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the intensity.
When you plot the intensity of light from an object at each
wavelength, you trace out a smooth curve called a blackbody curve.
For any temperature, the blackbody curve shows how much energy
(intensity) is radiated at each wavelength. The wavelength where
the intensity peaks determines the color of that the object. The
intensity peak will be at shorter (bluer) wavelengths for hotter
objects, and at longer (redder) wavelengths for cooler objects.
Therefore, you can tell the temperature of a star or galaxy by its
color because color is closely related to the wavelength at which its
light intensity peaks.
Blackbody curves, for objects of all temperatures, have a similar
shape, as shown in the graph below. However, the peak of the curve
for a hotter object will be larger (more intense) than will the peak of
the curve for a cooler object. For example, the intensity difference
between the peak of the curve for an object at 30,000 K and the
peak of the curve for an object at 300 K (body temperature) is a
factor of 10 billion. This means that a star at 30,000 K puts out more
energy by a factor of 10 billion than does a human at body
temperature.
in the blue and ultraviolet regions of the spectrum. Stars cooler than
the Sun (below 5000 degrees C) put out most of their light in the red
and infrared regions of the spectrum. Solid objects heated to 1000
degrees C appear red but are putting out far more (invisible)
infrared light than red light.
7. What information can light reveal about the stars?
The colors red, green, and blue are chosen because they are the
primary colors of light. By combining these colors of light, white light
is produced. Combinations of two of these colors produce other
familiar colors: blue + green = cyan, red + blue = magenta, and red
+ green = yellow.
12. How are the colors assigned to the black and white
images?
If red, green, and blue filters have been used, the red filter is
assigned red light, the green filter is assigned green light, and the
blue filter is assigned blue light. This changes the black-and-white
scale into tones of red, green, and blue, respectively. Using
computers, these images can be combined into one image, which
represents (as close as possible) the true colors of the object being
imaged. In general, when other filters are used, blue is assigned to
the shortest wavelength light while red is assigned to the longest
wavelength, with green being the wavelength in the middle.
13. What objects does the Hubble Space Telescope
observe and why?
The Hubble Space Telescope takes observations of almost every
part of the sky, as long as it isn't toward the Sun. In our own
solar system, the telescope can take incredibly detailed pictures of
the outer planets and their moons. A crescent of Venus has been
taken with the Hubble Space Telescope and the moon has been shot
once, but Mercury is too close to the Sun to be imaged.
Farther out, Hubble takes images of stars and nebulae in our own
galaxy as well as in galaxies in the larger universe. The majority of
Hubble's time is used for scientific research, taking many
observations of specific objects that the scientists are studying.
However, a very small portion of Hubble's time is dedicated to
taking beautiful pictures for public enjoyment.
Galaxies
See image
below
1. What is a galaxy?
The name of our galaxy is the Milky Way. All of the stars that you
see at night and our Sun belong to the Milky Way. When you go
outside in the country on a dark night and look up, you will see a
milky, misty-looking band stretching across the sky. When you look
at this band, you are looking into the densest parts of the Milky Way:
the disk and the bulge.
3. Where is Earth in the Milky Way galaxy?
Our solar system is in a spiral arm called the Orion Arm, and is
about two-thirds of the way from the center of our galaxy to the
edge of the starlight. Earth is the third planet from the Sun in our
solar system of nine planets.
4. What is the closest galaxy like our own, and how far
away is it?
The closest spiral galaxy is Andromeda, a galaxy much like our
own Milky Way. It is 2.2 million light-years away from us. Andromeda
is approaching our galaxy at a rate of 670,000 miles per hour. Five
billion years from now it may even collide with our Milky Way galaxy.
5. Why do we study galaxies?
learn about the history of the universe. Galaxies are visible to vast
distances, and trace the structure of the visible universe with their
collections of billions of stars, gas, and dust.
6. What are the parts of a galaxy?
A galaxy contains stars, gas, and dust. In a spiral galaxy like the
Milky Way the stars, gas, and dust are organized into a bulge, a
disk containing spiral arms, and a halo. Elliptical galaxies have a
bulge-shape and a halo, but do not have a disk.
