To fulfill coursework requirements, students may choose any 500 level AST, GLG, or SES course or other topics with advisor approval. Students should work with their faculty advisor to select courses that are best for their program of study. Below are a list of special topic courses that have previously been offered. Course offerings vary by instructor and semester. Students should refer to the ASU class search for semester offerings.

AST special topics (591 or 598)

Exoplanets
Gravitational Wave Astronomy
The Distant Universe

Ehlmann replies, part 1 (MP4)

Ehlmann replies, part 2 (MP4) 

Why Does Life Start, What Does It Do, Where Will It Be, and How Might We Find It

Life was driven into being on our planet to resolve the disequilibrium between the fuels [H2 > CH4] emanating from submarine alkaline hydrothermal springs with the oxidants [CO2 >> NO3-] dissolved in the acidulous Hadean Ocean.  The two fluids were kept largely at bay by the precipitation of iron minerals at the spring. It was in the mineral barriers that this 'free energy' was first converted via a protometabolism to organic molecules.

The Climate History of Mars: A Geological Perspective

Mars today is an extremely cold and arid environment, but what has been the history of the climate of Mars?

Ceres, an Unexpectedly Active Dwarf Planet: Findings from the Dawn Mission

The Dawn mission to explore the largest asteroids Vesta and Ceres has uncovered unexpected findings from Ceres, the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt. Believed to be comprised of ice rock, new Dawn mission data have confirmed these inferences from telescopic data and have also shown evidence for brines in the Ceres subsurface extruding to the surface, as recently as a few tens to hundreds of millions of years ago.

Understanding How Galaxies Reionized the Universe

Identifying the population of galaxies that was responsible for the reionization of the universe is a long-standing quest in astronomy. While young stars can produce large amounts of ionizing photons, however the mechanism behind the escape of Lyman continuum photons (wavelength < 912 A) from star forming regions has eluded us. To identify such galaxies and to understand the process of escape of Lyman continuum, we present an indirect technique known as the residual flux technique.

Mercury, 16 Psyche, Mars, and Titan: Exploring the Solar System with Gamma Rays

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in collaboration with Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, built the gamma-ray spectrometer that flew on NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft to the planet Mercury. We are presently building two new gamma-ray instruments: one that will visit an exotic metal asteroid called 16-Psyche, and another to visit the moons of Mars (Phobos and Deimos). In addition, we have Phase-A funding to explore flying a gamma-ray spectrometer to Saturn's largest moon, Titan.

The Mineral Physics Test Kitchen: Recipes for Earth's Mantle and Core

The interiors of Earth and other planets were "cooked" by processes of accretion and differentiation and can be "tasted" by geochemical sampling at the surface and remote geophysical observations of physical properties at depth. Mineral physics experiments and simulations seek to reverse-engineer the recipes that generate the features we detect in the deep Earth today.

Extraterrestrial Seismology: What We Can Learn on Mars and Icy Ocean Worlds

The InSight mission is planned to launch in May of this year, and will hopefully be returning seismic and other geophysical data from Mars by the end of 2018.  Meanwhile, mission concepts that include seismometers landing on the icy ocean worlds of Europa and Titan are in active development, while the planetary science decadal survey has prioritized a possible new geophysical network on the Earth's moon.  Seismology on other planetary bodies may be entering a new golden age after a long stretch w

The Analysis of Carbonaceous Meteorites: Unusual Mirror-Image Properties Of Organic Compounds From The Early Solar System

Carbonaceous meteorites contain several classes of organic compounds including amino acids, amines, nucleobases (components of RNA and DNA), and sugar derivatives. Many of these compounds are thought to have formed in water solutions by the reactions of small precursor interstellar molecules (ammonia, cyanide, formaldehyde, etc.) on meteorite parent bodies, asteroids and comets.