ASTRONOMY (PHYSCI 103A)

INTRODUCTION TO ASTRONOMY

OBJECTIVES:

At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:

1. Discuss the fundamental concepts of Astronomy.
2. Associate self-observation with the fundamental observations of astronomers.

What is Astronomy?

It is the branch of science that deals

with celestial objects, space, and the physical universe. It
includes objects we can see with our naked eyes, like the
Sun, the Moon, the planets, and the stars. It also includes
objects we can only see with telescopes or other
instruments, like faraway galaxies and tiny particles. And it
even includes questions about things we can't see at all,
like dark matter and dark energy .

History of Astronomy

One of the earliest recorded astronomical observations is the

Nebra sky disk from northern Europe dating approximately 1,600 BC. This
30 cm bronze disk depicts the Sun, a lunar crescent and stars (including the
Pleiades star cluster). The disk is probably a religious symbol as well as a
crude astronomical instrument or calendar.

In the Western hemisphere, a similar understanding of basic

stellar and planetary behavior was developing. For example, Native
American culture around the same time, were leaving rock drawings, or
petroglyphs, of astronomical phenomenon. The clearest example is a
petroglyph which depicts the 1,006 AD supernova that resulted in the
Crab Nebula.

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Early man also believed that the heavens held power over earthy existence, which is
the origin of the pseudo-science astrology as an attempt to understand, predict and influence
events.

The earliest written records were astronomical observations

produced by the Babylonians (~1600 B.C.) who recorded positions of
planets, times of eclipses, etc. There is also evidence of interest in
astronomical phenomenon from early Chinese, Central American and
North European cultures such as Stonehenge, which is a big computer for
calculating the position of planets and the Sun.

During the times before the invention of the telescope, there were only seven objects
visible to the ancients, the Sun, and the Moon, plus the five planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars,
Jupiter and Saturn. It was obvious that the planets were not on the celestial sphere since the
Moon clearly passes in front of the Sun and planets Mercury and Venus can be seen to transit
the Sun (the Sun passes in front of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn).

Plato first proposed that the planets followed perfect circular orbits around the Earth
(for the circle is the most perfect shape). Later, Heraclides (330 B.C.) developed the first
Solar System model, placing the planets in order from the Earth it was is now called the
geocentric solar system model and the beginning of the geocentric versus heliocentric debate.

Slightly later, Aristarchus (270 B.C.) proposed an

alternative model of the Solar System placing the Sun at the
center with the Earth and the planets in circular orbit around it.
The Moon orbits around the Earth. This model became known
as the heliocentric model.

He was the first to propose a "new" Sun centered cosmology and one of the primary
objections to the heliocentric model is that the stars display no parallax (the apparent shift of
nearby stars in the sky due to the Earth's motion around the Sun).

Ptolemy accepted Aristotle’s idea that the Sun and the

planets revolve around a spherical Earth, a geocentric view.
Ptolemy developed this idea through observation and in
mathematical detail. In doing so, he rejected the hypothesis of
Aristarchus of Samos, who came to Alexandria about 350 years
before Ptolemy was born. Aristarchus had made the claim that the Earth revolves around the
Sun, but he couldn’t produce any evidence to back it up.

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Based on observations he made with his naked eye, Ptolemy saw

the Universe as a set of nested, transparent spheres, with Earth in the
center. He posited that the Moon, Mercury, Venus, and the Sun all
revolved around Earth. Beyond the Sun, he thought, sat Mars, Jupiter
and Saturn, the only other planets known at the time (as they were
visible to the naked eye). Beyond Saturn lay a final sphere with all the
stars fixed to it that revolved around the other spheres.

Copernicus reinvented the heliocentric theory and

challenged Church doctrine. He was not the first astronomer to
challenge the geocentric model of Ptolemy, but he was the first to
successfully formulate a heliocentric model and publish his
model.

While Copernicus includes a rotating Earth in his heliocentric model, he continues to

cling to Aristotle's celestial motions, orbits that are perfect circles. This forces Copernicus to
adopt a series of moving spheres for each planet to explain longitude motion. He has fewer
spheres, since more of the retrograde motion is accounted for his system is still extremely
complicated in a computational sense.

Brahe proposed a hybrid solution to the geocentric model

which preserves the geocentric nature of the Earth at the center of
the Universe, but placed the inner planets (Mercury and Venus)
in orbit around the Sun. This configuration resolves the problem
of Mercury and Venus’ lack of large angular distances from the
Sun, but saves the key criticism of the heliocentric model, that the
Earth is in motion. In other works, Brahe's geo-heliocentric model
fit the available data but followed the philosophical intuition of a
non-moving Earth.

Kepler is a student of Tycho who used Brahe's database

to formulate the Laws of Planetary Motion, which corrects the
problems of epicycles in the heliocentric theory by
using ellipses instead of circles for orbits of the planets.

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This is a key mathematical formulation because the reason Copernicus' heliocentric

model has to use epicycles is due to the fact that he assumed perfectly circular orbits. With
the use of ellipses, the heliocentric model eliminates the need for epicycles and deferent. The
orbital motion of a planet is completely described by six elements: the semi-major axis, the
eccentricity, the inclination, the longitude of the ascending node, the argument of the
perihelion and the time of the perihelion.

Galileo developed laws of motion (natural vs. forced motion, rest vs. uniform motion).
Then, with a small refracting telescope 3”, destroyed the idea of a "perfect", geocentric
Universe with the following 5 discoveries: spots on the Sun, mountains and "seas" (Maria) on
the Moon, Milky Way is made of lots of stars, Venus has phases, Jupiter has moons (Galilean
moons: Io, Europa, Callisto, Ganymede)

Astronomy Lingo

Asteroid- a solid body orbiting the sun that consists of metal and rock.
Black hole- a concentration of mass so dense that nothing-not even light can escape its
gravitational pull once swallowed up.
Constellation- a distinctive pattern of stars used informally to organize a part of the sky.
Double star- two stars that lie very close to, and are often orbiting each other.
Eclipse- an event that occurs when the shadow of a planet or moon falls upon a second body.
Field of view- the circle of sky that you see when you look through a telescope or binoculars.
Galaxy- a vast collection of stars, gas and dust typically 10,000 to 100,000 light-years in
diameter and containing billions of stars.
Halo- is a luminous ring that is sometimes seen surrounding the sun or the moon.
Interstellar medium – Gas and dust located between the stars.
Jet stream is a high-speed wind that is usually found at high altitudes, between 25,000 and
45,000 feet.
Kuiper Belt – a donut-shaped region of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune.
Libration- a slight tipping and tilting of the moon from week to week that brings various
features along the limb into better view.
Magnitude is a measure of brightness of celestial objects.
Nebula- is a giant cloud of dust and gas in space.
Occultation- when the moon or planet passes directly in front of a more distant planet or
star.

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Parallax is the apparent change in the position of a star that is caused only by the motion of
the Earth as it orbits the Sun.
Quasar- a super massive black hole gorging on gas at the center of a distant galaxy
Retrograde- the apparent movement of a planet across the sky in the opposite direction
from its ordinary movement.
Super nova- is the extremely bright, super-powerful explosion of a star.
Trans lunar- refers to the space beyond the orbit of the Moon.
Umbra- is the area of total shadow.
Variable- star if its apparent brightness as seen from Earth changes over time.
Weightlessness (or free fall) -is the state in which an object appears to have no weight
(but the object's mass remains the same).
Ylem (or Yelm) is the name given to the hypothetical primordial matter from which all the
elements have formed.
Zodiac- is a diagram used by astrologers to represent the positions of the planets and stars.

Fundamental Observation

THE NIGHT SKY IS DARK

Astronomers after Kepler proposed various solutions to

the problem of the dark night sky, which came to be called
Olbers’ Paradox. In 1823, the German astronomer Heinrich
Olbers suggested that starlight is gradually absorbed while
traveling through space, and this cuts off the light from any stars
beyond a sufficiently great distance. But that doesn’t solve the
problem, either. Any absorbing interstellar gas or dust would
simply heat up until it reradiated all the starlight it absorbed,
and the energy reaching us would be the same. By analogy, sprinkling the air in a hot oven
with absorbing dust won’t cool it for very long.

So why is the night sky dark? The first scientifically reasonable answer was given in
1848 by the American poet and writer Edgar Allan Poe! He suggested that the universe is not
old enough to fill the sky with light. The universe may be infinite in size, he thought, but there
hasn’t been enough time since the universe began for starlight, traveling at the speed of light,
to reach us from the farthest reaches of space.

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Astronomers have concluded that the universe began some 12 to 15 billion years ago.
That means we can only see the part of it that lies within 12 to 15 billion light-years from us.
There may be an infinite number of stars beyond that cosmic horizon, but we can’t see them
because their light has not yet arrived. And the observable part of the universe contains too
few stars to fill up the sky with light.

THE UNIVERSE IS ISOTROPIC AND HOMOGENOUS

On the largest cosmic scales, the Universe is both homogeneous and isotropic.
Homogeneity means that there is no preferred location in the Universe. That is, no matter
where you are in the Universe, if you look at the Universe, it will look the same. Isotropy
means that there is no preferred direction in the Universe. That is, from your current location,
no matter which direction you look, the Universe will look the same.

Results from redshift surveys (e.g., SDSS or 2dF) of the distribution of relatively
nearby galaxies seem to imply that the Universe isn't homogeneous and isotropic. In other
words, the galaxies in one direction are not distributed in exactly the same way as the galaxies
in another direction. However, the galaxies plotted in those diagrams only extend to a redshift
of z < 0.2, which is equivalent to a distance of about 750 Mpc. When we study the most distant
objects we can find at much larger distances from Earth, the structure appears to smooth out
and become more homogeneous on the largest scales. For example, the all-sky map of the
locations of objects detected by radio telescopes shown below reveals a much more uniform
appearance. These objects are mostly expected to lie at higher redshifts than the ones in the
pie slice diagram above, suggesting that when we consider the largest distance scales, the
Universe appears to be homogeneous and isotropic. Thus, we currently find support for the
Cosmological Principle in the distribution of galaxies in the Universe.

