Physics 306 (Basic Astronomy) Fall 2006
Instructor: Dr. Alexey Belyanin (979) 845-7785, Room ENPH 509 Email: [email protected] http://faculty.physics.tamu.edu/belyanin/phys306.html Office Hours -- 12:45-14:45 TTR, or by appointment The textbook is Foundations of Astronomy, Ninth Edition, by Michael Seeds (Thomson Brooks/Cole, 2007).
Homework: 10% of the grade Use WebAssign to receive and submit assignments: http://www.webassign.net/
Evaluation
3 mid-term exams: 20% of the final grade each Final exam: 30% of the final grade Homework: 10% of the grade Use WebAssign to receive and submit assignments: http://www.webassign.net/ If you have an excused absence for a mid-term exam, the grade for one exam can be dropped in calculating the final average.
You are allowed to bring one 8.5" x 11" page with formulas (on one side) for every exam. You can bring three such pages for the final.
With this cheat sheet you dont have to memorize all formulas. However, you need to understand them!
Level of math used:
You will use simple algebra and some elementary functions, such as logarithms and exponents. Powers of 10 will occur all the time, so the ability to work with scientific notation is important. I will provide you with necessary math background; however, some of you might need extra practice to refresh your middle school math.
We will use metric units. See Appendix A for definitions, tables, and other important info.
Mars Climate Orbiter 1999
Remember and check UNITS for all terms in the formulas!!!
Indicate units on your formula sheet Express all terms in correct units before plugging in the formula Check your answer for right unit
Attendance is important. We will drop/add and rearrange some material as compared to the textbook
Advantages of taking classes over self-study Fighting intrinsic laziness Maintaining a proper speed Distinguishing important topics from less important ones Learning supplementary materials as well Someone is ready to answer questions
From the Fall 2005
test 3 results vs. absences
160 140 120 100
score
80 60 40 20 0 0 1 2 3 absences 4 5 6 7
Why astronomy is fun to study and to teach
In every lecture, we reach the frontier of human knowledge
Crossroads of physics, chemistry, biology, philosophy,
Breakthrough discoveries occur every year
All scales from elementary particles (10-15 m) to the Hubble radius (1026 m) are involved; all timescales from 10-43 s to 1010 years No need in sophisticated tools to do observations and make discoveries
Structure of the course
1. Scale and structure of the Universe 2. The night sky 3. History of astronomy 4. Celestial mechanics 5. Astronomical tools 6. The Sun 7. Birth, life, and death of stars 8. Galaxies 9. Cosmology 10.The Solar System 11. Life in the Universe
Chapter 1: setting the stage
Our place in the Universe
Scales and distances
Milky Way Galaxy
Galactic year = 225 million yr Our sun is 4.6 billion yr old
200 billion stars 25,000 light years, Or ~ 8 kpc, or 2.5x1017 km
Milky Way a milky patch of stars that rings the Earth
Galactos = milk in Greek
Galileo found that the Milky Way is made up of stars
Hubble Deep Field
10 day exposure photo! Over 1500 galaxies in a spot 1/30 the diameter of the Moon
1011 galaxies in the observable universe
Farthest and oldest objects are 12-13 billion ly away! Space observations as a time machine
107 m
Earth radius = 6378.164 km
102
109 m
Radius of Moons orbit = 384000 km
102
1011 m
1 Astronomical Unit = 1.51011 m
102
1013 m
Mean radius of Plutos orbit = 40 AU Pluto demoted to a dwarf planet on August 24, 2006!
The Kuiper Belt home for short-period comets and dwarf planets
Starting in 1992, astronomers have become aware of a vast population of small bodies orbiting the sun beyond Neptune. There are at least 70,000 "trans-Neptunians" with diameters larger than 100 km in the radial zone extending outwards from the orbit of Neptune (at 30 AU) to 50 AU.
1-day motion of Varuna
2003 UB313 Xena: the largest dwarf planet so far R = 2400 +- 100 km larger than Pluto! Pluto: R = 1185 km
HST image of Xena
Voyagers 1 and 2
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 is now 100 AU from the Sun! (12 light-hours, or 15 billion km) The most distant human-made object in the Universe
The Oort Cloud source of long-period comets
The comets that are more likely to be easily visible are much rarer, and are thought to come from a great spherical cloud of cometary material surrounding the Solar System called the Oort Cloud. This sphere is a light year (50,000 A. U.) in radius, but the total mass of cometary material in this cloud is probably less than that of the Earth. Occasionally a comet in this cloud is disturbed gravitationally, for example by a passing star, and started on a long elliptical or parabolic orbit toward the Sun. These long-period comets are primarily responsible for the brighter comets observed historically.
102
1017 m
Proxima Centauri (Alpha Centauri C)
Distance to Cen C = 4.2 ly = 1.3 pc = 41016 m
Need to introduce new units of distance
1 light-year (ly) 1016 m 1 ly = c1 year (the distance the light travels in 1 year) Velocity of light in vacuum c = 3 108 m/s 1 year 3.1 107 s
1 parsec (pc) 3.26 ly 3 1016 m
1 kpc = 1000 pc; 1 Mpc = 1 million pc; 1 Gpc = 1 billion pc
Huge isolation of stars:
Distance between stars = 107
Star diameter
The time needed to reach Proxima with modern spacecrafts:
3 1016 m 1012 s 30,000 yr 3 104 m/s
Looking through space = travel in time!
102
1019 m
Local Bubble
Density ~ 0.05 atoms/cm3 Temperature ~ 105 K
Remnant of supernova explosion?
Milky Way Galaxy
102
1021 m
100 billion stars
10 kpc
102
1023 m
Neighboring galaxies: Mpc scale
Groups
clusters
superclusters
102
1025 m
500 Mpc scale
Distance scale
1017 m 107 m 109 m 1011 m 1021 m = 3 pc planets Sun = 1 AU = 10 kpc Solar System distance galaxy between stars
Looking through space = travel in time!
1025 m = 100 Mpc Largest structure
1026 m = Gpc Hubble radius
Contents of the Universe
97% of all ordinary (baryonic) matter is in stars Only 3-5% of matter in the Universe is baryonic! 27% is cold dark matter 70% is dark energy
Dark matter as a gravitational lens
Remaining 70% is dark energy
