linked in the previous section. Email me the author and title of a book that is not on the list of recommended books, or show it in person. It will need to be approved (scope, level).
If you want to make sure I get your mail promptly, please always verify that you send mail to the address above or alternatively to pawel.artymowicz AT utoronto.ca, include ASTC25 in the subject line. and please mention your student number in the text, since e.g. temporary results file does not contain your name, only 3 last digits of student number.
Do not send email or comments to me via Quercus, I rarely check things posted there, and it's impossible for me to reply to a message forwarded via Quercus. We encourage you to use your UofT mail address in correspondence with us, to avoid the possible redirection to spam folder and for quick verification that you are UofT student.
Please remember to number the pages and sign all of them with your name and last 3 digits of student number, say, "...123". Write legibly; very messy homeworks cannot be graded. Please give enough details IN WORDS of the solution procedure. It's as important as the correct final answer. And don't forget to follow the guidelines on what a decent solution must contain (below) soch as physical units checks.
Everything you submit and the comments by the marking TA will be visible on Quercus. It will allow multiple submission of the files before deadline, so if you have corrections to your solution please post an updated file before the deadline (so it's not marked as late). You will be able to see and check a computational/calculational solution against a published one. This will make long explanations by the marker (TA) unnecessary, so don't expect very detailed comments on Quercus. Individual problems will have a nominal point value displayed, abd the TA will summarize your marks relative to these max scores. But the eventual "out of" or maximum score for a given task will be decided by the lecturer, and sometimes slightly re-adjusted toward the end of the course in your favor. Check the preliminary results file on this web page for your results vs. the "out of" scores for each task.
If there are misprints or anything else unclear about the problem set and/or access to it, please ask immediately and allow up to a day for an answer. It is too late to ask one day before the due date.
Remember that a fully solved problem may require all of the following steps:
Set A1. Due Thu 1 Feb. .
Published 22 Jan. Formulation
Prob. set 1, PDF . Solutions:
see this PDF .
Set A2. Due Thu 15 Feb at 1pm.
Published 6 Feb. Formulation:
In this PDF . Use summary of facts on orbital motion from A1.
Solutions:
cf. this PDF.
Set A3. Due Thu 14 March at 1pm
Problem formulation (publ. 5 March):
In this PDF.
Solutions of A3:
this PDF
Set A4. Due Thu 28 March.
Last set (avail. 19 March):
this PDF.
Solutions:
this PDF
Q: What is the format of the final exam?
A: Exactly the same as midterm, just longer. The level of difficulty is also
the same. 2/3 of final are from the post-midterm material, 1/3 from
pre-midterm material.
Q: Are exams open-book?
A: No they are not. Electronic devices except calculator
are also prohibited.
Q: Are own notes allowed at exams?
A: YES, own handwritten (not photocopied) notes are allowed: 4 pages
at midterm, 8 pages at the final. That's pages not sheets! You decide
if the notes are single-sided or double-sided, and what to write in them.
(There is no need to copy tables of planetary data, since all the constants needed
for the solution will be provided in the exam.)
Q: Until when can I drop the course without academic penalty?
A: In 2024 until 25 March.
Q: Is my presence at *all* lectures and tutorials required?
A: It isn't enforced or mandatory but it's VERY HELPFUL to attend both the
lectures and the tutorials.
Since the lectures DO NOT follow literally any books, except for
sometimes quoting the assorted fragments of our textbook 1 (book no.1 above),
your advantages are many: (i) the points for participation (see Marking section),
(ii) you get information beyond what's in the textbook and posted materials,
some of which may be *very* valuable at test/exam. I strongly encourage and
expect you to engage and take own notes (I do write some things on the
blackboard or whiteboard). For example, most of the (exo)planetary system
theory is not yet found in any undergraduate textbooks, so hearing it presented
in our meetings will be helpful. We will be discussing solutions to home
assignments and solving new problems during the tutorials.
Q: Will there be recordings of lectures made available and can't I just
use them instead of coming to in-person meetings (lectures, tutorials)?
A: Recordings of 2022/2023 lectures will be posted in Media Gallery on Quercus.
There were occasional glitches when the session was not recorded at full
length. The course is in-person, so you should not primarily
rely on recordings but attend the lectures. You will also have the current
PDF lecture notes below. Re-download them every week, since a few percent
of each file is normally updated or expanded shortly before and sometimes
after each lecture.
Q: Is this page going to be always visible or should I download things I need
from it to my computer?
A: It did happen once that our server was unavailable 2 days before the exam.
The networking problem was solved in the last minute but put a stress on
those who did not download the preperatory material ahead of time.
We advise to download or refresh lecture notes and other files you need every
week.
Everything that was in the lectures and tutorials (and assignments) up to day 6 can be the subject of midterm exam, so study the notes up to and including L10 and days 1-6 of recordings, including tutorials.
Midterm Quiz will be testing notions and facts discussed in Lectures. The texbook can provide additional clarifications but is not required for the midterm. (This may not be the case in the final exam, so don't throw the Lissauer/de Pater book away!)
Own handwritten notes and calculators will be allowed at midterm. Nothing else is allowed, no electronic devices during the exam. Quiz usually takes about 20 min. You decide what to do first, quiz or written part. But remember that they carry approximately the same weight, so probably doing Quiz first makes more sense.
A training set of quiz questions
is provided below. This version has about 50% of answers provided.
Not sure if the scope exatly covers all lectures up to the SPH simulation
of star cluster formation in L10 (the required material are all
lectures up to this point).
PDF.
Next I provide a set of sample written problems .
Just like the Quiz, to prepare well for the exam, please solve the
unsolved items with or without the lecture notes and texbook in hand.
Problems without solutions .
And here is the set of the problems with most answers or hints provided, but
you should use it after you find your own solutions:
problems-with-solutions .
Remember that a fully solved problem (in exam or assignment) may require all 6 points listed earlier in the section on homeworks.
For the quiz, review the files of lecture notes, your own notes, and/or
recordings of lectures. As for the Lissauer+DePater
textbook, please only read chapter 15. Read it thoroughly.
Sample quiz questions, many solved, is before
the exam in this
PDF file. For credit, remember to circle incorrect word(s)
in case you choose N as answer. No attempt to cover all the lectures
equally is made in this file.
As far as the written problems are concerned, please also
remember to check the preparatory material for the midterm and
all the posted homeworks & their solutions.
I'm not including those things in the problems below, although I have
covered most of the course material in preparation file for the Quiz.
The problems WITHOUT solutions,
PDF file .
The problems WITH solutions,
PDF file .