REDSHIFT IS PROPORTIONAL TO DISTANCE

The American astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble reported

in 1929 that the distant galaxies were receding from the Milky
Way system, in which Earth is located, and that their redshifts
increase proportionally with their increasing distance. This
generalization became the basis for what is called Hubble’s law,
which correlates the recessional velocity of a galaxy with its
distance from Earth.

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Galaxy Cluster
This cluster is more than seven billion light-years from Earth
and provides an image of the universe in its youth. The colour of the
galaxies is a product of redshift. This cluster was observed by the
Hubble Space Telescope.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF PARTICLES

There are two major categories of fundamental

particles: fermions and bosons. These particles were discovered
by using the large hadron collider, a giant mechanism that
smashes hadrons like protons together at speeds close to the
speed of light. Large numbers of sensors capture the movements
and paths of the fundamental pieces of hadrons as they break
away from each other.

The 12 fundamental particles of physics include: up quarks, down quarks, strange

quarks, charm quarks, top quarks, bottom quarks, electrons, electron neutrinos, muons,
muon neutrinos, tau, and tau neutrinos. The particles make up matter and mass. Other
particles include photons, W and Z bosons, and gluons.

Fermions consist of particles with the same charge and strong interactions, but differ variety
and mass. Fermion category is subdivided into leptons and quarks.

• Leptons are fundamental particles that have half-integer spin.

• Quarks are fermions that contribute to the structure of composite particles called
protons and neutrons. Quarks have color charge, or a property related to a particle’s strong
interactions.
Bosons, carries a different fundamental force between interacting particles. Moreover, there
is a particle which may exist, called the "Higgs Boson", which gives objects the masses they
have. Some types of bosons have mass; others are massless. Bosons have an electric charge of
+1, -1, or 0.

Types of Bosons: Gluons, W & Z bosons, Photons and Gravitons (hypothetical)

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COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is leftover
radiation from the Big Bang or the time when the universe
began. As the theory goes, when the universe was born it
underwent rapid inflation, expansion and cooling. (The
universe is still expanding today, and the expansion rate
appears different depending on where you look). The CMB
represents the heat leftover from the Big Bang.

You can't see the CMB with your naked eye, but it is everywhere in the universe. It is
invisible to humans because it is so cold, just 2.725 degrees above absolute zero (minus 459.67
degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 273.15 degrees Celsius.) This means its radiation is most visible
in the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

According to NASA, CMB fills the universe and in the days before cable TV every
household with television could see the afterglow of the Big Bang(opens in new tab). By
turning the television to an "in-between" channel, you could see the CMB as a static signal on
the screen.

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THE SOLAR SYSTEM

INTRODUCTION

The Earth, our home planet, is not a lone object in space. The moon, its companion,
orbits around Earth for the duration of almost one month. Along with seven other planets, it
revolves around the Sun at different speed. This planetary system is what we know as the Solar
System.

Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
1. Discuss the different components of the solar system; and
2. Explain the governing physics principles on the solar system.

The Solar System

The solar system is one of the many planetary systems in our galaxy: the Milky Way.
The word “solar” comes from the Latin word “Solis” meaning Sun. Thus, the Solar System
means a system of planets that revolve around the Sun. It’s components are the Sun, the
planets and their moons, asteroids, comets, meteors, and everything that are held together by
the Sun’s gravity.
The Solar System is located in the outer spiral of the Milky Way galaxy. Similar to how
the planets revolve around the Sun, the Solar System also orbit around the galactic center. It
takes about 230 million years for it to complete a single orbit around the center of the galaxy.

Components of the Solar System

A. The Sun
The sun is a yellow dwarf star that is about 4.5 billion
years old and located at the center of our solar system. Its
gravity holds together the entire solar system including the
planets and their moons, asteroids, comets and meteors. It is
about 100 times the size of Earth making it the largest object

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in the solar system. The energy emitted by the Sun is vital for the life on planet Earth.
The Sun doesn’t have a solid surface because it is made up of super-hot hydrogen and helium
gas called plasma. This plasma rotates at different speeds on different parts of the sun. At its
equator, the Sun completes one rotation in 25 Earth days. At its poles, the Sun rotates once
on its axis every 36 Earth days.

B. The Planets
❖ Inner Planets
1. Mercury
Thomas Harriott and Galileo Galilei discovered mercury
with the newly invented telescope in 1631. It is the smallest planet
in the solar system and the closest to the sun (68.335 million
kilometers). Mercury orbits around the sun and takes 87.97 earth
days shortest of all the sun’s planets with a day length of 59 earth
days. It is named after the Roman god Mercurius, the messenger of the god and the mediator
between gods and mortals. Mercury has no moon orbiting around it. It is a terrestrial planet
meaning that it has a solid surface, and it is mainly made of silicate rocks or metals. It is
slightly larger than our moon about 15,329 kilometers around its equator and about 2.6 times
smaller than earth. Mercury’s temperature is around 430 degrees Celsius hot enough to melt
lead. It is the fastest planet in our solar system – traveling through space at nearly 29 miles
(47 kilometers) per second.

2. Venus
Galileo made his first telescopic observation of Venus in
October 1610. Venus is the second closest planet to the Sun,
orbiting at a distance of about 67 million miles (108 million
kilometers). It is sometimes called earth’s “sister” or “twin”
planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition.
Named after Venus the Roman goddess of love and beauty, the
only planet named after the female god. This is the third brightest object in the sky after the
sun and moon. It takes 243 earth days to rotate on its axis- the longest rotation of any planet
in the solar system. It rotates opposite the direction of other planets’ rotation (retrograde
motion). To complete an orbit around the sun it takes 224.7 earth days. Venus is about 475
degrees Celsius- the hottest planet in the solar system. Like mercury, Venus has no moon.

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3. Earth
Our home planet and the third planet from the
sun, Earth, is estimated to be 4.54 billion years old. Its
distance from the sun is about 93 million miles or 150
million kilometers. Earth’s only satellite is called the moon
from the Latin word Luna. It is the only world in our solar
system with liquid water (71%) on the surface. Earth's
surface is made up of the ocean, dwarfing Earth's polar ice,
lakes, and rivers. The remaining 29.2% of Earth's surface
is land, consisting of continents and islands. Earth’s surface layer is formed of several slowly
moving tectonic plates, which interact to produce mountain ranges, volcanoes, and
earthquakes. The Earth is in the Goldilocks Zone or habitable zone, the range of distance with
the right temperature for water to remain liquid. It is the right distance from the sun,
protected from harmful solar radiation by its magnetic field, kept warm by the insulating
atmosphere and has the right chemical ingredients for life including water and carbon. The
name Earth is a Germanic word that simply means “ground”. Earth revolves in orbit around
the sun for 365 days, 6 hours, and 9 minutes. It takes the earth 24 hours or 1 day, to make one
complete rotation around the invisible line.

4. Mars
The fourth planet from the sun and the second
smallest planet in the solar system. It was named after the
roman god of war Mars. It is about 244.1 million km away
from the sun and about -81 degrees Fahrenheit (-65 degrees
Celsius) temperature. One day on Mars takes a little over 24
hours. Mars makes a complete orbit around the Sun (a year
in Martian time) in 687 Earth days. Mars is a rocky planet. Its
solid surface has been altered by volcanoes, impacts, winds,
crustal movement, and chemical reactions. Mars has two moons named Phobos and Deimos.
Several missions have visited this planet, from flybys and orbiters to rovers on the surface.
The first true Mars mission success was the Mariner 4 flyby in 1965. Mars is known as the
Red Planet because iron minerals in the Martian soil oxidize, or rust, causing the soil and
atmosphere to look red. Some of the most notable surface features on Mars include Olympus
Mons, the largest volcano and highest-known mountain in the Solar System, and Valles
Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the Solar System

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❖ Outer Planets

5. Jupiter
The fifth planet from the Sun and by far the largest.
Also known as Jove, Greek: Zeus, the king of the Gods.
Jupiter orbits about 484 million miles (778 million
kilometers) from our Sun. Jupiter's familiar stripes and
swirls are actually cold, windy clouds of ammonia and water,
floating in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter’s
iconic Great Red Spot is a giant storm that’s about twice the
size of the Earth that has raged for hundreds of years. Jupiter
rotates once about every 10 hours (a Jovian day), but takes about 12 Earth years to complete
one orbit of the Sun (a Jovian year). Jupiter is a gas giant and so lacks an Earth-like surface.
Jupiter’s atmosphere is made up mostly of hydrogen (H2) and helium (He). Jupiter has more
than 75 moons. Its four most massive moons are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Jupiter
has a faint ring system discovered by Voyager 1 in 1979. Nine spacecraft have visited Jupiter.
Seven flew by and two orbited the gas giant. Juno, the most recent, arrived at Jupiter in 2016.

6. Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest
planet in our solar system. Adorned with thousands of beautiful
ringlets, Saturn is unique among the planets. Saturn is named after
the Roman god of wealth and agriculture. Saturn is a gas-giant planet
and therefore does not have a solid surface like Earth’s. But it might
have a solid core somewhere in there. It orbits at a distance of about
886 million miles (1.4 billion kilometers) from the Sun. Saturn takes
about 10.7 hours to rotate on its axis once—a Saturn “day”—and 29 Earth years to orbit the
sun. Saturn has 53 known moons with an additional 29 moons awaiting confirmation of their
discovery—that is a total of 82 moons. Few missions have visited Saturn: Pioneer 11 and
Voyagers 1 and 2 flew by, But Cassini orbited Saturn 294 times from 2004 to 2017.