Bulge A round structure made primarily of old stars, gas, and
dust. The bulge of the Milky Way is roughly 10,000 light-years
across. The outer parts of the bulge are difficult to distinguish from
the halo.
Disk A flattened region that surrounds the bulge in a spiral
galaxy. The disk is shaped like a pancake. The disk of the Milky Way
is 100,000 light-years across and 2000 light-years thick. It contains
mostly young stars, gas, and dust, which are concentrated in spiral
arms. Some old stars are also present.
Spiral arms Curved extensions beginning at the bulge of a spiral
galaxy, giving it a "pinwheel" appearance. Spiral arms contain a lot
of gas and dust as well as young blue stars. Spiral arms are found
only in spiral galaxies.
Halo The halo primarily contains individual old stars and clusters
of old stars (globular clusters). It may be over 130,000 light-years
across. The halo also contains dark matter, which is material that we
cannot see but whose gravitational force can be measured.
Stars, gas, and dust Stars come in a variety of types. Blue
stars, which are very hot, tend to have shorter lifetimes than red
stars, which are cooler. Regions of galaxies where stars are currently
forming are therefore bluer than regions where there has been no
recent star formation. Spiral galaxies seem to have a lot of gas and
dust, while elliptical galaxies have very little gas or dust.
7. How are galaxies classified? What do they look like?
Elliptical
(E)
Have neither
disk nor arms.
Stars are
distributed
evenly from
near circular to
oval (football).
Irregular
(Irr)
Have no
definite
structure.
Contain
both
young and
old stars.
Gas and
dust
Star
formation
Stellar
motion
Stars move on
randomly
oriented orbits
like a swarm of
bees.
Stars and
gas have
irregular
orbits.
more than one catalog and can have more than one name.
The numbers following the letters, such as Mrk917 (Sc) or NGC1433
(SB), indicate the galaxy's entry in the catalog and are often related
to the galaxy's relative position in the sky.
11. What are
colliding galaxies?
When two or more galaxies are close enough to each other,
gravitational forces will pull the galaxies toward each other. This
gravitational attraction increases as the galaxies travel toward each
other. The galaxies may pass by each other or collide. Two galaxies
that are interacting or colliding may be referred to as a pair, or one
galaxy may be referred to as a companion of the other.
The Hubble images below show how different colliding galaxies can
look. The appearance of an interacting system of galaxies depends
on many factors, including the stage of the interaction, the number
of galaxies involved in the interaction, their masses and types, how
close they are, and how they approach each other.
The Cartwheel
Stephan's Quintet
very far away and appear faint to us due to the vast distances over
which the light must travel; and/or objects can lie close to us and be
faint because they don't give off much light. So "deep" doesn't
necessarily mean far. However, in the case of the Hubble Deep
Fields (HDFs) and the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), deep does
mean far away since the images were taken in areas that we know
have few nearby stars.
17. What are the Hubble
Deep Fields?
The Hubble Deep Field project was inspired by some of the first
deep images to return from the Wide Field and Planetary Camera
2 (WFPC2), after it was installed during the 1993 Hubble Space
Telescope servicing mission. These images showed that the early
universe contained galaxies in a bewildering variety of shapes and
sizes. Some had the familiar elliptical and spiral shapes seen among
galaxies today, but there were many peculiar shapes as well. Such
images of the early universe are likely to be one of the enduring
legacies of the Hubble Space Telescope. Few astronomers had
expected to see this activity presented in such amazing detail.
Impressed by the results of earlier observations such as the Hubble
Medium Deep Survey, astronomers at the Space Telescope Science
Institute (STScI), and STScI's Director, Robert Williams, realized that
they could provide a service to the entire astronomical community
by taking the deepest optical picture of the universe. The research
was done by aiming Hubble at a single piece of the northern sky for
10 days (150 consecutive orbits) in December, 1995. Images from
the Hubble Deep Field project were made available to the
astronomers around the world shortly after completion of the
observation.
