AST 0112

• Distances
• Movements & Time
• Radiation
• Planets
• Stars
• Galaxies
• The Universe
ASTRONOMIA
Weekly unofficial homework

Ideally, set aside a few minutes each

week to observe the night sky. Try to
get away from bright lights and give
your eyes a few minutes to become
“dark-adapted”.

Compare maps of constellations to

what you see. Can you see any?
Can you orientate yourself?

Useful tools: see weblinks, also

StarWalk App, Sky Map App,
Norton’s Star Atlas, Planisphere
As seen
at ~9pm,
looking
straight
overhead
tonight
As seen
at ~9pm,
looking
straight
overhead
Nov 8
 Astronomical Calendar
August
Jupiter, Saturn all favorable early evening objects this
month. Mercury at furthest elongations to Sun at
sunrise/sunset. Mars/Venus near Sun

1: New Moon
9: Mercury at Greatest Western Elongation
12-13: Perseids Meteor Shower (not great due to near
Full Moon).
15: Full Moon
30: New Moon

CHECK OUT STELLARIUM PROGRAM

Astronomical Calendar
 Theme Big Picture

1. Scales of time
Cosmology:
The theory of the Big Bang,
the great initial explosion
 0 Origin of mass

Radiation
Formation of the Milky Way

Mass
Galaxies

t
x
e
t

r
e
t
n
e

o
5
T (Billions of years)

Stars
Cosmic Evolution Planets
Chemistry
10 Biology
Formation of the Earth


Birth of life
 Culture
?
15

 Theme Big Picture

1. Scales of time
2. Scales of distance
 Clusters and large scale

Scales of
structure
(D ~ 10,000,000 lyr)

Distances

The jump in scales is of the order

500.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 (D=100,000 lyr)
= 5x1023

1,000,000

magine classroom as solar system. Hubble

Space
(D=13000 km) Telescope
How big is the Sun? Earth? (D=13m)

Our galaxy?
 Scale of the Earth
Radius = 6380 km, circumference = 2pR = 40000 km
 2 days to fly around by passenger jet

 Surface is “smooth”: highest mountain is 8km, lowest

ocean is 8km => “roughness” 1/800 (billiard ball)

 Thin atmosphere: ~100km high => 1/60 of the radius

Mass = 6 x 1024 kg => Mean Density = 5500 kg/m3

In comparison, water has a density of 1000 kg/m3, and
rocks have ~3000 kg/m3
 The interior of the Earth has heavy metals like iron

and nickel.
A trip to the Moon: D = 380000 km, 3 days one-way.
 The Sun
 Radius, 700000 km,
 Distance, 1.5 x 108 km=1AU. (AU=Astronomical Unit)

How long does it take light (c=300000 km/s) to arrive from the Sun?
How long would it take a commercial airplane (v=1000 km/h)?
 Mass, 2 x 1030 kg. (300.000 times more than the Earth)
 Low density, 1400 kg/m3 (1.4 times that of water)

it is made of compressed gas

 Conventions: units
The mass of the Sun (M⊙)
The astronomical unit (AU)
The density of water (1000 kg/m3)
Time: 1 year (yr) = 365 d
Solar System
 Solar System

 The Earth is 1 AU (150.000.000km) from the Sun

 There are 8 planets in nearly circular orbits,
moving roughly in a plane.
 Pluto was downgraded to a dwarf planet in 2006
because it is much smaller, more distant (40 AU),
and lighter (1/500 the mass of the Earth and 1/6
of the Moon)
 Light (c = 300000 km/s) needs 5.3 hours to leave
the Solar System.
 It would take an airplane 680 yrs to travel 40 AU
The problem of distances: they are so great that it can be difficult
to comprehend and study astronomical objects

2D vs 3D
 Beyond the Solar System
 Units of distance (AU, light year, parsec)

Stars
 Proxima Centauri, D=300.000 AU

When we leave the solar system, we drop AU

Instead, we use light years (ly) for distance.
The speed of light in a vacuum = 300.000 km/s
=> 1 ly = 9.5 x 1012 km.
 Proxima Centauri, D=4.2 ly (or 1.3 parsecs)
 Sun, D=1AU = 8 light minutes
 In 1 second, light could travel 7 times around the Earth
Closest Stars
Systems of stars: The Milky Way or La Vía Láctea

 Are the stars distributed randomly in the sky?

No, the stars are organized in certain patterns.
 Stars form in dense molecular clouds

 Clouds distribution => star distribution

 The Milky Way is an example

 Distance to the center = 25.000 - 30.000 ly
 Contains more than 250.000.000.000 stars
★ only ~2500 stars visible with naked eye
 MW rotates slowly, such that a single rotation
occurs only every 200.000.000 years.
Systems of stars: The Milky Way or La Vía Láctea
The Milky Way Our Galaxy
Constellations in the disk of our galaxy
Satellites of the Milky Way
The Magallanic Clouds, Satellites of Our Galaxy
The Local Group of Galaxies
Andrómeda Galaxy (M31)
Galaxies and the Universe
Galaxies are concentrated into:
Groups of Galaxies (10s),
Clusters of Galaxies (100s)
Superclusters (Groups + Clusters)

The size of the largest self-gravitating

structures in the Universe are about 150
millon ly. Supercluster "filaments",
"supercluster complexes", "walls" or "sheets"
demonstrate larger structure that may span
between 100s of million ly to 1 billion lys
(>5% of the observable universe).
Cluster Abell 2218
The local supercluster
Large Scale Structures
The Observable Universe
Could we see a galaxy that is 20 billion light years away?

A. Yes, depending on the brightness and size of telescope.

B. No, because it would be beyond the bounds of our observable Universe
C. No, because a galaxy could not possibly be that far away
Imagine this room (10m) is one side of the Solar System with your prof at the
Sun. On this scale:

How far is Pluto? 6.0e9 km => ~10 m

How big is the Earth? 1.3e4 km => 20 um
How far is the Earth from the Sun? 1.5e8 km => 20 cm
How big is the Sun 1.5e6 km => 2 mm
How big is human being? 1.5e-3 km => 2 pm
How big is an atom? 0.3e-13 km => TINY
How far is the nearest star? 9.5e12 km => 16 km
How far is the center of our Galaxy? 2.6e17 km => 4.4e5 km
How far is Andromeda 3.1e19 km => 5.2e7 km
How big would a cluster of Galaxies be? 3.1e21 km => 5.2e9 km
Scales of The jump in scales is of the order
500.000.000.000.000.000.000.000
Distances = 5x1023
Roughly accurate size/color comparison
Some caveats about the previous
planet/star comparison plots

The radii used seem to be accurate only to within a factor of two.

Only our Sun and ~15 stars (easiest being Betelgeuse) have
been directly spatially resolved at all (and MOST with just a few
resolution elements).

So the images shown are SIMULATED. Non-imaging techniques

can be used to determine radii and masses for many stars. Also,
the surface features were based on some understanding of the
surface physics, but are also SIMULATED.
Key Concepts:

What is our place in the Universe? How big is the Earth vs. Solar System vs.
Galaxy vs. Clusters of Galaxies vs. Superclusters vs. Universe?

How did we come to be? How do we know what the Universe was like in the
past? How much of the Universe can we see?

How do our lifetimes compare to the ages of objects in the Universe?

How do we define static or moving? Reference frames?


Visit to Observatory will be cancelled
during (at least) March due to the
Coronavirus outbrake!