7. Uranus
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, and has the third-
largest diameter in our solar system. Uranus was discovered in 1781 by
astronomer William Herschel, although he originally thought it was
either a comet or a star. It was named after Uranus, the Greek god of
the sky. It orbits the Sun at a distance of about 1.8 billion miles (2.9

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billion kilometers). Uranus is about four times wider than Earth. It takes about 17 hours to
rotate once and about 84 Earth years to complete an orbit of the Sun. Uranus is an ice giant.
Most of its mass is a hot, dense fluid of "icy" materials – water, methane and ammonia – above
a small rocky core. Uranus has an atmosphere made mostly of molecular hydrogen and atomic
helium, with a small amount of methane. Uranus has 27 known moons, and has 13 known
rings. The inner rings are narrow and dark, and the outer rings are brightly colored. Voyager
2 is the only spacecraft to fly by Uranus. No spacecraft has orbited this distant planet to study
it at length and up close. Like Venus, Uranus rotates east to west. But Uranus is unique in that
it rotates on its side.

8. Neptune
Neptune is the eighth and most distant planet in our solar system at a
distance of about 2.8 billion miles (4.5 billion kilometers) from the
sun. Neptune was the Roman god of the sea. NASA's Voyager 2 is the
only spacecraft to have visited Neptune up close. Neptune is about
four times wider than Earth. Neptune takes about 16 hours to rotate
once and about 165 Earth years to orbit the sun. Neptune is an ice
giant. Most of its mass is a hot, dense fluid of "icy" materials – water, methane and ammonia
– above a small rocky core. Neptune's atmosphere is made up mostly of molecular hydrogen,
atomic helium and methane. Neptune has 14 known moons which are named after sea gods
and nymphs in Greek mythology. Neptune has at least five main rings and four more ring arcs,
which are clumps of dust and debris likely formed by the gravity of a nearby moon.

❖ Dwarf Planets
1. Pluto
Pluto is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, a donut-shaped region of
icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. Pluto – which is smaller than
Earth’s Moon – has a heart-shaped glacier that’s the size of Texas and
Oklahoma. This fascinating world has blue skies, spinning moons,
mountains as high as the Rockies, and it snows – but the snow is red.
Pluto is about 1,400 miles (2,380 km) wide. That's about half the
width of the United States, or 2/3 the width of Earth's moon. A year
on Pluto is 248 Earth years while a day lasts 153 hours, or about 6 Earth days. Pluto has a thin
atmosphere of nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide. The atmosphere has a blue tint and
distinct layers of haze. Pluto has 5 moons. The largest, Charon, is so big that Pluto and Charon
orbit each other like a double planet. Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006.

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2. Ceres
Dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt
between Mars and Jupiter, and it's the only dwarf planet located in
the inner solar system. It was the first member of the asteroid belt to
be discovered when Giuseppe Piazzi spotted it in 1801. And when
NASA's Dawn arrived in 2015, Ceres became the first dwarf planet to
receive a visit from a spacecraft. Called an asteroid for many years,
Ceres is so much bigger and so different from its rocky neighbors that
scientists classified it as a dwarf planet in 2006. Even though Ceres comprises 25% of the
asteroid belt's total mass, Pluto is still 14 times more massive. Ceres is named for the Roman
goddess of corn and harvests. The word cereal comes from the same name. Ceres takes 1,682
Earth days, or 4.6 Earth years, to make one trip around the Sun. It takes 9 hours to a complete
a rotation on its axis.

3. Makemake
Makemake is the second brightest object in the Kuiper Belt. It
takes about 305 Earth years for this dwarf planet to make one trip
around the Sun. A day in Makemake lasts for 22.48 hours. Makemake
holds an important place in the history of solar system studies because
it – along with Eris – was one of the objects whose discovery prompted
the International Astronomical Union to reconsider the definition of a
planet and to create the new group of dwarf planets. It has one
provisional moon nicknamed MK2. Makemake was named after the
Rapanui god of fertility.

4. Haumea
Also located in the Kuiper Belt, Haumea is roughly the same
size as Pluto. It is one of the fastest rotating large objects in our solar
system. The fast spin distorts Haumea's shape, making this dwarf
planet look like a football. It is named after the Hawaiian goddess of
fertility. A day in Haumea takes 4 hours and takes 285 years to
complete one orbit around the sun. Haumea has two known moons:
Namaka is the inner moon, and Hi'iaka is the outer moon. Both are named for the
mythological daughters of Haumea. Hi'iaka is the patron goddess of the island of Hawaii and
of hula dancers. Namaka is a water spirit in Hawaiian mythology. Haumea is the first known
object in the Kuiper Belt to have rings.

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5. Eris
Eris is one of the largest known dwarf planets in our solar
system. It's about the same size as Pluto but is three times farther
from the Sun. Originally designated 2003 UB313 – and nicknamed
for the television warrior Xena by its discovery team – Eris is named
for the ancient Greek goddess of discord and strife. Eris takes 557
Earth years to make one trip around the Sun. The plane of Eris' orbit
is well out of the plane of the solar system's planets and extends far
beyond the Kuiper Belt. As Eris orbits the Sun, it completes one
rotation every 25.9 hours, making its day length similar to ours. Eris has a very small moon
called Dysnomia. This moon is named after Eris' daughter, the demon goddess of lawlessness.

C. The Asteroid Belt

The asteroid belt is a region of space between the orbits
of Mars and Jupiter where most of the asteroids in our Solar
System are found orbiting the Sun. The asteroid belt probably
contains millions of asteroids.
Astronomers think that the asteroid belt is made up of
material that was never able to form into a planet, or of the
remains of a planet which broke apart a very long time ago. The asteroids in the asteroid belt
come in a variety of sizes. Some are very small (less than a mile across), while others are quite
large. The largest asteroid is called Ceres. It is about one-quarter the size of our moon. It is a
dwarf planet.

D. The Moons
Moons come in many shapes, sizes, and types. A few have atmospheres and even
hidden oceans beneath their surfaces. Most planetary moons probably formed from the discs
of gas and dust circulating around planets in the early solar system, though some are captured
objects that formed elsewhere and fell into orbit around larger worlds. The total number of
reported moon count in the solar system is 686: 224 from the planets including five moons
from the dwarf planet Pluto; and 462 from small body moons that orbit smaller objects such
as asteroids, dwarf planets and Kuiper Belt Objects (KBO) beyond the orbit of Neptune.

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E. The Kuiper Belt

Kuiper Belt – a donut-shaped region of icy bodies
beyond the orbit of Neptune. There may be millions of these
icy objects, collectively referred to as Kuiper Belt objects
(KBOs) or trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), in this distant
region of our solar system. Pluto is the most famous Kuiper
Belt Object; two other interesting Kuiper Belt Objects are
Eris and Haumea. Similar to the asteroid belt, the Kuiper Belt is a region of leftovers from the
solar system's early history.
The region is named for astronomer Gerard Kuiper, who published a scientific paper
in 1951 that speculated about objects beyond Pluto. The Kuiper Belt is one of the largest
structures in our solar system. Its overall shape is like a puffed-up disk or donut. Its inner
edge begins at the orbit of Neptune, at about 30 AU from the Sun. (1 AU is the distance from
Earth to the Sun.) The inner, main region of the Kuiper Belt ends around 50 AU from the Sun.
Overlapping the outer edge of the main part of the Kuiper Belt is a second region called the
scattered disk, which continues outward to nearly 1,000 AU, with some bodies on orbits that
go even farther beyond. The scattered disk is home to objects that have been scattered by
Neptune into orbits that are highly elliptical and highly inclined to the plane of the planets.

F. Comets
Comets are small, fragile, and irregular bodies
found in the solar system orbiting the Sun in highly
eccentric orbits. They are a mixture of water, dust
particles, and frozen gases that are non-volatile. Comets
are also called dirty snowballs or ‘icy mudballs’. The word
‘comet’ comes from the Greek word ‘kometes’, meaning
‘long-haired’. They are significantly smaller in size than
planets, with a diameter ranging between 750 meters
(2,460 feet) to about 20 kilometers (12 miles). Comets are visible in the night sky only when
they are close to the Sun. Among the most stunning objects in the sky, they appear bright with
an ever-changing display for many months when moving in their orbits. They are of great
interest to scientists being primitive bodies that originated from the solar system’s formation.
Comets formed some 4.6 billion years ago after a giant cloud of gas and dust collapsed and
condensed to create the sun.
A comet has five different parts: the nucleus, coma, hydrogen envelope, plasma tail,
and a dust tail. The nucleus, coma, ion tail, and dust tail are the four visible parts. At the same
time, the hydrogen envelope is the only invisible part.

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G. Asteroids
Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets, are
rocky remnants left over from the early formation of our
solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. The current
known asteroid count is: 1,267,143. Most asteroids are
irregularly shaped, though a few are nearly spherical, and
they are often pitted or cratered. As they revolve around
the Sun in elliptical orbits, the asteroids also rotate,
sometimes quite erratically, tumbling as they go. More than 150 asteroids are known to have
a small companion moon (some have two moons). There are also binary (double) asteroids,
in which two rocky bodies of roughly equal size orbit each other, as well as triple asteroid
systems.

The three broad composition classes of asteroids are C-, S-, and M-types.
 The C-type (chondrite) asteroids are most common. They probably consist of clay and
silicate rocks, and are dark in appearance. They are among the most ancient objects in the
solar system.
 The S-types ("stony") are made up of silicate materials and nickel-iron.
 The M-types are metallic (nickel-iron). The asteroids' compositional differences are
related to how far from the Sun they formed. Some experienced high temperatures after they
formed and partly melted, with iron sinking to the center and forcing basaltic (volcanic) lava
to the surface.
The orbits of asteroids can be changed by Jupiter's massive gravity – and by occasional
close encounters with Mars or other objects. These encounters can knock asteroids out of the
main belt, and hurl them into space in all directions across the orbits of the other planets.