A few thousand previously unseen galaxies are visible in the original
"deepest ever" view of the universe, called the Hubble Deep Field
(later named the HDF-North). In addition to the classical spiral and
elliptical forms, the variety of other galaxy shapes and colors seen
in the image are important clues to understanding the evolution of
the universe. Some of the galaxies may have formed less than one
billion years after the Big Bang.
Hubble took a second deep look in the Southern Hemisphere in
October of 1998 the HDF-South to see if a similar result would
be obtained. Each of the Hubble Deep Fields shows hundreds of
galaxies in an area of the sky that is as small as the size of President
Roosevelt's eye on a dime held at arm's length.
18. Why was a second Deep
Field taken?
The HDF-N covers a very small fraction of the sky. It would have
taken 27 million fields and well over 500,000 years to use
Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 to survey the entire sky
to the depths of the HDF. Instead, astronomers rely on several thin
"looking-through-a-soda-straw" views across the cosmos to infer the
history of star and galaxy formation.
Taking a second Deep Field helped astronomers to confirm that the
HDF-N is representative, and that it is not unusual in some way. The
two HDFs are, in fact, consistent with the common assumption of
astronomers that the universe should look largely the same in any
direction.
19. How were the two Hubble Deep
Field sites chosen?
Each of the Hubble Deep Fields represents a "carefully selected
random spot on the sky." To allow the Hubble Space Telescope to
peer deeply into the sky, astronomers selected a special region of
Hubble's orbit where Hubble could view the sky without being
blocked by Earth or experiencing interference from the Sun or Moon.
The field also had to be far away from the plane of our own galaxy
to avoid being cluttered with objects within the Milky Way. Finally,
the field needed to have nearby "guide stars," which are used to
keep Hubble pointed at the field. These criteria led to the selection
of a spot of sky near the handle of the Big Dipper, in the Northern
Hemisphere, and a spot of the sky in the constellation Tucana, in the
Southern Hemisphere.
20. What is the importance
of the HDFs?
When produced, the HDFs contained the faintest galaxies we'd
ever been able to see over a large range of distances. Since
seemingly "empty" spots were chosen, most of the galaxies in the
Deep Fields lie billions of light-years away.
The images show some galaxies in their early stages of formation,
appearing in peculiar shapes never previously seen by astronomers.
The variety of new galaxy shapes and colors seen in the HDFs, along
with the classical elliptical and spiral shapes, are important clues to
understanding the evolution of the universe. Some of the galaxies
may have formed less than one billion years after the Big Bang. The
HDFs are important because they can help answer such questions
as:
Disturbed Galaxies
Stellar Baby Boom
In Search of Hidden Stars
ages. Some were formed just a short time after the universe was
created, about 13 billion years ago. The infrared NICMOS image
complements the visible-light ACS image and reveals some of the
most-distant galaxies ever seen.
The ACS picture required a series of exposures taken over the
course of 400 Hubble orbits around Earth. This is such a big chunk of
the telescope's annual observing time that Space Telescope Science
Institute Director, Steven Beckwith, used his own Director's
Discretionary Time to provide the needed resources. Just like the
previous HDFs, the new data are expected to galvanize the
astronomical community and lead to dozens of research papers that
will offer new insights into the birth and evolution of galaxies.
25. How does the Hubble Ultra Deep Field compare to the
Hubble Deep Fields?
The Hubble Deep Fields represented the faintest, deepest visible
light images ever taken using the technology available at that time
the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The Hubble Ultra Deep
Field was produced using an instrument with newer technology
the Advanced Camera for Surveys. The differences in the HDF and
HUDF are due to the quality of the instruments being used.
Concerning the variety of galaxies visible in the fields, it has been
said that the HDF captured images of galaxies when they were
youngsters but the HUDF captured images of galaxies as toddlers.
Tales of ...
The glorious end of stellar life
See image below
Garden-variety stars like our sun live undistinguished lives in their
galactic neighborhoods, churning out heat and light for billions of
years. When these stars reach retirement age, however, they
become unique works of art.
As ordinary, sun-like stars begin their 30,000-year journey into their
twilight years, they swell and glow, shrugging off their gaseous
layers until only their small, hot cores remain. The ejected gaseous
layers are called planetary nebulae, so named in the 18th century
because, through small telescopes, these gas clouds had round
shapes similar to distant planets such as Uranus or Neptune.
