...Milky Way to crash with Andromeda Our entire galaxy is set to crash into the neighboring Andromeda. The collision would create an entirely new hybrid galaxy and dramatically change the view of the night sky from Earth. The astronomers and researchers are now sure the galaxy that contains the Earth is ceased to exist. Years of observations from the Hubble Space Telescope indicate the Andromeda galaxy is coming towards us at a speed of about 250,000 miles per hour and a head-on hit is imminent, Four billion years from now, it will be complete by about six billion years from now. Roeland van der Marel, an astronomer with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which operates Hubble, told the media. "The galaxies will collide, and they will merge together to form one new galaxy." The new galaxy will likely be of an elliptical shape rather than the barred spiral Milky Way. And will completely change our night sky, with Andromeda suddenly dominating. Scientists assure that the sun and Earth are unlikely to be hit by stars or planets from Andromeda because of the vast emptiness of the two galaxies. Therefore, Earth, they say, should easily survive what will be a 1.2 million mile per hour galactic merger. Even at that speed, the event would take about 2 billion years. "It's like a bad car crash in galaxy-land," van der Marel describes it. Both the Milky Way and Andromeda are about the same size and same age 10 billion years old...
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...What are galaxies? “A galaxy is an enormous collection of a few million to trillions of stars, gas and dust held together by gravity. They can be several thousand to hundreds of thousands of light-years across.” 1 All the stars that we see, observe, or use to guide us through direction, they all belong to one galaxy, and that galaxy is our own Milkyway. At some dark night, you could observe a fuzzy, cloudy strings of very dense stars those are the “disk and bulge”. The result of gravitational force: As mentioned earlier in the definition, a galaxy is held together by gravitational force, which means that every galaxy has its own gravitational force acting on it. When galaxies come together or move at a short distance, there are two possible results, one is the gravitational force will push them apart, or they will collide. When two objects or in this case galaxies, come together they would exert some of their gravitational force on each other, as an effect both galaxies can change shape. “Both crashes and near misses between galaxies are referred to as "interactions”. You can see two galaxies interacting. You can see they are being distorted by the gravitational interaction between them.” 2 The second effect is collision, as galaxies become fairly close together, its might merge together and collide. This merging/collision is sometimes known as a pair, or as a companion of one another. Sometimes smaller galaxies can just merge with larger ones; this is called the ripple...
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...Physics h/wk. The Majestic Sombrero Galaxy The Sombrero Galaxy (also known as M104 or NGC 4594 ) is an unbarred spiral galaxy in the constellation Virgo located 28 million light years from earth. It has a bright nucleus, an unusually large central bulge, and a prominent dust lane in its inclined disk. The dark dust lane and the bulge give this galaxy the appearance of a sombrero. The galaxy has an apparent magnitude of +9.0, making it easily visible with amateur telescopes. The large bulge, the central super massive black hole are the main attraction. The Sombrero Galaxy was discovered in March 1767 by Pierre Méchain, who described the object in a May 1767 letter to J. Bernoulli that was later published in the Berliner Astronomisches Jahrbuch. William Herschel independently discovered the object in 1784 and additionally noted the presence of a "dark stratum" in the galaxy's disc, what is now called a dust lane. Constellation Virgo Right ascension 12h 39m 59.4s Declination -11° 37′ 23″ Apparent dimension (V) 8′.7 × 3′.5 Apparent magnitude (V) 8.98 Helio Radial velocity 1024 ± 5 km/s Red shift 0.003416 ± 0.000017 Galactocentric Velocity 904 ± 7 km/s Distance 29.3 ± 1.6Mly (9.0 ± 0.49 Mpc) This galaxy's most striking feature is the dust lane that crosses in front of the bulge of the galaxy. This dust lane is actually a symmetric ring that encloses the bulge of the galaxy. Most of the cold atomic hydrogen gas and the dust...
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...Sunflower Galaxy Messier 63 (M63) (Sunflower) is a spiral galaxy located in the constellation Canes Venetic, the Hunting Dogs. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 8.5 and is approximately 29.5 million light-years distant from the Sun. Also cataloged as NGC 5055, Messier 63 is around 100,000 light-years across, about the size of our Milky Way Galaxy. Discovered by French astronomer Pierre Mechain in June 1779, the galaxy later made it as the 63rd entry into Charles Messier’s famous catalogue, published in 1781.It is a member of the M51 Group – a group of galaxies, named after its brightest member, Messier 51 (Whirlpool Galaxy).The galaxy has faint, extended features that could be the result of gravitational interactions with nearby galaxies. It shines across the electromagnetic spectrum and is thought to have undergone bursts of intense...
