Stars and Galaxies The View from Earth -Before You Read- ‘What do you think? Read the two statements below and decide whether you agree or disagree with them. Place an Ain the Before column if you agree with the statement or a D ifyou disagree. After youve react this lesson, reread the statements to see if you have changed your mind. Before Statement After 1. The night sky is divided into constellations 2. Alight-year is a measurement of time. -Read to Learn: Looking at the Night Sky Have you ever looked up at the sky ona clear, dark night and seen more stars than you could possibly count? If you have, you are lucky. Few people see a night sky dense with stars. Lights from towns and cities make the night sky too bright for people to see the faint stars. If you look at a clear night sky for a long time, the stars seem to move. But what you are really seeing is Earth’s movement. Earth spins, or rotates, once every 24 hours. Day turns to night and then back to day as Earth rotates, Because Earth rotates from west to east, objects in the sky rise in the east and set in the west. Earth spins on its axis, Barth’s axis is an imaginary line from the North Pole to the South Pole. The star Polaris is almost directly above the North Pole. As Earth spins, stars near Polaris appear to travel in a circle around Polaris, These stars never set when viewed from the northern hemisphere. They are always present in the night sky. Naked-Eye Astronomy You don’t need expensive equipment to view the sky Naked-eye astronomy means “gazing at the sky with just your eyes, without binoculars or a telescope.” Long before the telescope was invented, people viewed the sky in this way. The View from Earth air) LESSON 1 Key Concepts (je + How do astronomers divide the night sky? + What can astronomers learn about stars from theit ight? + How do scientists measure the distance and the brightness of objects in the sky? Ez Create a Quiz Write five questions as you read this lesson, Exchange quizzes with a partner. After taking the quizzes, discuss your answers, (Ts Make a horizontal two-tab book to organize your notes on astronomy. Starsand Galaxies 259Constellations Draco the dragon Orion the hunter s @ Visual Check People have observed stars to tell time and find directions since ancient times. They learned about planets, seasons, 1, Analyze Why does east © and astronomical events merely by watching the sky. As you appear on the left and west i. 7 practice naked-eye astronomy, remember never to look appear on the right on the sky map? (Hint: Hold the directly at the Sun. Ultraviolet radiation from the Sun could map over your head, as you damage your eyes, would view the sky. Position 7 the map so that you are Constellations looking north) As people in ancient cultures gazed at the night sky, they saw patterns. The patterns resembled people, animals, ot objects, such as the hunter and the dragon shown in the figure above. The Greek astronomer Ptolemy (TAH luh mee) identified dozens of star patterns neatly 2,000 years ago. Today, these patterns and others like them are known as g ancient constellations. 2 = Key Concept Check Present-day astronomers use many ancient constellations 2. Describe How do to divide the sky into 88 regions. The sky map in the figure i astronomers divide the night above shows some of these regions, which are also called 7 swt constellations. Dividing the sky helps scientists communicate = to others what area of sky they are studying, (feo 260 Stars and Galaxies ‘The View from EarthTelescopes ‘Telescopes were invented in the early 1600s. They can collect much more light than the human eye can detect Visible light is just one part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Look at the figure below. The electromagnetic spectrum @Visual cheek is a continuous range of wavelengths. Longer wavelengths have low energy. Shorter wavelengths have high energy. 3. Interpret Which Different objects in space emit different ranges of wavelengths. ween has the highest The range of wavelengths that a star emits is the star's spectrum (plural, spectra) Electromagnetic Spectrum Low eneray igh energy Long wavelength Short wavelength aaa alae alas es a es Radio waves can be Infrared waves can Ultraviolet waves X-rays and gamma rays used to study cold, dark be used to study canbe used to can be used to study regions of space. ‘star-forming regions. study young stars. high-energy gas jets. Spectroscopes Scientists study the spectra of stars using an instrument called a spectroscope. A spectroscope spreads light into diferent wavelengths. Using spectroscopes, astronomers can study sta characteristics, including temperatures, compositions, and energies. For example, newly formed stars emit mostly radio and infrared waves, which have low