Astrophysics & Cosmology Study Guide: 65 Flashcards from Fraunhofer Lines to Lambda-CDM
Study astrophysics and cosmology with 65 flashcards: Fraunhofer lines, H-R diagram, pulsars, Lambda-CDM — plus the fixes and cosmology numbers to add.
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James Keeler's line, quoted on card 2 of this deck, is the best one-sentence summary of the field: astrophysics asks what celestial objects are, not where they are. The Flip It deck Astrophysics & Cosmology (NN6669) follows that idea through 65 cards — but almost all of them are history, instruments and vocabulary. The cosmology half of the title has no numbers at all, and a few backs need fixing. Here is how to study it properly.
Study this deck: Astrophysics & Cosmology
1 / 10Astrophysics
Tap the card for the answer · swipe right if you knew it, left if not
A sample of the cards
| Front | Back (condensed) |
|---|---|
| What discovery marked the beginning of astrophysics? | Dark lines in the solar spectrum, found independently by Wollaston and Fraunhofer |
| What did Kirchhoff deduce about the dark lines? | Absorption by chemical elements in the Sun's atmosphere — the same elements as on Earth |
| Harvard Classification Scheme | Annie Jump Cannon's stellar classes, adopted worldwide in 1922 |
| Eddington's speculation about stellar energy | Fusion of hydrogen into helium, releasing energy via E=mc² |
| Why are space telescopes needed for X-ray and gamma-ray astronomy? | That radiation does not penetrate Earth's atmosphere well |
| IACTs | Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes, e.g. H.E.S.S. and MAGIC |
| Lambda-CDM model | Standard Big Bang model with dark energy (Λ) and cold dark matter |
| Metallicity | Abundance of elements heavier than helium |
You'll also cover: celestial mechanics and Kepler's laws, the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, observational vs theoretical astrophysics, radio, infrared, optical, ultraviolet, X-ray and gamma-ray astronomy, adaptive optics, CCDs and spectroscopes, polytropes, magnetohydrodynamics, astrochemistry, astroparticle physics, neutrino and gravitational-wave astronomy, cosmic rays, pulsars, binary pulsars, magnetars, Cepheid variables, redshift, the cosmic microwave background, cosmic inflation, dark matter, dark energy, black holes, the interstellar medium, exoplanets, luminosity and the Saha ionization equation.
Fix these backs first
- Card 43: pulsars were first detected in radio, not microwaves — Jocelyn Bell Burnell, 1967, at 81.5 MHz.
- Card 40: neutrinos are near-massless particles, not "low-mass stellar particles". Add SN 1987A and IceCube as examples.
- Card 23 calls gravitational waves "extremely difficult to detect". True, but LIGO has done it routinely since GW150914 (14 September 2015); card 38 depends on that date.
- Card 57: dark energy is not a force; it is whatever drives the accelerating expansion (Λ in the model).
- Card 21: RXTE (ended 2012) and Compton (deorbited 2000) are retired. Chandra, XMM-Newton, Fermi and XRISM are the ones still flying.
- Card 11: the H-R diagram dates from about 1910-1913, not 1920.
- Card 35 (The Big Bang Theory sitcom) is trivia — suspend it.
Add the cosmology the title promises
Write four cards: the universe is about 13.8 billion years old (Planck 2018); its energy budget is roughly 68 % dark energy, 27 % dark matter, 5 % ordinary matter; the CMB is at 2.725 K; the Hubble constant sits around 67-73 km/s/Mpc, a gap known as the Hubble tension. Without those numbers, cards 42 and 53-57 stay definitions.
Give card 64 its punchline
The Saha card mentions Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin but drops her result: her 1925 thesis showed that stars are made mostly of hydrogen and helium. Put that on the back — it links cards 9, 12 and 63 into one story, from Kirchhoff's spectral lines to metallicity.
For the vocabulary underneath this deck (magnitudes, main sequence), pair it with the astronomy glossary guide.
The deck is NN6669 — Astrophysics & Cosmology (65 cards); find it in your library at flip-it.app.
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