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...Dark matter is everywhere, shooting through you every second of your day. You must ask yourself the question of how a particle so heavy in mass, a particle that can influence whole galaxies in the way they spin and their positioning in the universe, is still yet to be detected? This is down to the fact it doesn’t interact with light at all, it is literally ‘invisible’. Dark matter is the building blocks of the universe, without it, star systems like the Milky Way would cease to exist. Dark matter is an invisible mass that has such a large gravitational pull it can affect the speeds of entire galaxies in a cluster. The majority of the mass from a galaxy is actually considered to be dark matter. For example, “The Coma Cluster of Galaxies” is always moving at extreme rotational speeds. However, we can measure the mass of these galaxies by measuring the speed at which they travel and after the measurement it is obvious there is far too much mass to account for the amount of gas and planets in that cluster therefore, you must conclude that there is something else there making it so heavy. It appears there is actually about ten times as much dark matter in this cluster than there is...
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...QUEST AND JOURNEY: Arthur goes on a journey, quite unwillingly, in the Heart of Gold to explore the universe and to get the big picture of things out in the galaxy. Along the way, he is challenged by all sorts of obstacles, ranging from depression (resulting from Earth being blown up) to imminent death due to either the Vogons, the missiles, the cops, or the mice. These challenges eventually helped him build himself up again, deem his viewpoint on Earth as something very limited, and finally accept the reality of the universe-- the realization that Earth was an artificial planet, a mere computer to find the question that had the Answer ‘42’. Along the way, he is guided by two alien friends (Zaphod and Ford), the brilliantly constructed book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, depressed robot Marvin, chirpy computer Eddie, Slartibartfast the Magrathean who created Norway, and...
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...Satire is a form of comedy, that's a fact. It can be used just for the laughs or it can be used as a way to shed light on a serious topic. In Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, satire is used for comedic effect and laughter. The Vogons with their extensive amount of paperwork and extremely bureaucratic nonsense, Zaphod Beeblebrox shedding light on the stupidity of politicians, and human reliance on machines. All of these ideas are meant to make fun of our society. On the other hand, Jonathan Swift's piece "A Modest Proposal" uses satire to correct a situation. He proposes that the children of poorer families be used as a food source during the potato famine. Both writings use satire in one form or another, but Adams uses satire as a form of entertainment, while Swift uses it to correct a societal ill. One of the main uses of satire in A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the inefficiency of bureaucracy. He displays this idea in the form of the...
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...The C-5 Galaxy: A Modern Military Airlifter Terry Wydeven ENGL135 Advanced Composition March 7 2007 Terry Wydeven Instructor C. Gorman English 135 7 March 2007 The C-5 Galaxy military cargo transport airplane is an awesome workhorse for the United States Department of Defense (DoD), primarily the military. The C-5 offers unique capabilities unlike any other platform. Not only does it have outsized and oversized cargo capability, it is the only airlifter in the Air Force capable of moving 100 percent of the DoD's certified air-transportable cargo (Johnson, 2003). The air Force wants to spend $8.8 plus billion dollars to upgrade the aircraft fleet so it will be more reliable in future years. Is this project worth that much money? In recent years, America has been forced with budget cuts and an exceptionally reduced military force. Everywhere you look state, federal and military programs are being slashed to save the taxpayer money and reduce the federal deficit. As we all know, our military strength is very important to this nation. As the world’s police force, it takes a great deal on money to support our interests around the globe and the military is a large part of our global enforcement. Cut the budget too much and we will not be effective. The C-5A Galaxy first rolled off the assembly line in 1968. A newer version, the C5B, came to life in the early 1980s. This newer version had some structural upgrades but not much in the terms of...