(Continued >>)
Nebula gallery
carbon. The resulting energy release allows the core to expand, and
the rate of energy production then drops.
A star's final moments
Once the helium is exhausted, the core again becomes inactive. The
red giant is dying, but the inactive carbon core is still very hot.
Surrounding the core are two shells rich in unprocessed hydrogen
and helium.
The star's surface pulsates and shudders with seismic energy from
the activity of the shells beneath it. With each pulse, which last
about a year, the surface layers expand and cool. Each time this
happens some of the stellar exterior is flung into space and carried
away in a "slow wind," traveling at about 10 miles per second. This
process continues for a few thousand years until only about twothirds of the star's mass remains: its carbon-oxygen core.
In a few thousand years, as these last outer layers are stripped off,
much hotter inner layers of the star become exposed. Soon only the
bare carbon-oxygen core is left. The core's temperature is rising
rapidly. Over about 20,000 years, the core's surface temperature
leaps to approximately 140,000 C, compared with about 6100 C
for the surface of a sun-like star. The dense carbon-oxygen star is
not much larger than Earth.
Ultraviolet light from this intensely hot surface heads into the star's
former outer layers, which are still moving outward in space at 10
miles per second. This light is so energetic that it causes the gas to
fluoresce like a fluorescent light bulb forming the bright
planetary nebulae surrounding dying stars.
A new wind, which carries very little mass but lots of energy, is
blown outward at 1000 miles per second (3.6 million mph). The lowdensity wind races outward and snowplows into the older gas. This
so-called "fast wind" helps to sculpt planetary nebulae, creating
some strikingly remarkable shapes.
The star's radiation begins to heat the planetary nebula, causing
different gases to glow. The various colors in images of planetary
nebulae are associated with these glowing gases. From far away,
the former layers of the star appear as a glowing planetary nebula,
about 1000 times the size of our solar system. The fluorescent light
of planetary nebulae lasts for about 10,000 years.
Eventually, the core stops ejecting gas into space. The dying star is
on the path to becoming a slowly fading white dwarf a hot, Earthsized fossil. The gas expelled earlier ultimately swirls away and
merges into the interstellar medium, much as smoke from a train
The more direct the approach, the easier it is for the planet to
capture a comet because the comet comes closer to the planet. As
discussed in question 5 above, the closer the objects come to each
other, the stronger the force of gravity.
7. What role does speed play in the capture of
a comet by a planet?
The faster an object is moving, the greater the kinetic energy. In
order for an object to be trapped by the gravity of a planet, the
object's kinetic energy (Ek = 1/2 mv2 where Ek = kinetic energy, m =
mass of comet, and v = speed) must be less than the gravitational
potential energy (U = GMm/r where U = potential energy, G =
gravitational constant, M = mass of planet, m = mass of comet, and
r = distance from the center of the planet to the center of the
comet).
The comet's total energy is equal to the kinetic plus potential
energies. But the potential energy is negative, so a comet can only
escape a planet's gravitational pull if the kinetic energy is larger
than the gravitational potential energy.
8. Does a comet's mass play a role in its capture by a
planet? Or, why doesn't a comet's mass affect the path it
follows?
When a comet travels near a planet, there is a gravitational force
between the comet and the planet (Fg = GMm/r2 where Fg =
gravitational force and the others are as defined above). This force
provides a centripetal acceleration, which changes the comet's path
so that it begins orbiting the planet. (Fc= mac where Fc = centripetal
force and ac = centripetal acceleration). These two forces are the
same. If we set them equal to each other, the mass of the comet
factors out of the equation.
Fc = Fg
mac = GMm/r2
ac = GM/r2
9. How does the mass of a planet affect its
ability to capture a comet?
As shown in the equation in question 8 above, the amount of
centripetal acceleration on a comet depends on the mass of the
body causing the acceleration. The greater the acceleration, the
more easily the comet's path is changed and the more likely it is to
be captured. This means that a massive planet can capture a comet
more easily than could a less massive planet.