particle collider the Bullet Cluster

E X T R A G A L A C T I C
A S T RO N O M Y
STEPHEN M. WILKINS
+ MARK SARGENT

Centaurus A The Cosmic Microwave

Background
 particle collider the Bullet Cluster

LECTURE 1
THE EXPANSION OF THE
UNIVERSE

Centaurus A The Cosmic Microwave

Background
I N T H E N E W S
 Monday Lecture Tuesday Lecture

The Friedmann Equations

Introduction, the Contents of Galaxies and - Newtonian Derivation of the Friedmann
Week 1
the Expansion of the Universe Equation

Observational Cosmology
- Hubble’s law (again)

Simple Cosmological Models

The Early Universe
- Solutions to the Friedmann Equations
- The Cosmic Microwave Background
Week 2 - Dust Solution
- Nucleosynthesis
- Big Bang vs. Steady State
- Inflation
- Radiation Solution

Dark Energy & the Ultimate Fate of

Observational Cosmology
the Universe
Week 3 - Distances in Cosmology
- The discovery of something wrong
- Redshift vs. Time
- The ultimate fate of the Universe
 FOUNDATIONS OF
MODERN COSMOLOGY

The 20th Century saw a number of remarkable discoveries

which have changed our understanding of the Universe.

In this part of the module we’ll discuss some of the most

important of these discoveries while also introducing the
physical mechanisms that underpin them.
 FOUNDATIONS OF
MODERN COSMOLOGY

The discovery that the Milky Way is just one of many (many many)
galaxies.

The discovery that more distant galaxies appear to be moving away from
us at a greater velocity, thereby suggesting that the Universe is
expanding.

The formulation of a model (equations) which explains this expansion.

The discovery of the cosmic background radiation and the evolving

properties of galaxies.

The discovery of the accelerated expansion of the Universe.

 FOUNDATIONS OF
MODERN COSMOLOGY
THE GREATE DEBATE

By the early 20th Century astronomers had

discovered a number of nebulae,
essentially objects which were not star-like.

Charles Messier’s drawing of the

Orion Nebula from 1771.
 FOUNDATIONS OF
MODERN COSMOLOGY
THE GREATE DEBATE

By the early 20th Century astronomers had

discovered a number of nebulae,
essentially objects which were not star-like.

The first photograph of the Orion Nebula

taken by Henry Draper in 1880.

The first photograph of the Andromeda

Nebula (Galaxy), taken by Isaac Roberts from
his observatory in East Sussex in 1888.
 FOUNDATIONS OF
MODERN COSMOLOGY
THE GREATE DEBATE

By the early 20th Century astronomers had

discovered a number of nebulae,
essentially objects which were not star-like.
 FOUNDATIONS OF
MODERN COSMOLOGY
THE GREATE DEBATE

Most nebulae were found to be made up of “luminous

gas”; gas excited by some energy source.

A composite spectrum of Hydrogen, Helium, and Oxygen.

 FOUNDATIONS OF
MODERN COSMOLOGY
THE GREATE DEBATE

Most nebulae were found to be made up of “luminous

gas”; gas excited by some energy source.

However, some nebulae (the Spiral

nebulae) were found to be different from
the others.

They exhibited emission that was similar to

stars (not the gaseous emission seen in the
other nebulae). This suggested they had a
stellar nature.
 FOUNDATIONS OF
MODERN COSMOLOGY
THE GREATE DEBATE

In the late 19th and early 20th century there was a debate (the
first great debate) amongst astronomers as to whether “spiral
nebulae” were within the Milky Way or external to it.

Many contemporary astronomers thought that spiral nebulae

were the in-situ formation of planetary system (hence why they
were dominated by stellar emission).
 FOUNDATIONS OF
MODERN COSMOLOGY
THE GREATE DEBATE

On one side of the debate Harlow Shapley believed the spiral

nebulae were within our home galaxy (and that the Milky Way was
effectively the entire Universe), while Heber Curtis contended that
the spiral nebulae were separate galaxies, like the Milky Way, or
“island universes”.

The term “island universes” was first used by

Immanuel Kant all the way back in the 18th
century (Kant was one of the first to suggest
the spiral nebulae were distant galaxies).
Kant was one of the first people to deduce
that the Milky Way was a disk of stars.
 FOUNDATIONS OF
MODERN COSMOLOGY
THE GREATE DEBATE

[How could this be resolved?]

 FOUNDATIONS OF
MODERN COSMOLOGY
THE GREATE DEBATE

The resolution of the great debate could be easily brought to an

end if accurate distances could be determined for the spiral
nebulae. This is easier said than done.
 MEASURING ASTRONOMICAL
DISTANCES

You should remember the parallax

technique for measuring the
distances to stars:

parallax in arc-seconds!
 MEASURING ASTRONOMICAL
DISTANCES

You should remember the parallax

technique for measuring the
distances to stars:

parallax in arc-seconds!

Unfortunately, at the time instrumentation only allowed the

application of parallax to a few hundred light years at most. Well
within the Milky Way and unlikely to provide a definitive answer.
 MEASURING ASTRONOMICAL
DISTANCES

The state of the art today is the ESA

Gaia satellite (launched last year). Gaia
is able to measure the parallax down to
10 micro-arc-seconds for bright stars.

This covers about the entire Milky

Way from the Earth.
MEASURING ASTRONOMICAL
DISTANCES

If we know the intrinsic luminosity L of an object and

we can measure the observed flux f we can determine
the distance:

Though this assumes the light is emitted isotropically!