H. Meteors and Meteorites

Meteoroids are what we call “space rocks” that
range in size from dust grains to small asteroids. This term
only applies when they’re in space. Most meteoroids are
pieces of other, larger bodies that have been broken or blasted
off. Some come from comets, others from asteroids, and some
even come from the Moon and other planets. Some
meteoroids are rocky, while others are metallic, or combinations of rock and metal. When
meteoroids enter Earth’s atmosphere, or that of another planet, like Mars, at high speed and
burn up, they’re called meteors. This is also when we refer to them as “shooting stars.”

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Sometimes meteors can even appear brighter than Venus that’s when we call them “fireballs.”
Scientists estimate that about 48.5 tons (44,000 kilograms) of meteoritic material falls on
Earth each day. When a meteoroid survives its trip through the atmosphere and hits the
ground, it’s called a meteorite.

I. The Oort Cloud

The Oort Cloud is the most distant region of our
solar system. Even the nearest objects in the Oort cloud
are thought to be many times farther from the Sun than
the outer reaches of the Kuiper Belt. The Oort Cloud is
named for Jan Oort, the Dutch astronomer who predicted
its existence in the 1950s. Oort cloud is believed to be a
giant spherical shell surrounding the rest of the solar system. It is like a big, thick-walled
bubble made of icy pieces of space debris the sizes of mountains and sometimes larger. The
Oort Cloud might contain billions, or even trillions, of objects.

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THE STARS, BLACKHOLES, AND OTHER EXOTICS

INTRODUCTION

The universe is a vast space that contains all objects and celestial bodies that exist in
space. It consists of the sun, moon, earth, solar system, galaxies, nebulae, and stars. Apart
from that, there are other exotics found in the universe, particularly black holes, which are
the remnants of large stars that die in a supernova explosion and the location in space where
the gravitational forces are strong enough that even light cannot escape. In this lesson, you
will learn more about the different types of star clusters, how stars are born and die, how stars
are classified, what a black hole is, and other exotics that have different theories/hypotheses.

Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
1. discuss the life of a star;
2. classify the different blackhole types; and
3. differentiate other exotics.

Star Clusters

Star clusters are not only beautiful to look at through telescopes, but they're also the
key to unlocking the mysteries of how a star is born. A star cluster is a group of stars that
share a common origin and are gravitationally bound for some length of time. They are
particularly useful to astronomers as they provide a way to study and model stellar evolution
and ages. The two basic categories of stellar clusters are; open and globular clusters.

1. Open clusters
are so-named due to the fact that the individual component stars
are easily resolved through a telescope. Some examples such as
the Hyades and Pleiades are so close that the individual stars can
be clearly distinguished by the naked eye. They are sometimes
called galactic clusters due to their location on the dusty spiral
arms on the plane of spiral galaxies. Stars in an open cluster have a common origin - they
formed from the same initial giant molecular cloud. Clusters typically contain a few hundred
stars though this can vary from as low as a few dozen up to a few thousand.

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2. Globular clusters
It contains several thousand to one million stars in a
spherical, gravitationally bound system. Located mostly in the
halo surrounding the galactic plane they comprise the oldest
stars in the galaxy. These Population II stars are highly evolved
but with low metallicities. Clusters are so old that any star
higher than a G or F-class will have already evolved off the main sequence. There is little free
dust or gas found in globular clusters, so no new star formation is taking place in them. Stellar
densities within the inner regions of a globular cluster are very high compared with regions
such as those around the Sun. Omega Centauri, the largest globular star cluster of the Milky
Way, contains about 10 million stars. This behemoth, with a diameter of 230 light-years, is 10
times more massive than a typical globular cluster.

Star Birth

Stars are born in vast, slowly rotating, clouds of cold gas and
dust called nebulae (singular nebula). A famous example of such a
dust cloud is the Orion Nebula. Turbulence deep within these clouds
gives rise to knots with sufficient mass that the gas and dust can begin
to collapse under its own gravitational attraction. As the cloud
collapses, the material at the center begins to heat up. Known as a
protostar, this hot core at the heart of the collapsing cloud will one day become a star.

Star Death

All stars eventually run out of their hydrogen gas fuel and
eventually die. The way a star dies depends on how much matter
it contains- its mass. As the hydrogen runs out, a star with a
similar mass to our sun will expand and become a red giant.
When a high-mass star has no hydrogen left to burn, it expands
and becomes a red supergiant. While most stars quietly fade
away, the supergiant destroys themselves in a huge explosion,
called a supernova. The death of massive stars can trigger the birth of other stars.

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Star Classification

Color is the most common way to classify stars. The class of a star is given by a letter.
Each letter corresponds to a color, and also to a range of temperatures. Stars are grouped into
7 main categories (also called, classes). These were created by astronomer Annie Jump
Cannon. The classes are called O, B, A, F, G, K, and M.

Stars in the 'O' class are the most massive and hottest, with temperatures above
30,000 °C. Stars in the 'M' class are the smallest and coolest, with temperatures below
3,000 °C. If you look closely at stars in the sky, you notice they are not all the same color.
Some appear redder and some appear bluer.

The color of light a star gives off is controlled by its temperature. Hotter 'O' stars glow
bluer, and cooler 'M' stars glow redder. This is similar to what happens when you heat up
metal to very high temperatures. As the metal heats up, it will start to glow red. As it gets
hotter, that red becomes more yellow and then white. Eventually, the metal will be hot enough
to glow a bright blue color. Our closest star, the Sun, shines with a yellow light. The Sun is
classed as a 'G' star, with a temperature of about 5,500 °C.

The table below lists the average temperature and colors, as well as an example for each class
of star.

Class Temperature (°C) Color Example

O >30,000 Blue Alnitak
B 20,000 Blue, White Rigel
A 10,000 White Vege
F 7,000 Yellow White Procyon
G 6,000 Yellow The Sun
K 5,000 Orange Pollux
M 3,000 Red Betelgeuse

Blackhole

A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so

much that even light cannot get out. Gravity is so strong because
matter has been squeezed into a tiny space.

This can happen when a star is dying. Because no light can

get out, people can't see black holes. They are invisible. Space

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telescopes with special tools can help find black holes. The special tools can see how stars that
are very close to black holes act differently than other stars.

How Big Are Black Holes?

Black holes can be big or small. Scientists think the smallest black holes are as small
as just one atom. These black holes are very tiny but have the mass of a large mountain. Mass
is the amount of matter, or "stuff," in an object.

Astronomers generally divide black holes into three categories according to their mass: stellar,
supermassive, and intermediate.

1. Stellar

• When a star with more than eight times the Sun’s mass runs
out of fuel, its core collapses, rebounds, and explodes as a
supernova. What’s left behind depends on the star’s mass
before the explosion.
• If it was near the threshold, it creates a city-sized,
superdense neutron star.
• If it had around 20 times the Sun’s mass or more, the star’s core collapses into a stellar-
mass black hole.
• Cygnus X-1 the largest stellar-mass black hole, weighing about 21 times the mass of
the Sun, detected to date with observations of light.

2. Supermassive

Almost every large galaxy, including our Milky Way, has a

supermassive black hole at its center. These monster objects have
hundreds of thousands to billions of times the Sun’s mass. The one at
the center of our galaxy, Sagittarius A*, is 4 million times the mass
of the Sun – relatively small compared to those found in some other
galaxies.

Observations of distant galaxies show that some supermassive black holes formed in
the first billion years after the birth of the universe. It’s possible these black holes began with
the collapse of supermassive stars in the early universe, which gave them a head start.

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3. Intermediate

Scientists are puzzled by the size gap between stellar

mass and supermassive black holes. They think there
should be a continuum of sizes because, over cosmic time,
collisions between stellar-mass black holes should have
created some intermediate-mass black holes.

• These should range from around one hundred to hundreds of thousands of times the
Sun’s mass – or tens of thousands, depending on how supermassive black holes are
defined.
• Scientists are actively hunting for examples of these so-called missing-link black holl.
Numerous candidates have been identified but have proven difficult to confirm.

How Do Black Holes Form?

Scientists think the smallest black holes formed when the universe began. Stellar black
holes are made when the center of a very big star falls in upon itself or collapses. When this
happens, it causes a supernova. A supernova is an exploding star that blasts part of the star
into space. Scientists think supermassive black holes were made at the same time as the galaxy
they are in.

If Black Holes Are "Black," How Do Scientists Know They Are There?

A black hole cannot be seen because strong gravity pulls all of the light into the middle
of the black hole. But scientists can see how strong gravity affects the stars and gas around the
black hole. Scientists can study stars to find out if they are flying around orbiting a black hole.
High-energy light is made when a black hole and a star are close together. This kind of light
cannot be seen with human eyes. Scientists use satellites and telescopes in space to see high-
energy light.

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Anatomy of a Blackhole

From stellar-mass black holes with a few times our Sun’s

mass to supermassive monsters weighing up to billions more,
black holes' makeup is essentially identical. As weird as black
holes seem, they possess only three properties: mass, spin, and
electrical charge.

The list below describes many of the features common to the black holes’ astronomers are
studying.

1. Event Horizon

• This is what makes a black hole ‘’black’’.

• Inside this boundary, the velocity needed to escape the black hole exceeds the speed
of light, which is as fast as anything can go.
• So whatever passes into the event horizon is doomed to stay inside it even light.
Because light can’t escape, black holes themselves neither emit nor reflect it, and
nothing about what happens within them can reach an outside observer.
• But astronomers can observe black holes thanks to light emitted by surrounding
matter that hasn’t yet dipped into the event horizon.

