Physics with Astrophysics

UCAS Codes: F3F5 (BSc), F3FA (MPhys)

COURSE BROCHURELink opens in a new window

With the arrival of space-based instrumentation and gravitational wave detection, some of the most exciting discoveries in your lifetime are likely to come in astrophysics. However, we can’t conduct experiments on stars or galaxies as they’re too far away. Instead we piece together explanations of what we observe from Earth. This involves understanding the underlying physics – mechanics, quantum theory, relativity, thermodynamics – and working out what it implies for exoplanets, galaxies, stars and the Universe as a whole.

The course covers the principles of physics and their application to explain astrophysical phenomena. In the first two years, you will study the solar system and the lifecycles of stars and galaxies. In the third and fourth years, you explore cosmology and the distant Universe, exoplanets, the physics of compact objects (black holes, neutron stars and white dwarfs), general relativity and our Sun.