Galaxies and Cosmology

Transcription

1 Galaxies and Cosmology

2 Attendance Quiz Are you here today? (a) yes (b) no Here! (c) Cosmetology? Like hair and nails and makeup?

3 Next Tuesday, 5/30: Dr. Jorge Moreno is unavailable, so class will be cancelled

4 Final Exam The final exam is Thursday, 6/8, from 11:30am to 1:30pm (2 hours), in this room; please arrive early! The final exam will be comprehensive, i.e., it will cover all the material you have studied this quarter It will be multiple choice, so make sure to bring a 100- question (2-sided) scantron to class!

5 Today s Topics Large Scale Structure in the Universe The Distance Ladder and Galactic Distances Hubble s Law The Distances to the Galaxies Redshifts and Hubble s Law Expansion of the Universe The Age of the Universe

6 Local Group The Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way are approaching each other at 119 km/s, and will collide and merge into a giant elliptical galaxy in approximately 5 billion years 2.5 Million ly

7 Local Supercluster 52 Million ly

8 Galaxy Clusters 100s-1000s of galaxies 10s of Millions of ly Giant elliptical galaxies Abell 1060 Virgo cluster Abell 1689

9 Large Scale Structure in the Universe 1 billion light years

10 The Distance Ladder Radar ranging (few AU) Parallax (AU few 1000 light years) Main sequence fitting (100s 10s of thousands of light years) Cepheid variable stars (100s of thousands 100s of millions of light years) Distant standards (Tully-Fisher, White Dwarf supernovae; 10s of millions to 10+ billion light years)

11 Standard Candles With the exception of radar and parallax, all these methods rely on the concept of a standard candle Recall, the apparent brightness of an object is related to its intrinsic brightness (luminosity) and distance by Luminosity Apparent brightness = 4π (distance) 2 Thus, if we know an object s luminosity, and measure its apparent brightness, we can find its distance Interactive Figure

12 Standard Candles - Examples Main sequence stars (MS stars as SCs) Spectral type Luminosity Calibrated for stars near enough to measure parallax Many stars at same distance is better (clusters) Main Sequence Fitting Calibrated by cluster near enough to show parallax - Hyades Cepheid variable stars (Cepheids as SCs) Very bright stars which vary in luminosity in a regular way A relation exists between variation period and the star s luminosity Calibrated using nearby Cepheids of known distance White Dwarf (Type I) supernovae (SCs) All WD Sne cross the Chandrasekhar limit and explode in the same way; hence all have similar luminosities Calibrated in nearby galaxies of known distance

13 Galactic Distances Quiz Cepheid variable stars are located in two different galaxies, A and B. Both stars have the same average apparent brightness. The star in galaxy A has a bright-dim-bright period of 10 days, while the one in galaxy B has a bright-dim-bright period of 30 days. Which of the two galaxies is at a greater distance from us? a) Galaxy A b) Galaxy B c) They are located at the same distance. d) There is insufficient information to tell.

14 Edwin Hubble and Galactic Distances Before Hubble, the nature of so-called spiral nebulae was unknown Other galaxies ( island universes ) Gas clouds in our galaxy The key missing piece of evidence was the distances to these objects Hubble, using the Mt. Wilson 100 telescope in Pasadena (then the largest in the world) observed Cepheid variable stars in other galaxies Using the period-luminosity relationship, he found that these objects were much further away than the size of the Milky Way, meaning they are independent galaxies

15 Redshifts and Hubble s Law It was known since the 1910s that the spectra of most spiral galaxies were redshifted, meaning they were moving away from us Once Hubble found the distances to these galaxies he found something startling! Rather than the motions of the galaxies being random, there is a relationship between redshift and the distance to the galaxy The more distant the galaxy, the faster it recedes (Hubble s Law)

16 Expansion of the Universe If all the galaxies are moving apart, then earlier, they must have been closer together, i.e., the universe is expanding! Since all the galaxies are moving away from the Milky Way, does this mean that we are at the center of the universe? Our knowledge of the history of astronomy (Copernicus, Shapley) should make us skeptical of this idea How else can we explain these facts? If the entire universe is expanding then every galaxy sees all others receding, and if that expansion is uniform, then the rate of motion apart is proportional to distance (Hubble s Law) Note: because gravity holds them together, individual galaxies do not expand as the space they occupy expands Space Expansion + Int. Fig

17 Cosmology Quiz I Consider three widely separated galaxies in an expanding universe. Imagine that you are located in galaxy 1 and observe that both galaxies 2 and 3 are moving away from you with a speed proportional to their distance from you. If you asked an observer in galaxy 3 to describe how galaxy 2 appears to move, what would he or she say? a) Galaxy 2 is not moving b) Galaxy 2 is moving toward galaxy 3 c) Galaxy 2 is moving away from galaxy 3

18 Lecture Tutorial: Expansion of the Universe, pp Work with one or more partners - not alone! Get right to work - you have 15 minutes Read the instructions and questions carefully. Discuss the concepts and your answers with one another. Take time to understand it now!!!! Come to a consensus answer you all agree on. Write clear explanations for your answers. If you get stuck or are not sure of your answer, ask another group. If you get really stuck or don t understand what the Lecture Tutorial is asking, ask me for help.

19 Cosmology Quiz I Consider three widely separated galaxies in an expanding universe. Imagine that you are located in galaxy 1 and observe that both galaxies 2 and 3 are moving away from you with a speed proportional to their distance from you. If you asked an observer in galaxy 3 to describe how galaxy 2 appears to move, what would he or she say? a) Galaxy 2 is not moving b) Galaxy 2 is moving toward galaxy 3 c) Galaxy 2 is moving away from galaxy 3

20 Cosmology Quiz II According to modern ideas and observations, what can be said about the location of the center of our expanding universe? a) The Earth is at the center b) The Sun is at the center c) The Milky Way Galaxy is at the center d) The universe does not have a center

21 Hubble s Law and the Age of the Universe Hubble s Law tells us that all galaxies are moving apart at a rate proportional to their separation distance The slope of this relationship is called Hubble s Constant, or H 0 If that rate stayed the same throughout the history of the universe, we could run a movie of the universe backwards to find out when all the galaxies were on top of each other The faster the galaxies are receding now (the larger H 0 ), the shorter the time until the movie reaches its beginning Thus, the age of the universe is proportional to 1/H 0 This simple calculation gives an age of the universe of 13.6 billion years Interactive Figure 1: Estimating Age of the Universe Interactive Figure 2: Dependence of Age on H 0

22 Cosmology Quiz III Astronomers currently believe that the Hubble constant has a value of about 22 km/s/mly. If some new measurement revealed that instead the Hubble constant is closer to 60 km/s/mly, what would this imply about the age of the universe? a) It is much younger than current estimates b) It is much older than current estimates c) This change would have no effect on estimates of the age of the universe