2. Accretion Disk

• The main light source from a black hole is a structure called an accretion disk.
• Black holes grow by consuming matter, a process scientists call accretion, and by
merging with other black holes.
• Isolated black holes that have consumed the matter surrounding them do not possess
an accretion disk and can be very difficult to find and study.
• Astronomers call this process ‘’gravitational lensing’’.
• Light coming to us from the top of the disk behind the black hole appears to form into
a hump above it. Light from beneath the far side of the disk takes a different path,
creating another hump below.
• The humps’ sizes and shapes change as we view them from different angles, and we
see no humps at all when seeing the disk exactly face-on.

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3. Photon Sphere

• From every viewing angle, thin rings of light appear at the edge of the black hole
shadow.
• These rings are multiple, highly distorted images of the accretion disk.
• Here, light from the disk orbits the black hole multiple times before escaping to us.
Rings closer to the black hole become thinner and fainter.

4. Particle Jets (Relativistic Jets)

• A small amount of material heading toward the black hole may suddenly become
rerouted into a pair of jets that blast away from it in opposite directions.
• These jets fire out particles at close to the speed of light. The jets from supermassive
black holes can reach lengths of hundreds of thousands of light-years.
• In cases where the jets happen to angle into our line of sight, we may only easily detect
the one firing toward us due to Doppler beaming. This process makes the near jet
considerably brighter but greatly dims the rear jet.

5. Singularity

• General relativity predicts that the very center of a black hole contains a point where
matter is crushed to infinite density.
• It’s the final destination for anything falling into the event horizon.
• The singularity at the center of a black hole is the ultimate no man’s land: a place where
matter is compressed down to an infinitely tiny point.
• A gravitational singularity is a condition in which gravity is so intense that space-time
itself breaks down catastrophically.

Types of Blackhole

1. Schwarzschild black hole

• Karl Schwarzschild discovered this black hole geometry at the close of

1915.
• The simplest kind of black hole in theory is a Schwarzschild black hole
or Static black hole, which is a black hole with mass, but with no electric
charge, and no spin.
• However, there is a claim that it could never occur in the real universe.

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2. Reissner-Nordstrom black hole

• The geometry was discovered independently by Reissner (1916)1

and Nordström (1918).
• A Reissner-Nordstrom black hole is a black hole that has a mass
and is electrically charged but non-rotating (no spin).
• A Reissner-Nordstrom black hole has two separate event horizons:
the more charge the black hole carries, the closer its event horizons.

3. Kerr black hole

• A Kerr black hole is a type of black hole that possesses only mass
and angular momentum (but not electrical charge – the third
possible property of a black hole).
• In other words, a Kerr black hole is an uncharged black hole
that rotates about a central axis.
• It is named after the New Zealand mathematician Roy Kerr who, in 1963, became the
first person to solve the field equations of Einstein’s general theory of relativity for a
situation of this kind.
• A Kerr black hole has the following distinct regions; ring singularity, inner and outer
event horizons, Ergosphere, and static limit (the boundary between the Ergosphere
and normal space).

Ergosphere- is an ellipsoidal region around a Kerr black hole in which the hole’s
rotation drags the spacetime continuum around with it – a phenomenon known as the Lense-
Thiring effect or frame dragging.

Inside a Kerr black hole

At each event horizon, the roles of space and time are reversed; so, in the case of a Kerr
black hole space and time swap places twice. The singularity is ring-shaped and, except if
approached on its equatorial plane, is repulsive. This fact is simply the result of the equations
of Kerr’s metrical geometry. The singularity is also a temporal one so it can be avoided. In
theory, it is possible to escape from a black hole, although not in the same way you went in.
On leaving the black hole you would find yourself either in a region of negative space, the
physical meaning of which is unclear, or in an entirely different universe.

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4. Naked Singularities

• In general relativity, naked singularity is a hypothetical gravitational

singularity without an event horizon.
• In a black hole, the singularity is completely enclosed by a boundary
known as the event horizon, inside which the gravitational force of the
singularity is so strong that light cannot escape.

GRAVITY CONJECTURE CONVERGE

Two conjectures about gravity – whose quantum origin

remains unknown – unexpected support each other in new
calculations, increasing the chance that both a are correct.

A. Cosmic Censorship conjecture

This 1969 states that singularities, points where Einstein’s classical theory of gravity
breaks down and quantum gravity takes over, are never “naked”, meaning they cannot exist
outside of black hole.

• One cannot extend spacetime beyond the Cauchy horizon with a square-integrable
connection.
• This conjecture was postulated to save the deterministic nature of the most successful
theory of gravitation, general relativity.

B. Weak gravity conjecture

This 2006 conjecture states that gravity is always the weakest

force in any logically consistent universe, as it is ours. In computer
simulations, a high-energy electric field on boundary of a model
universe known as anti-de siter space causes a naked singularity to
form. But if quantum particles exist in the universe and the weak
gravity conjecture is true, the high energy electric field causes enough
particles to fluctuate into existence to gravitationally collapse into a
black hole (cosmic censorship conjecture).

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5. Wormholes

• The original idea of a wormhole came from physicists Albert

Einstein and Nathan Rosen.
• Einstein and Rosen discovered that theoretically at least, a
black hole’s surface might work as a bridge that connected to a
second patch of space.
• A wormhole is like a tunnel between two distant points in our universe that cuts the
travel time from one point to the other.
• Because wormholes represent shortcuts through space-time, they could even act like
time machines. You might emerge from one end of a wormhole at a time earlier than
when you entered its other end.
• Wormholes are shortcuts in spacetime, popular with science fiction authors and movie
directors. They've never been seen, but according to Einstein's general theory of
relativity, they might exist.

Wormhole Theory

Wormholes were first theorized in 1916, though that wasn't what they were called at the
time. While reviewing another physicist's solution to the equations in Albert Einstein's theory
of general relativity, Austrian physicist Ludwig Flamm realized another solution was possible.
He described a "white hole," a theoretical time reversal of a black hole. Entrances to both black
and white holes could be connected by a space-time conduit.

In 1935, Einstein and physicist Nathan Rosen used the theory of general relativity to
elaborate on the idea, proposing the existence of "bridges" through space-time. These bridges
connect two different points in space-time, theoretically creating a shortcut that could reduce
travel time and distance. The shortcuts came to be called Einstein-Rosen bridges, or
wormholes.

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GALAXIES

INTRODUCTION

Galaxies are massive and amazing cosmic structures comprised of stars, planets, gas,
and dust bound together by gravity. They come in various shapes and sizes, from spirals with
elegant arms to ellipticals and irregular formations. At the heart of every galaxy lies a
supermassive black hole. Studying galaxies allows us to unravel the mysteries of the universe,
its origins, and the dynamic forces that shape its evolution, offering a glimpse into the
breathtaking wonders of the cosmos. As you continue in this lesson, you will learn a lot about
galaxies, the Milky Way, and the galaxies that surround it.

Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
1. Discuss how galaxies are classified;
2. Illustrate the morphological process involving galaxies; and
3. Explain what a quasar is.

GALAXY

Galaxies are gigantic cosmic islands held

together by gravity that are made up of stars, gas, dust,
and dark matter (National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, 2023). Hubble's sharp vision has
revealed precise features of galaxies' shapes,
structures, and histories - whether alone, in small
groupings, or within massive clusters. These
discoveries, ranging from supermassive black holes at galactic centers to giant bursts of star
formation to titanic collisions between galaxies, allow astronomers to investigate the current
properties of galaxies as well as how they formed and evolved over time (Space Telescope
Science Institute, 2023).

Galaxies are typically millions of light-years apart. As one might expect, their
distribution is not random. Galaxies, on the other hand, create unimaginably long filaments
across the cosmos, generating a cosmic web of star cities. The term "galaxy" comes from the
Greek word gala, which means "milk." A galaxy can have hundreds of billions of stars and

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span thousands of light-years. These huge cosmic neighborhoods, made up of stars, dust, and
gas locked together by gravity, range in size from dwarf galaxies with 100 million stars to big
galaxies with trillions of stars. Astronomers divide galaxies into three types: spiral (like our
Milky Way), elliptical, and irregular.

Types of Galaxies
Astronomers classify galaxies into three major categories: elliptical, spiral and
irregular. These galaxies span a wide range of sizes, from dwarf galaxies containing as few as
100 million stars to giant galaxies with more than a trillion stars.

Ellipticals
Ellipticals, which account for about one-third of
galaxies observed, vary from nearly circular to very elongated.
They possess comparatively little gas and dust, contain older
stars and are not actively forming stars anymore. The largest
and rarest of these, called giant ellipticals, are about 300,000
light-years across. Astronomers theorize that these are formed
by the mergers of smaller galaxies. Much more common are dwarf ellipticals, which are only
a few thousand light-years wide.

Spiral Galaxies
Spiral galaxies appear as flat, blue-white disks of
stars, gas and dust with yellowish bulges in their centers.
These galaxies are divided into two groups: normal spirals
and barred spirals. In barred spirals, the bar of stars runs
through the central bulge. The arms of barred spirals usually
start at the end of the bar instead of from the bulge. Spirals
are actively forming stars and comprise a large fraction of all the galaxies in the local universe.
Spiral galaxies can be further divided into two groups: normal spirals and barred spirals.

• Barred spirals—a bar of stars runs through the central bulge of the galaxy. The arms
of barred spirals usually start at the end of the bar instead of the bulge. Our Milky Way
is thought to be a barred spiral galaxy.
• Normal spiral-The normal spirals have arms that emanate from the nucleus.