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...Top 10 Biggest Things In The Universe Do you think the pyramids are big? How about the Burj Dubai? Both of those are nothing compared to Mt. Everest. They’re all huge when you look at them from a human or ‘earthly’ perspective. These objects however, are microscopic when compared to some of the things that exist in our universe. Let’s explore them. 10) Largest Asteroid Ceres is the largest asteroid we know of. It is almost 600 miles in diameter which makes it as large as California. It’s massive enough that its gravity forces it to have a spherical shape and also shares the title of ‘Dwarf Planet’. It’s so big, that it contains 25% of the mass of the asteroid belt. If you took all the asteroids in the asteroid belt and glued them together, that new object would only be about 2.5 times as big as Ceres. 9) Largest Planet Located in the constellation Hercules, planet TRES4 is 70% larger than Jupiter in diameter, but has only 80% of Jupiter’s mass. Because of how close it orbits to its sun, it is thought that the intense heat expands the gasses that make up this planet, resulting in an almost ‘marshmallow-like’ density. It’s holds the title of the largest planet we’ve discovered so far. Update: Science is never finished. Since this list was compiled, observations of an exoplanet called WASP-17b suggest that it is even bigger than TRES4. Despite its radius being twice that of Jupiter’s, it only has half the mass. This makes it even “fluffier” than TRES4. 8) Largest Star ...
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...Chapter 10 : The Sun THE SUNS ATMOSPHERE * the sun is so hot that it neither has a liquid or solid matter anywhere inside of it * moving down into the sun there is denser and hotter masses Photosphere (“sphere of light”) * The photosphere is the innermost of layer of the three layers that comprise the suns atmosphere * A gas layer of the sun that has the most visible light * It is about 400 km thick * Density of the photosphere is low by the earth standards about 0.01% as the air we breathe * Photosphere has a blackbody spectrum that corresponds to an average temp of 5800K * The photosphere appears darkest toward the edge or limb of the solar disk , a phenomenon called limb darkening, * This occurs b/c we see regions of different temp at different depths of the photosphere Granules * lightly colored convection features about 100 km in diameter seen constantly in the solar photosphere * time lapse photography shows that granules form, disappear then reform in cylces that last several minutes Chromosphere (“sphere of color”) * is a dim layer of less dense stellar gas that is above the photosphere * It is the layer we normally see * Astronomers can also study the chromosphere through filters that pass light with specific wavelengths strongly emitted by it – but not by the photosphere – or through telescope sensitive to nonvisble wavelengths that the chromosphere emits intensely Spicules - Are...
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...Cosmology As we have learned, Edwin Hubble showed that the farther away a galaxy is, the faster away from the Milky Way it is moving. This gives the appearance that the Milky Way is at the center of the universe, and all galaxies are moving away from us, possibly due to some large explosion, The Big Bang. The Hubble's Law can be applied to any observer in any galaxy. No matter where you are, an expanding universe will give the same appearance. The expansion of the universe is not like the explosion of a bomb sending fragments in all directions. Space itself is expanding. We can detect photons that appear to have moved at different speeds through space. However, as the speed of light is constant, it is space that is moving relative to the photon. The galaxies are fixed relative to space, but space itself is moving. We have seen no 'edge' to the universe and there are an equal number of galaxies in every direction. Also, galaxies can move relative to space, but at times gravity can accelerate one galaxy toward another faster than space expands. When light waves travel through space, they are stretched by expansion and this increases the wave's wavelength, making it appear redder. Using the Hubble Law, we can estimate the age of the universe. At some point in the distant past, matter in the universe must have been densely packed. From this point, the universe would have expanded at some high speed to become today's universe. Assuming a constant expansion over time, we find...
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...THE UNIVERSE When we look up in the night sky we can see the stars and the moon. And because it is natural to be curious, we ask questions and we want answers. When our view was limited by what our eyes could see, the sky was our Universe. Then the telescopes deepened our view, photography enhanced it, and spectroscopy broadened it. The universe grew from a sky of stars to a realm of galaxies, to an expanding universe of galaxies. Many people believe that nature, the sun and moon, the star, even human beings never had a beginning. There is an endless, external cycle of birth, life and death that constantly repeats itself and it never began and will never end. In the Book of Genesis in the Bible, it was written that at first the world did not exist and that God is the only one who existed. So He created the world. The universe is the totality of everything that has ever existed. It is so large that it contains billions of stars, and all of the planets, galaxies and all of space. The study of the universe is called Cosmology. Traditional Views about the Universe 1. Geocentric Universe Greeks believed that the earth was a sphere that stayed motionless at the center of the universe or the geocentric (Earth-centered) view. Orbiting the earth were seven wanderers (planetai in Greek) including the sun, the moon and the known planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Greece was centered as the “Golden Age” of early astronomy. Claudius Ptolemy created the book Almagest...
