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Galaxies

When you'll study it
Semester 1
CATS points
15
ECTS points
7.5
Level
Level 5
Module lead
Ian McHardy
Academic year
2025-26

Module overview

We will start from outlining fundamental questions we must answer in order to build up a picture of an astrophysical object, e.g., what is it made of? How luminous? How big? How old? How fast? How heavy? These seemingly simple questions are surprisingly difficult to answer but we will cover the different astrophysical tools used to answer them.

We will then move outwards to consider the demography, spatial distribution, and environment of galaxies, in the ‘field’ and in clusters. We will then consider galaxies very distant from us in space and time, discuss galaxy formation and evolution, and have an overview of Active Galaxies, super-massive black holes and their co-evolution with their host galaxies.

Linked modules

Pre-requisite: PHYS1005