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Irregular Galaxies
Irregular galaxies, which have very little dust, are
neither disk-like nor elliptical. Astronomers often see irregular
galaxies as they peer deeply into the universe, which is
equivalent to looking back in time. These galaxies are abundant
in the early universe before spirals and ellipticals developed.

Galaxy Formation/ Morphology

Astronomers study the ways galaxies form and evolve by comparing the different
shapes across the history of the cosmos, and tracing how they came to look the way they do.
Galaxies are a diverse bunch, though astronomers group them into a few categories according
to features they have in common. Spiral galaxies, a category that includes the Milky Way, are
the most common large galaxies in the universe. Researchers observe huge numbers of these
galaxies to understand how their spiral arms form and how long those arms last.

Studies show that big galaxies are made from smaller galaxies, based on how
populations of stars are distributed. Astronomers use that knowledge to look for the oldest
and farthest galaxies, which are the building blocks for the modern versions. While most of
those are too small and far away to see directly, a few are visible when magnified by
gravitational lensing. In other cases, astronomers can piece together indirect evidence about
them without seeing the galaxies themselves.

The largest galaxies in the cosmos, the giant ellipticals, are probably made from
mergers between many smaller galaxies. Researchers perform galactic archeology to find
signs of those older galaxies within the giant ellipticals. Finally, researchers also look for
galaxies in the process of merging or eating each other. These events can last a very long time,
so any particular one we witness is more or less frozen at a moment in time during the merger.
Looking at many of these, along with traces of past mergers, helps fill in the rest of the details,
showing how the history of each galaxy gives it the unique appearance it has.

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MILKY WAY

The Milky Way is a huge collection of stars, dust,

and gas. It’s called a spiral galaxy because if you could view
it from the top or bottom, it would look like a spinning
pinwheel. The Sun is located on one of the spiral arms,
about 25,000 light-years away from the center of the
galaxy. Even if you could travel at the speed of light (300,
000 km, or 186, 000 miles per second), it would take you
about 25, 000 years to reach the middle of the Milky Way.
The Milky Way gets its name from a Greek myth about the goddess Hera who sprayed milk
across the sky. In other parts of the world, our galaxy goes by other names. In China, it’s called
the “Silver River”, and the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa, it’s called the “Backbone of
Night”.

Structure and composition of the Milky Way Galaxy

The Milky Way’s structure is typical of a large spiral

system. This structure contains four major structural
subdivisions: the nucleus, a central bulge, disk, spiral arms, and
a massive halo. Some of these components blend into each other.

Nucleus

The nucleus is an extreme region containing a supermassive black hole (Sagittarius

A*) and extremely high stellar densities (around 10 million stars). Don’t worry; the black hole
won’t swallow us up. Our solar system is a comfortable 26,000 light years away from the event
horizon, the boundary that marks the black hole’s point of no return. From that distance, a
black hole is just like any other object with the same mass. It doesn’t have any magical power
to suck things in. Its gravity is just like the gravity of anything else. Phew!

Halo

The halo primarily contains individual old stars and clusters of old stars (“globular
clusters”). Hmmm, does that make it the retirement village of the Galaxy? The halo also has
“dark matter,” which is material that we can’t see but can measure its gravitational force. The
Milky Way’s halo may be over 130,000 light years across.

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Central bulge

The bulge is a round, dense swarm of stars in the Milky Way center approximately
10,000 light years across. The bulge is a round structure made primarily of old stars, gas, and
dust. The outer parts of the bulge are hard to distinguish from the halo. Hopefully, this dispels
any rumors that the center of the Milky Way Galaxy is filled with nougat and caramel.

Disk

The disk is a thin distribution of stars and gas orbiting the nucleus of the Galaxy. The
disk is shaped like a pancake. The Milky Way’s disk is 100,000 light years across and 1,000
light years thick. The familiar spiral arms of the Milky Way are located in the disk. It contains
mostly young stars, gas, and dust, which are concentrated in spiral arms. The disk is also
where most of the present-day star formation occurs--our own adorable star nursery.

Spiral Arms

The spiral arms are curved extensions that begin at the bulge of a spiral galaxy, giving
it a “pinwheel” appearance. The spiral arms contain a lot of gas, dust, and young blue stars.
The Milky Way is constantly rotating, so the arms are moving through space. The Sun and the
solar system go along for the ride. The solar system travels at an average speed of 515,000
mph (828,000 km/h). That’s fast! At that speed, it’ll only take a mere 230 million years for
the solar system to travel all the way around the Milky Way.

How many solar systems are there?

The latest data collected by NASA indicates that there are 3,916 solar systems within
our Milky Way. This means there are 3,916 stars with planets orbiting them in our single
galaxy. Also, according to the latest data, there are 5,241 confirmed exoplanets, which are
planets that exist outside our solar system. Many of these have been discovered within the last
century because space technology only recently progressed to have the capabilities to identify
exoplanets. For instance, the James Webb Space Telescope, only recently its first exoplanet,
as per NASA.

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Scientists have captured the first direct image of a solar

system that closely resembles our own. The new image is a family
portrait of sorts, showing two giant exoplanets orbiting a young,
sun-like star, roughly 300 light years away. The picture was
taken using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large
Telescope, located in Chile's Atacama Desert. According to a new
study in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, the system will help
astronomers better understand how our solar system formed
and evolved

The star, known as TYC 8998-760-1 and located in the Southern constellation of
Musca, is only 17 million years old, which researchers called a "very young version of our own
sun." Comparatively, the sun is roughly 4.6 billion years old.

Other Neighboring Galaxies

Andromeda Galaxy (M31)

The andromeda galaxy (M31) is the largest galaxy in the
Local Group with some 1 trillion stars roughly twice the
population of our own Milky Way. A mere 2.5 million light-years
away, the Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31, really is just
next door as large galaxies go. Spanning about 230,000 light-
years.
M31 is in the constellation Andromeda and is best observed in November. Boasting an
apparent magnitude of 3.1, the galaxy can be seen with the naked eye, even in areas with
moderate light pollution.

Triangulum Galaxy
Spiral galaxy M33 is in the triangle-shaped
constellation Triangulum, earning it the nickname the
Triangulum galaxy. About half the size of our Milky Way
galaxy, M33 is the third-largest member of our Local Group
of galaxies following the Andromeda galaxy (M31) and the
Milky Way. Comprised of 54 separate Hubble fields of view,
this image is the largest high-resolution mosaic of M33
assembled to date by any observatory. It resolves 25 million individual stars in a 14,000-light-
year-wide region spanning the center of the galaxy.

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The Large and Small Magellanic clouds were thought to be the closest galaxies to ours,
until 1994, when the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy (SagDEG) was discovered. In 2003,
the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy was discovered - this is now the closest known galaxy to ours!

Large and Small Magellanic Clouds

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and its

apparent neighbor and relative, the Small Magellanic
Cloud (SMC), are conspicuous objects in the southern
hemisphere sky, though they are no longer the closest
galaxies to ours. They were certainly known of since the
earliest times by the ancient southern astronomers, but
these people produced little documentation. It was
Magellan, on his trip around the world in 1519, who
brought them to our knowledge.

The LMC is 179,000 light years away from the Milky Way, while the SMC is further
out, at 210,000 light years.

The Magellanic Clouds are irregular dwarf galaxies

orbiting our Milky Way galaxy. The LMC is full of interesting
objects including diffuse nebulae, globular and open clusters,
planetary nebulae, and more. The SMC, also an irregular
galaxy, may be a distorted barred disk, deformed by the tidal
forces of Milky Way and LMC.

SagDEG
The SagDEG wasn't discovered until 1994, both
because it is very dim, and because it was obscured by the
central part of our galaxy. Though this galaxy is quite big
(about 10,000 light years across), it will likely be
disrupted by the tidal forces from the Milky Way Galaxy.
(For comparison, our galaxy is 100,000 light years
across.) The SagDEG is on the other side of the Milky Way
from the Sun, about 70,000 light years away. It is 50,000
light years away from the center of the Milky Way - it is so close to us, that some of the
SagDEG's stars are actually in the outermost regions of the Milky Way!

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Canis Major Dwarf

The Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy is only 25,000 light

years from the Sun, and 42,000 light years from the Galactic
center. It too, is well-hidden by the dust in the plane of the
Milky Way which is why it wasn't discovered until recently.

This galaxy is also being pulled apart by the Milky Way's

gravity - as it orbits the Milky Way, it is leaving a long filament
of stars, gas, and dust in its wake. This 200,000-light year-long filament is known as the
Monoceros Ring, and actually wraps three times around our galaxy! The Canis Major Dwarf
galaxy was discovered during the investigation of this Ring, which was first discovered in
2002. At left is an illustration of the Milky Way, the Canis Major Dwarf, and the stream of
material coming from the Galaxy.

Scientist have known for some time that the Milky Way Galaxy is not alone in the
Universe. In addition to our galaxy being part of the Local Group- a collection of 54 galaxies
and dwarf galaxies we are also part of the larger formation known as the Virgo Supercluster.
So, you could say the Milky Way has a lot of neighbors. The two most obvious dwarf galaxies
are called the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), and
these are easily visible to the unaided eye.

Red Shifting Galaxies

The red shift that can be observed in light from

distant galaxies suggests that the universe is expanding,
and thus supports the Big Bang theory. 'Red shift' is a key
concept for astronomers. The term can be understood
literally - the wavelength of the light is stretched, so the
light is seen as 'shifted' towards the red part of the
spectrum.

Light behaves like a wave, so light from a luminous object undergoes a Doppler-like
shift if the source is moving relative to us. Ever since 1929, when Edwin Hubble discovered
that the Universe is expanding, we have known that most other galaxies are moving away from
us. Light from these galaxies is shifted to longer (and this means redder) wavelengths in other
words, it is 'red-shifted'.

