13 PHYS1160 Essays Essays should be between 1500 and 2000 words. The word limit should include the text, figure captions, footnotes, but not the reference list (we are happy to see lots of references). You will lose marks for going more than 10% over the limit of 2000 words. The format of the essay is not specified. You are welcome to include section headings and pictures. However, try to ensure that they help to illustrate the argument presented in the essay and are not mere adornment. Your essay should be written for a well-informed but non-specialist audience. The style (not the format) used in popular science magazines such as Scientific American or New Scientist would be a suitable guide. Remember, you are not writing for experts, so if you use technical jargon you will need to explain it. Refrain from using formulae, but instead explain concepts in your own words. Essays will be graded on: • Degree of understanding of the topic (max. 6 marks) • Quality and depth of research (max. 6 marks) • Clarity of presentation (max. 6 marks) • Outstanding original coverage of the topic (max. 2 marks) Essays are expected to show evidence of researching the topic beyond the material presented in the course lessons and textbook. They are expected to be more than just a literature review – they should present the understanding of the subject that you have developed. The sources you use (websites, journal articles, books) should be referenced. You should consistently use one of the standard reference styles. One style is to number references sequentially in the text and include a numbered list of references at the end of the essay. An alternative is to mark references in the text using author and date – e.g. (Sagan, 1987) or Drake et al. (1965) – and list references at the end of the essay in alphabetical order. “References” here are the sources that you have used to understand a particular point. You may have also done wider reading that informs your general background – if you wish, you may present this in an additional bibliography. Such a bibliography is optional, and not a requirement. A list of references is a requirement. If you use text directly from another source you must make it clear that it is a quote by placing it in quotation marks (“ ”) and giving a reference to the source. However, you 14 should not make excessive use of quotes. Direct quotations use up word count, and (in the main) will not contribute to your grade, because the essay will be assessed on the extent to which you have identified, understood and interpreted background information, and then presented your views on the subject – not on your ability to find relevant information and quote it. Using text from other sources without attribution is plagiarism and is not acceptable. Taking the text of others and paraphrasing it without attribution is also plagiarism. Using text from other sources with attribution is quoting and will not earn you a good grade. Read more on the UNSW Plagiarism Policy at http://student.unsw.edu.au/plagiarism. Your essay will use the TurnItIn system for submission. Turnitin includes an automatic set of checks and tests for plagiarism. Your submission will be checked against a large database of material and tested for matches. The database includes all past essays submitted for this course. Ensure that what you submit is your own work and that any material from other sources is placed in quotation marks and the source cited. Copying material from the web (even if you subsequently make edits to it) is considered plagiarism and it is unacceptable. TurnItIn is specifically designed to detect all plagiarism attempts! TurnItIn gives a similarity score that indicates the percentage of the submission that appears to match its database. While there may be legitimate reasons for matches (such as quotations and references), we will be suspicious if we see high similarity scores and examine essays with such scores closely to determine the extent to which the text is the original work of each student. Submitting Essays Essays are due before midnight on Sunday 24th January (i.e., the end of week 3, 11:59 pm, Sunday). They should be submitted online through the submission box provided in the Assessments page on Moodle. You can submit it in a range of file formats (MS Word, WordPerfect, PDF, Postscript, HTML, RTF and plain text). They cannot be submitted containing scanned or bitmapped images of text – Turnitin will not interpret that text, and you will not be graded on any text in that format. Late submissions will be penalized one mark per day late. So (at the risk of stating the obvious) do not leave your submission until the last minute. • If you want to make sure your essay is in a format that TurnItIn will accept, then do not leave submission until late on Sunday night. • If you want to see your TurnItIn results, then do not leave your submission 11:30pm on Sunday! TurnItIn takes time to do its processing, and you may not see its results before the deadline. • If you want to ensure you have a working internet connection for uploading your essay, then, then do not leave submission until Sunday at 23:59. 15 Essay Topics — Choose one of the following 1. Space Telescopes Explain why astronomers put telescopes in space. Describe the Hubble Space Telescope and some of its achievements. How will the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope differ from Hubble and what new science should be possible with it. 2. The Earliest Evidence for Life Review the earliest evidence for life on Earth. What form does the evidence take and where is it found? Discuss the controversies relating to some of this evidence and give your conclusion on the earliest date at which we can be confident that life was present on Earth. 