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...Electromagnetic Fields, Telescopes and Black Holes Astronomy is defined as the scientific study of the universe and the objects in it, including stars, planets, nebulae, and galaxies. Astronomy deals with the position, size, motion, composition, energy, and evolution of celestial objects. Astronomers analyze not only visible light but also radio waves, x-rays, and other ranges of radiation that come from sources outside the Earth's atmosphere (American Heritage Dictionary, 2002). This particular assignment required we visit an institution that specializes in the education of astronomy so that we, as students, could delve deeper into the world of astronomy through hands on experience. I elected to visit the Denver Museum of Nature and Science on the 4th of July 2012. I also viewed the film Black Holes the Edge of Infinity in addition to the hands on exercise. I feel a new appreciation for astronomy through the interactive learning experience because it put how very far we’ve come to understanding our universe into perspective. The first exhibit I visited had to do with the four nonvisible wave lengths of light and telescopes. I integrated the two exhibits so that I can elaborate on them in a way that culminates the experience. For every nonvisible wave measured there is a corresponding telescope. These are radio waves, infrared, ultraviolet, and gamma ray. Because radio waves are larger than optical waves, radio telescopes work differently than optical telescopes. Radio telescopes...
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...through nuclear fusion. 2. Our Milky Way galaxy is an island of stars in space with hundreds of billions of stars like our Sun. 3. The Big Bang is a theory of when the universe started expanding about 14 billion years ago. 4. The phase “looking out in the universe is looking back in time,” refers to the light from other stars we see at night happened in 1913 because light takes time to travel through space. B. Where are we in the universe? 1. Earth’s place in the solar system is the third planet nearest to the Sun, a star. It is very small but the only dense planet with life forms. 2. The nearest stars to the Sun and compare the distance between the Sun and Earth a. The nearest star system is Alpha Centauri that is 4.4 light-years away. b. The distance between the Earth, and the Sun is 92,600,000 miles; it takes eight minutes for light from the Sun to reach Earth. 3. The Milky Way galaxy is about one hundred thousand light-years in diameter. 4. It is estimated that one hundred billion stars are in our galaxy. 5. The Earth is only four and one-half billion years of age in comparison to the universe is 14 billion. C. Motion in the universe 1. Earth orbits the Sun at 66,000 miles per hour that is equal to 107,000 kilometers per hour, which is one hundred times faster than a speeding bullet. 2. Our Sun is moving fast at 40,000 miles per hour in the galaxy. 3. We do not notice the galaxies moving fast around the Milky Way galaxy at 500,000 miles per hour because of the...
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...The Speed of light, c=299,800,000 written in scientific notation is 2.998x108 . The fine- structure constant, α= 0.007297 written in scientific notation is 7.297x10-3. The magnitude of a star, based on how bright it appears is its apparent magnitude. The difference of four magnitudes corresponds to a brightness change (factor) of 40 times. Star A has an apparent magnitude of 2.6, star B 3.2, star C 1.7, star D 2.6, and star E -1.7. Which star appears to be the brightest? Star E Star A has an apparent magnitude of -0.7, and star B has an apparent magnitude of 10.3. What is the magnitude difference between these stars? 11 What is the brightness factor between these stars A and B in Question 6? 2.5 x 104 The ancient Greek Hipparchus did NOT do this: Determine the size of the Earth. The first method of determining the distance to the stars involves trigonometric parallax. The Hipparcos satellite use the method in Question 9 to measure stellar distances out of 1000 pc. It is able to do so b/c it is in orbit above the atmosphere. There is a very simple relation between a star’s angle of parallax, π, and its distance, r, this relation is r=1/π. A star has a parallax of 0.302 (in proper units). The distance of this star is 50pc. How many light years are in a parsec? 326 The Magnitude of a star, based on how bright it appears at 10pc is the absolute magnitude. You start out 10pc from a star, and then move out to 50pc. The star’s brightness has decreased by a factor of 25...
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