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Active Galaxies

Active galaxies are galaxies that have a small core of

emission embedded at the center of an otherwise typical galaxy.
This core is typically highly variable and very bright compared to
the rest of the galaxy.
Active galaxies require that gas and dust are in the act of
falling into the black hole and glowing brightly on the way in.
The Milky Way isn't currently doing this and when material isn't
falling into the black hole, it simply sits.

In an ordinary galaxy:

• Most light comes from stars, intensity of the light peaks at visible wavelengths, and
light is distributed throughout the galaxy.

In an active galaxy:

• Most light comes from gas, intensity of the light peaks at radio wavelengths, and the
nucleus is highly luminous.

Quasars

Quasars are a subclass of active galactic

nuclei (AGNs), extremely luminous galactic cores where gas
and dust falling into a supermassive black hole emit
electromagnetic radiation across the entire electromagnetic
spectrum.

Quasars are powered by gas falling inward toward a central supermassive black hole.
Around 11 billion years ago, quasars were much more numerous than they are now. So, where
have all the quasars gone? As we will see, active galaxies are still around; they are just less
active because they aren't fed as much gas.

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DARK MATTER

INTRODUCTION

Dark matter is a mysterious substance that makes up a significant portion of the

universe's mass but does not emit light or electromagnetic radiation. According to recent
research, dark matter plays an important role in the formation of galaxies, galaxy clusters,
and the overall structure of the universe. Scientists are still confused about its actual nature,
despite continued efforts, and are continuing to research its features in order to unravel the
secrets of our cosmos.

Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
⚫ Explain what Dark matter is;
⚫ Explain how galactic mergers occur; and
⚫ Discuss what is gravitational lensing;

DARK MATTER

Is a component of the universe whose presence is

discerned from its gravitational attraction rather than its
luminosity. Dark matter makes up 30.1 percent of the matter-
energy composition of the universe; the rest is dark
energy (69.4 percent) and “ordinary” visible matter (0.5
percent).

Since the confirmation of dark matter’s existence, a preponderance of dark matter in

galaxies and clusters of galaxies has been discerned through the phenomenon of gravitational
lensing—matter acting as a lens by bending space and distorting the passage of background
light. The presence of this missing matter in the centers of galaxies and clusters of galaxies
has also been inferred from the motion and heat of gas that gives rise to observed X-rays. For
example, the Chandra X-ray Observatory has observed in the Bullet cluster, which consists of
two merging galaxy clusters, that the hot gas (ordinary visible matter) is slowed by the drag
effect of one cluster passing through the other. The mass of the clusters, however, is not
affected, indicating that most of the mass consists of dark matter.

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MATTER-ENERGY CONTENT OF THE UNIVERSE

Matter is 30.6 percent of the

universe’s matter-energy composition.
Only 0.5 percent is in the mass of stars
and 0.03 percent of that matter is in the
form of elements heavier
than hydrogen. The rest is dark matter.
Two varieties of dark matter have been
found to exist. The first variety is about
4.5 percent of the universe and is made
of the familiar baryons (i.e., protons, neutrons, and atomic nuclei), which also make up the
luminous stars and galaxies. Most of this baryonic dark matter is expected to exist in the form
of gas in and between the galaxies. This baryonic, or ordinary, component of dark matter has
been determined by measuring the abundance of elements heavier than hydrogen that were
created in the first few minutes after the big bang occurred 13.8 billion years ago.

The dark matter that comprises the other 26.1 percent of the universe’s matter is in an
unfamiliar, nonbaryonic form. The rate at which galaxies and large structures composed of
galaxies coalesced from density fluctuations in the early universe indicates that the
nonbaryonic dark matter is relatively “cold,” or “nonrelativistic,” meaning that the backbones
of galaxies and clusters of galaxies are made of heavy, slow-moving particles. The absence
of light from these particles also indicates that they are electromagnetically neutral. These
properties give rise to the particles’ common name, weakly interacting massive
particles (WIMPs). The precise nature of these particles is not currently known, and they are
not predicted by the standard model of particle physics. However, a number of possible
extensions to the standard model such as supersymmetric theories
predict hypothetical elementary particles such as axions or neutralinos that may be the
undetected WIMPs.

As an alternative to dark matter, modifications to gravity have been proposed to

explain the apparent presence of “missing matter.” These modifications suggest that the
attractive force exerted by ordinary matter may be enhanced in conditions that occur only on
galactic scales. However, most of the proposals are unsatisfactory on theoretical grounds as
they provide little or no explanation for the modification of gravity. These theories are also

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unable to explain the observations of dark matter physically separated from ordinary matter
in the Bullet cluster. This separation demonstrates that dark matter is a physical reality and
is distinguishable from ordinary matter.

BACK STORY

The story of dark matter begins in the 1930s

with the observations of Swiss astronomer Fritz
Zwicky. Zwicky was studying the Coma Cluster, a
group of galaxies located about 300 million light-
years away, when he noticed that the combined mass
of all the visible matter in the cluster was not enough
to account for the gravitational forces holding the
cluster together. He concluded that there must be
some unseen, or "dark", matter present that was
providing the extra gravitational force.

Zwicky's discovery was largely ignored by the scientific community at the time, and it
wasn't until the 1970s that dark matter began to receive serious attention. In 1970, astronomer
Vera Rubin studied the rotation curves of galaxies, and found that the outer regions of galaxies
were rotating too quickly to be accounted for by the visible matter alone. This suggested the
presence of dark matter surrounding the galaxies.

Since then, numerous observations of the large-scale structure of the universe, the
cosmic microwave background, and the velocities of galaxies and galaxy clusters have
provided further evidence for the existence of dark matter. However, the nature and
properties of dark matter remain unknown, and its detection has proven elusive.

Scientists have proposed several theories and hypotheses to explain dark matter,
ranging from undiscovered particles like WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles) to
modifications of the laws of gravity. While progress has been made in narrowing down the
possibilities, the search for dark matter continues to be one of the most active areas of
research in astrophysics and particle physics today.

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EVIDENCE OF DARK MATTER

Dark matter is a form of matter that does not emit, absorb, or reflect electromagnetic
radiation, making it invisible to telescopes that rely on detecting light. However, its presence
can be inferred through its gravitational effects on visible matter.

There is a significant amount of evidence for the existence of dark matter, including:

1. Galactic rotation curves: The rotation curves of galaxies show that the mass of the
galaxy is much greater than the mass of visible matter. This suggests the presence of
an invisible matter that exerts a gravitational force on the visible matter.

2. Gravitational lensing: Dark matter can bend and distort light as it passes through it.
This effect, called gravitational lensing, can be observed in images of distant galaxies
and clusters of galaxies.

3. Large-scale structure of the universe: The distribution of galaxies and galaxy clusters
in the universe is not random, but instead forms a pattern that suggests the presence
of unseen matter.

4. Cosmic microwave background radiation: The cosmic microwave background

radiation is leftover radiation from the Big Bang. The pattern of fluctuations in this
radiation suggests the presence of dark matter.

5. Collisions between galaxy clusters: When galaxy clusters collide, the visible matter
slows down due to friction, while the dark matter passes through unaffected. This
results in a separation between the visible matter and the dark matter, which can be
observed in X-ray and gravitational lensing data.

These lines of evidence, along with others, strongly suggest the existence of dark matter.
However, its exact nature and composition remain unknown, and is an active area of research
in astrophysics and particle physics.

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EVIDENCE OF DARK MATTE

GALARTIC ROTATION CURVES

Galactic rotation curves describe the rotational

velocity of stars and gas in galaxies as a function of their
distance from the galactic center. The curves are typically
measured using observations of spectral lines from gas or
stars that are moving at different distances from the center of
the galaxy.

According to Newton's laws of motion, the velocity of objects in a galaxy should

decrease as their distance from the center of the galaxy increases, as the gravitational force
holding them in orbit weakens. However, observations of galactic rotation curves have shown
that this is not the case.

Instead, the observed rotational velocities of stars and gas in galaxies remain relatively
constant as a function of their distance from the center of the galaxy. This suggests that there
must be additional mass present in galaxies that is not visible, and that is exerting a
gravitational force on the observed objects.

This invisible mass is often referred to as dark matter, and it is thought to make up a
significant portion of the total mass in the universe. The presence of dark matter can be
inferred from the deviations from the expected rotation curve that are observed in galaxies.

Mass to Luminous Ratio

One useful way to characterize a galaxy is in terms of the ratio of its mass (in units of
the mass of the sun), to its luminosity (in units of the luminosity of the sun). This quantity is
called the mass-to-light ratio. Clearly, if galaxies consisted entirely of stars like the Sun, it
would have a mass-to-light ratio of 1. However, a galaxy is a composite of many millions of
stars differing ages and masses. The global mass-to-light ratio of galaxy depends on the
relative numbers of stars of different types. It turns out that the visible light from galaxies of
all types has a mass-to-light ratio in the range of 1 to 30. Irregular galaxies, which have the
largest percentage of young stars, are the bottom of that range, Spiral galaxies, with a
relatively large percentage of young stars, are in the middle of the range. Elliptical galaxies,
with majority of old stars, tend to be at the top of the range.

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A young main sequence star that is more massive

than the Sun is enormously more luminous than the Sun. In
a calculation of stellar lifetimes, a star of mass 100 solar
masses has M/L = 100/106 = 10-4. By contrast, a main
sequence star less massive than the Sun has a feeble
luminosity. For example, a star of mass 0.1 solar masses has
M/L = 0.1/10-3 = 100. Since we also know that high-mass,
main-sequence stars are relatively rare, we anticipate an
overall mass-to-light ratio above 1. Giants and supergiant are massive, but they are highly
luminous, so they have low mass-to-light ratios like young main-sequence stars. White dwarfs
have masses similar to the Sun but are low-luminosity stars, so they have large mass-to-light
ratios.

