Basic Information

  • Course Code: GNR649
  • Course Name: Planetary Sciences: Earth and Beyond
  • Course Offered In: 2023-2024
  • Semester Season: Spring
  • Instructors: Deepak Singh
  • Prerequisites: None (Astronomy Enthusiasm)
  • Difficulty (1 being easy and 5 being tough): 2

Course Content

• Introduction to Planets and Planetary Systems; Principles of Rocketry and Space Navigation; Need for exploration; Exploration of Earth; Exploration of the solar system; Landmark missions and instruments in space • Life and Death of Stars; Origin of the Solar System; Orbital Mechanics; Gravitational Field and the Shape of Planetary bodies; Energy Sources on Planets; Internal structure of Planetary bodies • Origin and Evolution of Planetary Atmospheres; Uniqueness of Earth’s evolution; Earth-Moon system; Missions to Moon and Mars • Atmospheric composition and surface properties using remote sensing; Application to other planets and moons; Icy worlds and their importance; Search for extra-terrestrial life • Space Laws and Space treaties; Extrasolar planets; Future missions and goals of exploration

Note that each individual topic is 1 lecture of the total 39 lectures.

Feedback on Lectures

Lectures mostly include what the slides contain, but the professor does say some important and interesting stuff always, which may come in the examination. The lectures are pretty engrossing and feel like story telling. However, attendance is not compulsory

Feedback on Evaluations

Assignments: 30% (Best n-2 out of n) Mid-sem: 30%, 30 marks (Lectures 1-20) End-sem: 40%, 40 marks (Lectures 21-39)

The assignments are very easy and can be done by reading the slides easily.

The mid-semester and end-semester exams consisted of two kinds of questions:

  1. Numerical-based questions, in which 99% of the time the formula is given and is a simple substitution of values.
  2. Memory-based questions, where one would be tested on the knowledge based on the slides given. Although the professor generally doesn’t ask questions involving answers with difficult spellings, even then it is a lot of content to remember. That’s why it is important to attend lectures so that we get a feeble idea of the content to memorize. But many questions also come from the previous year questions

The memory-based questions involve fill in the blanks, one word answer, one sentence answer, single-choice out of 4, true and false, etc.

The grading scheme is absolute:

90 (meaning 90.5 and above): AA 80: AB and so on

Study Material and Resources

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nokoWh830qrQ_nBURetmAkG4YzLz1CBh?usp=drive_link

Follow-up Courses

One can try out other courses offered by the department, or go towards more advanced physics courses like General Relativity.

Final Takeaway

This is a grading course, and one can easily secure 90+ score by keeping up with the lectures and memorising the content weekly.