# ASTR 470 Reference Log

## Exact textbook and source anchors

- OpenStax, *Astronomy 2e*, Section 20.4 **Cosmic Rays**; Sections 23.1 **The Death of Low-Mass Stars**, 23.2 **Evolution of Massive Stars: An Explosive Finish**, 23.3 **Supernova Observations**, 23.4 **Pulsars and the Discovery of Neutron Stars**; Section 24.1 **Introducing General Relativity**, 24.5 **Black Holes**, 24.6 **Evidence for Black Holes**, 24.7 **Gravitational Wave Astronomy**; Sections 27.1 **Quasars** and 27.2 **Supermassive Black Holes: What Quasars Really Are**. The local extraction is indexed in `references/source-indexes/openstax-astronomy-2e-problem-index.md`; section and exercise wording require a human adopted-edition spot-check.
- OpenStax exercise anchors used in assignments: Chapter 23 Figuring for Yourself 35-40 (surface gravity, escape speed, and density of white dwarfs and neutron stars), 42-43 (pulsar equatorial speed), 45-47 (remnant expansion and SN 1987A), 53 (pulse counting). These are exact extracted prompts, not invented problem numbers.
- NASA/Chandra X-ray Observatory, mission overview and hardware: https://chandra.harvard.edu/about/ . **Level 1:** fetched 2026-09-25; confirms X-ray purpose, atmospheric absorption, nested grazing-incidence mirrors, and public data center context.
- NASA Swift, About the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission: https://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/about_swift/ . **Level 1:** fetched 2026-09-25; confirms BAT 15-150 keV, XRT 0.3-10 keV, UVOT 170-600 nm, rapid repointing, and public products.
- NASA Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope: https://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/ . **Level 1:** fetched 2026-09-25; mission and Fermi Science Support Center context verified. Current software/data-quality notices require human spot-check before a live analysis.
- NASA NICER, About and Archive: https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/nicer/ . **Level 1:** fetched 2026-09-25; confirms 0.2-12 keV timing/spectroscopy, 56 concentrator/detector pairs, 100 ns timing context, public archive, and current operational caveats.
- IceCube Collaboration, Detector: https://icecube.wisc.edu/science/icecube/ . **Level 1:** fetched 2026-09-25; confirms cubic-kilometer detector, 5,160 DOMs on 86 strings, depths, DeepCore, and neutrino/Cherenkov measurement principle.
- AAS Code of Ethics: https://aas.org/about/governance/ethics . Official ethics policy; human spot-check required before instructional use.

## Data provenance levels

- **Level 1, live-verified this session:** mission specifications and operational descriptions explicitly marked above, from the official pages fetched on 2026-09-25.
- **Level 2, standard published/literature values not re-verified this session:** Crab period/Pdot, Cygnus X-1 mass/distance, canonical SNR speeds and distances, AGN redshifts, and standard neutron-star/white-dwarf parameters. These are named as literature teaching values and require human spot-check against SIMBAD, mission archives, or the cited paper before use as current data.
- **Level 3, synthetic/instructor-provided:** compact CSVs, computed example inputs, model comparison rows, weighted project scores, and original SVG figures generated by `src/generate_astr470_package.py`. They are teaching records, not observations or archive downloads.

No external image is embedded. Every lecture figure is an original, lecture-specific SVG with a distinct geometry. Students must cite official mission or archive documentation when moving from the supplied records to live data.