3. Follow the Water Why do astrobiologists think that liquid water is the most important requirement for life? What is the evidence for the past presence of liquid water on Mars? Is it possible that there is still liquid water on Mars today? 4. Life in Extreme Conditions Explain what extremophile life forms are and where they are found on Earth. In view of what we have learnt about extremophiles discuss the possibility of extraterrestrial life in different places of our Solar system. 5. Key Solar System Planetary Missions Choose ONE of the following space missions and give an account of the mission describing the challenges it had to overcome and the mission’s achievements. Describe in particular how it has influenced our understanding of the possibilities of past or present life in the solar system. • The Viking dual orbiter/lander mission to Mars. • The Galileo orbiter/probe mission to the Jupiter system. • The Cassini/Huygens mission to the Saturn system. • The Mars Exploration Rover mission (Spirit and Opportunity rovers). 6. Exploration of Venus Describe the history of missions to Venus and their achievements. How did we learn about the thick atmosphere and high surface temperature of Venus and how did we map its surface? Should we consider Venus as a possible site for life in our Solar system? 7. Gravitational Waves On Feb 11 2016 the announcement was made of the detection of gravitational waves from space using the Advanced LIGO facility. What are gravitational waves? How does LIGO detect them and why is this discovery significant? 8. Small Solar System Bodies Describe how space missions have been used to study small Solar system bodies (comets and asteroids). What have we learned about these bodies? How might such studies help us understand the origin of life on Earth? 9. Inside stars 16 Explain how helioseismology and solar neutrinos help to study interior of the Sun. Based on two examples, a low mass star like our Sun and the star that is twenty times more massive than the Sun, discuss how the internal composition of the stars changes during their life. 10. Space mission to Pluto The “New Horizons” mission is exploring the outer Solar System. Describe the objectives of the mission and important scientific instruments on the space probe. Discuss what we have learnt about Pluto after the closest approach to this dwarf planet. Explain how this mission helps us to understand the processes of formation and evolution of the planetary system. 11. Formation of planetary systems Discuss the early ideas about the formation of our Solar system. Compare our solar system with other multi-planetary systems discovered in the last 20 years. Explain what we have learnt about formation of planets from these discoveries. Describe the concept of planetary migration. 12. Kepler and TESS Compare the strategy and objectives of the NASA Kepler mission and the new TESS mission. Describe what observations are needed to confirm that an extra solar planet has similar physical characteristics to our Earth. Discuss the role of the Kepler and TESS missions in the search for planets like the Earth. 13. Habitability of Planets Explain what makes a planet habitable. In the context of currently known extra solar planetary systems discuss the likelihood of habitable planets in our Galactic neighbourhood. Describe some examples of recently discovered extra solar planets, which are suggested to be habitable and explain why. 14. Role model astronomer/astrobiologist Science advances by efforts of large collective of collaborating people, but there are outstanding individuals that we all admire for their role in moving us forward in understanding our world. Choose your favourite contemporary (that is born not earlier than the twentieth century) astronomer or astrobiologist that you learnt about in studying this course, and describe their contribution to their field of research. Explain why this person inspired you personally. 15. The Standard Cosmological Model Describe the standard cosmological model (also known as the Lambda-CDM model of the universe). What is the observational evidence that supports the model? 16. The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Explain what is SETI and how it approaches the search for the ET. Explain why radio telescopes are particularly useful in such a search. If we contact an advanced extraterrestrial civilization discuss how likely it is that we will benefit from the encounter through, for example, the information they may provide on advanced technologies, or are we likely to suffer through the hostility of a species that competes for our resources and perhaps our planet? Based on your assessment should we be advertising our presence by 17 sending messages to the stars or would we be better keeping quiet? Factors you may wish to consider could include: • Do we expect advanced intelligent species to be friendly or hostile to other species (based on evolutionary theory, and the requirements of survival of such a species)? • Has the human race developed more, or less, tolerance of different peoples and cultures as civilization has developed? • The historical record of encounters between colonial and indigenous peoples on Earth. • Our record of treatment of closely related species such as the great apes. • The vast distances between stars and the difficulty of physical contact with extra- terrestrial neighbours. 17. Manned Missions to Mars There is discussion of sending a crewed mission to Mars in the future. Discuss the challenges for such a mission, and how such a mission could be executed. Describe possible benefits and drawbacks of such a mission in comparison with the previous and future robotic exploration of Mars.
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