energy. Exploding stars emit mostly high-energy ultraviolet waves and X-rays. @ee ( Key Concept Check Measuring Distances auroras ler oma Extend your arm, and hold up your thumb. Close one star’ spectrum? eye, and look at your thumb. Now open that eye, and close the other eye. Did your thumb seem to jump? This is an example of parallax. Parallax is the apparent change in an object’s position caused by looking at it from two different points Astronomers use angles created by parallax to measure how far objects are from Earth. Astronomers do not use the @ Reading Check eyes as the two points of view. Instead, they use two points 5. Explain What is parallax? in Earth's orbit around the Sun. @ The View from Earth Starsand Galaxies 261@ Visual check 6. Apply About how many million kilometers is Jupiter from the Sun? POETS |e Proportions can be used to calculate distances to astronomical objects. Light can travel nearly 10 trillion km in 1 year (y). How many years would it take light to reach Earth from a star that is, 100 trillion km away? a, Set up a proportion 10 tilion kms, __ 100 million km yoy b. Cross multiply. 10 tuillion km x oy 100 trillion km x Ty . Solve for x by dividing both sides by ottilion km. 00 trillion km iO trillion km 7. Use Proportions How many years would it take light to reach Earth from a star 60 tillion km away? =10y 262 stars and Galaxies Distances Within the Solar System The universe is too large to measure easily in meters or kilometers. Therefore, astronomers use other units of measurement, For distances within the solar system, they use astronomical units (AU). An astronomical unit is the average th and the Sun, about 150 million km. distance betwe Astronomical units make it easy to compare distances between objects in the solar system and the distance between Earth and the Sun. The figure below shows that Jupiter is 5.2 AU from the Sun. This means that Jupiter is 5.2 times farther from the Sun than Earth is from the Sun. The most distant planet, Neptune, is 30 AU from the Sun. Astronomical Units phere Distances Beyond the Solar System Astronomers measure distances to objects beyond the solar system using a larger distance unit—the light-year. Despite its name, a light-year measures distance, not time A light-year is the distance light travels in 1 year. Light travels at a rate of about 3 km/s. That means 1 light-year is about 10 trillion km! Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun is 4.2 light-years away Looking Back in Time Because it takes time for light to travel, you see a star not as it is today but as it was when light left it. At 4.2 li away, Proxima Centauri appears as it was 4.2 years ago. The nt-years farther away an object is, the longer it takes for its light to reach Earth, The View from EarthMeasuring Brightness Some stars Ook dim and some look bright. Astronomers measure the brightness of stars in two ways: by how bright ‘they appear from Earth and by how bright they actually are Apparent Magnitude Scientists measure how bright stars appear using a scale developed by the ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus (hi PAR kus). Hipparchus assigned a number to every star he saw based on the star’s brightness. Astronomers today call these numbers magnitudes, The apparent magnitude of an object is a measure of how bright it appears from Earth. As shown in the figure below, the fainter a star appears, the greater its apparent magnitude, Note that some objects have negative apparent magnitudes. That is because Hipparchus assigned a value of 1 to the brightest stars, but he did not assign values to the Sun, the Moon, or Venus. Astronomers later assigned negative numbers to the Sun, the Moon, Venus, and a few bright stars ACADEMIC VOCABULARY apparent (adjective) appeating to the eye or mind @Visuat check 8. Interpret What isthe apparent magnitude of Sirius? Apparent Magnitude cot @ OG Ea Brightest object Proxima Faintest object seen inthe sky ‘Moon Venus Polaris. «Centauri ‘with telescope -5 -0 15 -10 5 9 45) 40 415 420 425 Sirus faintest star Brightest star seen with theunaided ee Absolute Magnitude A star can appear bright or dim depending on its distance from Earth, But a star also has an actual, or absolute, magnitude. Luminosity (lew muh NAH sih tee) is the true brightness @@f=> Key Concept Check ofan object. The luminosity of a star is measured on an absolute magnitude scale. A star's luminosity depends on the star's temperature and size, not on its distance from Earth. A star's luminosity, apparent magnitude, and distance from Earth are related. If scientists know two of these factors, they can determine the third using mathematical formulas. Gas The View from Earth 9. Summarize How do scientists measure the brightness of stars? Starsand Galaxies 263