MEASURING ASTRONOMICAL
DISTANCES

There are not many objects for which we can

determine the intrinsic luminosity without requiring the
distance, but there are a few.

These are called standard candles and they are critical

to our understanding of the Universe.
 MEASURING ASTRONOMICAL
DISTANCES

You should remember from last year about Cepheid variables;

these are a class of very luminous variable stars.

Perhaps the most studied Cepheid variable is Polaris (the

Pole Star, or North Star).
MEASURING ASTRONOMICAL
DISTANCES
MEASURING ASTRONOMICAL
DISTANCES

Henrietta Swan Leavitt, an american astronomer

working at the turn of the 20th century, was
studying variable stars in the Magellanic clouds.
 MEASURING ASTRONOMICAL
DISTANCES

Leavitt noticed that the

brighter Cepheid variables
had longer periods.
 MEASURING ASTRONOMICAL
DISTANCES

log10(Period)

brightness (magnitudes)
Leavitt noticed that the
brighter Cepheid variables
had longer periods.
 MEASURING ASTRONOMICAL
DISTANCES

Because all the stars in the Magellanic clouds are at roughly the
same distance from us, this suggested a relationship between
the intrinsic luminosity and pulsation period.

Observations of the pulsation period, and the flux then allow us

to determine the distance.
MEASURING ASTRONOMICAL
DISTANCES
 FOUNDATIONS OF
MODERN COSMOLOGY
THE GREATE DEBATE

In the 1920s Edwin Hubble

identified Cepheid variables in
several spiral nebulae, including
Andromeda.
 FOUNDATIONS OF
MODERN COSMOLOGY
THE GREATE DEBATE

Hubble used observations of the period of

these stars to determine the distance to
Andromeda and other spiral nebulae,
conclusively proving they were external to the
Milky Way, and were in fact entire galaxies
(island Universes), like the Milky Way.

Hubble thus effectively ended the

great debate.
 FOUNDATIONS OF
MODERN COSMOLOGY

The discovery that the Milky Way is just one of many (many many)
galaxies. ✔
The discovery that more distant galaxies appear to be moving away from
us at a greater velocity, thereby suggesting that the Universe is
expanding.

The formulation of a model (equations) which explains this expansion.

The discovery of the cosmic background radiation and the evolving

properties of galaxies.

The discovery of the accelerated expansion of the Universe.

BREAK
[WHAT MAKES A GALAXY?]
 + +
super-

Dark Gas and

dust
Stars + Remnants + massive
+
black holes
Planets etc.

Matter
 FOUNDATIONS OF
MODERN COSMOLOGY

The discovery that the Milky Way is just one of many (many many)
galaxies.

The discovery that more distant galaxies appear to be moving away from
us at a greater velocity, thereby suggesting that the Universe is
expanding.

The formulation of a model (equations) which explains this expansion.

The discovery of the cosmic background radiation and the evolving

properties of galaxies.

The discovery of the accelerated expansion of the Universe.

HUBBLE’S LAW

Hubble is however perhaps most famous

for Hubble’s law, and as the name-sake of
the Hubble Space Telescope.
 HUBBLE’S LAW

Hubble combined galaxy distances based on the Cepheid

Variable method with measurements of their recession velocity.
 HUBBLE’S LAW

Hubble combined galaxy distances based on the Cepheid

Variable method with measurements of their recession velocity.

Instead of recession
velocities it is now more
common to talk about the
redshift z of an object.
 HUBBLE’S LAW

Hubble discovered a
Recession velocity
rough proportionality
of the objects’ distance
with their recession
velocities.

distance
 HUBBLE’S LAW

In 1929 Hubble formulated the empirical Redshift Distance Law

of Galaxies, nowadays termed simply Hubble’s Law:

Hubble’s constant

If this holds true it means that the distances to galaxies can be

determined by just measuring their redshifts. This is much
easier than finding Cepheid variables.
 HUBBLE’S LAW

In 1929 Hubble formulated the empirical Redshift Distance Law

of Galaxies, nowadays termed simply Hubble’s Law:

Hubble’s constant

Based on his measurements Hubble found:

 HUBBLE’S LAW

In 1929 Hubble formulated the empirical Redshift Distance Law

of Galaxies, nowadays termed simply Hubble’s Law:

Hubble’s constant

Based on his measurements Hubble found:

These may appear odd units (distance divided by distance), however they
are more convenient when you consider how v and d are measured. The SI
units of H0 are however [s-1].
 HUBBLE’S LAW

In 1929 Hubble formulated the empirical Redshift Distance Law

of Galaxies, nowadays termed simply Hubble’s Law:

Hubble’s constant

The most recent estimate (from the Planck mission) is:

Hubble’s measurement was wrong because of

errors in the distance calibration.
 HUBBLE’S LAW

[Q: Can you think of a case where Hubble’s law would not
work?]
 SUMMARY

Thanks to the pioneering work of Hubble, Leavitt, and many

others, by the middle of the 20th Century we knew that the
Milky Way was just one of billions* galaxies, each containing
billions of stars, in the Universe.

Hubble also identified the remarkable property that more

distant galaxies appear to moving away from us at an increased
velocity.

* Based on recent estimates there are approximately 100 billion galaxies in the
observable Universe, each with ~100 billion stars.
 NEXT TIME

As we will see tomorrow, and next week, Hubble’s law is

consistent with the solution of Einstein’s equations of general
relativity for a homogenous, isotropic, and expanding Universe.

While the concepts of an expanding Universe were already well

understood this statement by Hubble led to a wider-scale acceptance
for this view.