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Announcements

Learn about the different methods and indicators used to measure cosmic distances, including stellar parallax, flux and luminosity, standard candles, and the distance ladder. Discover how the expansion of the universe affects our understanding of galactic distances.

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Announcements

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  1. Announcements • Third exam is Friday, October 29 • Review on Wednesday, October 27 • Please hand in or e-mail questions for the review

  2. Cosmic Distances • How to measure distances • Primary distance indicators • Secondary and tertiary distance indicators • Recession of galaxies • Expansion of the Universe

  3. Stellar Parallax As the Earth moves from one side of the Sun to the other, a nearby star will seem to change its position relative to the distant background stars. d = 1 / p d = distance to nearby star in parsecs p = parallax angle of that star in arcseconds

  4. Stellar Parallax • Most accurate parallax measurements are from the European Space Agency’s Hipparcos mission. • Hipparcos could measure parallax as small as 0.001 arcseconds or distances as large as 1000 pc. • How to find distance to objects farther than 1000 pc?

  5. Flux and Luminosity • Flux decreases as we get farther from the star – like 1/distance2 • Mathematically, if we have two stars A and B

  6. Standard Candles

  7. Standard Candles • Measure the distance to star A to be 200 pc. • Measure the flux of star A. • Measure the flux of star B with same spectral type and luminosity class to be lower by a factor of 1600 • Find the distance to star B

  8. Distances to galaxies Standard candles, such as Cepheid variables, the most luminous supergiants, globular clusters, H II regions, and supernovae in a galaxy, are used in estimating intergalactic distances.

  9. The Distance Ladder • Each stage in the ladder overlaps the previous and next • Cepheid distances are critical • Tully-Fisher, fundamental plane apply to whole galaxies • Supernova are now the best estimators at large distances

  10. Distances and velocities of galaxies • If you measure the distances to a large set of galaxies and also measure the speed of the galaxies using the redshift, what do you find?

  11. Hubble expansion v = H0d

  12. Expansion of the Universe

  13. Expansion of the Universe • Blow up the balloon to about a 3 inch diameter. Twist the neck and hold it closed so that no air escapes, but do NOT make a knot because you will need to blow it up some more. Make SIX dots on its surface to represent galaxies and label them A-F. • Measure and record the distances from cluster A to each of the other 5 clusters. • Measure and record the distances from cluster D to each of the other 5 clusters. • Blow up the balloon up more, to a diameter of about 6 inches. Measure the distances between the same clusters again and record them.

  14. Expansion of the Universe • Are all the other clusters moving away from cluster A? • Are all the other clusters moving away from cluster D? • Is there a cluster that could be considered to be at the center of the universe as represented by the surface of the balloon?

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