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ASTR1001 Assignment 4: Background Briefing

ASTR1001 Assignment 4: Background Briefing. The Planet Zog.

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ASTR1001 Assignment 4: Background Briefing

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  1. ASTR1001Assignment 4: Background Briefing

  2. The Planet Zog • Imagine that you live on the distant planet Zog: far away in a space-time very different from our own. Zog is very much like the Earth: you have a technology virtually identical to our own. All the laws of Physics, as you measure them in the Zoggian laboratories, seem identical to the laws we measure on Earth. • The one thing that is very different is the night sky...

  3. The stars look similar to Earth’s, but there is no Milky Way. Instead, north Zog astronomers see the awesome sight of the Greater Milkstain With its brilliant off-centre blue spot.

  4. Southern hemisphere Zog astronomers see the equally brilliant southern blue spot. Recent Bubble Space Telescope observations have shown that the southern blue spot also has an off-centre milkstain associated with it. But the Southern Milk Stain is very very much smaller and fainter than its northern counterpart.

  5. Celestial Coordinates. • The two blue spots are diametrically opposite on the sky (and hence can never both be seen at the same time, except by astronauts). • They are used as the origin of the celestial coordinate system: Declination: +90 for northern blue spot, 0 for the celestial equator. Both milkstains extend away from the two blue spots in the same direction (though the GMS extends further). Right Ascension: 0 to 360. Zero axis is along the long axis of the two milkstains.

  6. The Milkstains • The Greater Milkstain (GMS) has been known for centuries to break up into literally millions of stars when viewed with even a pair of binoculars. There appear to be about ten millions stars in total. • The Lesser Milkstain (LMS) does not break up into stars when observed with telescopes. It does, however, have some rather curious jet-like features emerging from it:

  7. The Fuzzballs • In addition to stars, some curious fuzzy objects are seen scattered, with roughly uniform number density, all around the sky. They are similar to the jet-like features extending from the Southern Blue Spot (SBS). They vary enormously in brightness and size, though the larger ones tend to be brighter. Faint fuzzballs greatly outnumber the bright ones. Most fuzzballs are brighter and bigger than the LMS.

  8. The Blue Spots • Both blue spots are roughly equally bright. They do not vary in brightness. Both are about as bright as a full moon. They are not just dots: they seem to consist of blue-white cores, surrounded by a paler fuzz that merges into the two Milkstains.

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