The calculation of a mass-to-light ratio for an entire galaxy is complex, but the general
result is easy to state. The mass-to-light ratio is dictated by lower main sequence stars and
white dwarfs. As a stellar population ages and stars evolve off the main sequence, the mass-
to-light ratio will evolve to higher values. Therefore, the sequence of increasing mean age
going from irregular to spiral to elliptical galaxies is also a sequence of increasing mass-to-
light ratios.

Galactic Merger

Galaxy mergers can occur when two (or more)

galaxies collide. They are the most violent type of galaxy
interaction. The gravitational interactions between galaxies
and the friction between the gas and the dust have major
effects on the galaxies involved. The exacts effects of such
mergers depend on a wide variety of parameters such as
collision, angles, speeds and relative size/ composition, and
are currently and extremely active area of research. Galaxy
mergers are important because the merger rate is a fundamental measurement of galaxy
evolution. The merger rate also provides astronomers with clues about how galaxies bulked
up overtime.

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What Galaxy Merger Do?

Billions of years from now, our galaxy will collide and merge with the Andromeda
Galaxy, eventually forming one big galaxy. The Milky Way itself is the product of past mergers,
which we see from traces of those other galaxies. And our galaxy currently is interacting
gravitationally with its satellites, exchanging stars in long streams.

• The first interactions were observed 1785 which is the Antennae Galaxies were
originally two similarly sized spiral galaxies that began colliding around 600 million
years ago. Their original spiral shapes are mostly gone, but merger has created huge
amounts of star formation. Eventually, these galaxies will form one large galaxy.
• One of the brightest galaxies in the night sky, Centaurus A, is well known for its distinct
“S” shape is believed to be the result of a clash between a spiral and elliptical galaxy
about 100 million years ago.

Cosmic Flows

Cosmic flows is a program to compile galaxy distances and

parse observed velocities into components due to the
expansion of the universe and residuals due to gravitational
interactions. The main contributions in the first version of
Cosmic flows were based on the TFR with optical photo metry
obtained object by object and analog neutral hydrogen (H i)
line widths. The catalog contained distances to 1,791 galaxies
constrained to the limit 3,000 km s−1.

Cosmicflows-2 (Tully et al. 2013) was expanded to include a much larger volume,
peaking in numbers at 5,000 km s−1 with a tail extending to ∼ 15, 000 km s−1.

Cosmicflows-3

The major addition to Cosmicflows-3 was FP

distance measures from the 6-degree Field Galaxy
Survey (6dFGSv) (Springob et al. 2014). This sample is
entirely confined to the celestial south and abruptly
cuts off at 16,000 km s−1. A secondary addition came
from the TFR method with infrared photometry
provided by the Spitzer Space Telescope. Cosmicflows-3 provided distances for 17,699
galaxies. Coverage within ∼ 8, 000 km s−1 was reasonably balanced around the sky but at

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8,000- 16,000 km s−1 it strongly favored the southern hemisphere. The infrared TFR
contribution was confined to within ∼ 6, 000 km s−1 but notably extended coverage to low
galactic latitudes, shrinking the coverage gap be- tween galactic hemispheres.

Cosmicflows-4

Here, with Cosmicflows-4 a most important

addition is a much-extended TFR sample of 10,000 galaxies
drawing in particular on kinematic information from AL-
FALFA, the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA survey of the high
galactic latitude sky in the decl. range 0 − 38 degrees
(Haynes et al. 2011, 2018). Photometry is provided by SDSS, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
(York et al. 2000) and WISE, the Wide-field Infrared Explorer (Wright et al. 2010). This
component of Cosmicflows-4 substantially redresses the imbalance favoring the southern sky
of the previous catalog.

The Growth of Density Fluctuations

Primordial fluctuations are density variations in the

early universe which are considered the seeds of all structure in the
universe. These primordial fluctuations in the density of matter in
the early Universe are the seeds of the rich network of cosmic
structure – stars, galaxies, galaxy clusters – that we observe today. It is thought that the
fluctuations seen in the CMB are a result of the brief period of inflation.

Quantum Fluctuations

In quantum physics, a quantum fluctuation (also known as a

vacuum state fluctuation or vacuum fluctuation) is the temporary
random change in the amount of energy in a point in space, as
prescribed by Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

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GRAVITATIONAL LENSING
A gravitational lens can occur when a huge amount of
matter, like a cluster of galaxies, creates a gravitational field
that distorts and magnifies the light from distant galaxies that
are behind it but in the same line of sight. The effect is like
looking through a giant magnifying glass. It allows researchers
to study the details of early galaxies too far away to be seen with
current technology and telescopes.

Smaller objects, like individual stars, can also act as gravitational lenses when they
pass in front of more distant stars. For a few days or weeks, light from the more distant star
temporarily appears brighter because it is magnified by the gravity of the closer object. This
effect is known as gravitational microlensing.

The simplest type of gravitational lensing occurs when there is a single concentration
of matter at the center, such as the dense core of a galaxy. The light of a distant galaxy is
redirected around this core, often producing multiple images of the background galaxy. When
the lensing approaches perfect symmetry, a complete or almost-complete circle of light is
produced, called an Einstein ring. Hubble observations have helped to greatly increase the
number of Einstein rings known to astronomers.

Gravitational microlensing

Gravitational microlensing is an observational effect

that was predicted in 1936 by Einstein using his General
Theory of Relativity. When one star in the sky appears to pass
nearly in front of another, the light rays of the background
source star become bent due to the gravitational "attraction"
of the foreground star.

Einstein ring

According to general relativity, gravity causes a deflection of

light by the gravitational field of a massive body. In this case a galaxy
bends the light emanating from a galaxy that is directly behind it,
focusing the otherwise divergent light into a visible ring.

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Example of Einstein ring

This galaxy was discovered in 2007 in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
(SDSS). From its horseshoe shape it has been called “Lensshoe” or
“cosmic horseshoe”

The background galaxy identified as SDSSJ1430

forms an Einstein ring “mirage” around the foreground normal white
galaxy.

What makes up dark matter?

Baryonic matter could still make up the dark matter if it were all tied up in brown
dwarfs or in small, dense chunks of heavy elements. These possibilities are known as massive
compact halo objects, or "MACHOs". But the most common view is that dark matter is not
baryonic at all, but that it is made up of other, more exotic particles like axions or WIMPS
(Weakly Interacting Massive Particles).

Baryonic matter

Baryonic matter should only include matter composed of baryons. In other words, it
should include protons, neutrons and all the objects composed of them (i.e. atomic nuclei),
but exclude things such as electrons and neutrinos which are actually leptons.

In astronomy, however, the term ‘baryonic matter’ is used more loosely, since on
astronomical scales, protons and neutrons are always accompanied by electrons (in
appropriate numbers for astronomical objects to possess all but zero net charge).

Astronomers therefore use the term ‘baryonic’ to refer to all objects made of normal
atomic matter, essentially ignoring the presence of electrons which, after all, represent only
~0.0005 of the mass. Neutrinos, on the other hand, are (correctly) considered non-baryonic
by astronomers.

Objects in the Universe composed of baryonic matter include:

• Clouds of cold gas

• Planets
• Comets and asteroids
• Stars
• Neutron stars
• Black hole

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EXPANDING UNIVERSE

INTRODUCTION

The expanding universe is the idea that galaxies are moving away from each other at
increasing speeds. It was discovered by Edwin Hubble in the 1920s and is believed to have
started with the Big Bang around 13.8 billion years ago. Evidence for the expanding universe
comes from cosmic microwave background radiation, the distribution of galaxies in the
universe, and the observed redshift of light from distant galaxies. This has implications for
our understanding of the universe and our place in it.

Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
1. Explain how the universe expand; and
2. compare the modern modification of the models to its original state.

Structure of the Universe

The universe is a vast and complex structure, consisting of a wide variety of objects
ranging from tiny subatomic particles to massive galaxy clusters. Here are some of the key
features and structures of the universe:

1. Stars: These are the building blocks of galaxies and the

source of light and heat in the universe. They come in many
different sizes and colors, and their evolution and death have
a significant impact on the surrounding environment.

2. Galaxies: These are vast collections of stars, gas, and

dust held together by gravity. They come in many different
shapes and sizes, from small, irregularly shaped dwarf galaxies to
massive elliptical galaxies.

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3. Galaxy Clusters: These are groups of galaxies bound together

by gravity. They can contain anywhere from a few dozen to
thousands of individual galaxies, and are some of the largest
structures in the universe.

4. Super Clusters: These ar0e clusters of galaxy clusters,

spanning hundreds of millions of light-years across. They are
some of the largest structures in the universe and are thought to
be the result of gravitational attraction between clusters.

5. Cosmic web: This is the large-scale structure of the universe,

consisting of a vast network of filaments and voids. The filaments
are the cosmic "highways" along which galaxies and galaxy clusters
are arranged, while the voids are the vast empty spaces between
them.

6. Dark matter: This is a mysterious, invisible substance that

makes up the majority of the matter in the universe. Its gravitational
pull is thought to be responsible for shaping the large-scale structure
of the universe.

7. Dark energy: This is another mysterious substance that is

thought to be responsible for the observed acceleration of the
universe's expansion. It is believed to make up the majority of the
universe's energy density.

Understanding the structure of the universe is a complex and ongoing field of study in
astronomy and cosmology. The features and structures listed above are just some of the key
components of the universe, and there is still much to be discovered and understood about its
workings.

A. Einstein’s Static Universe

Einstein's Static Universe was a model of the universe proposed by Albert Einstein in 1917,
based on his theory of general relativity. At the time, the prevailing view was that the universe
was static and unchanging. However, the discovery of the expansion of the universe by Edwin
Hubble in 1929 showed that the universe was not static but was in fact expanding. This
discovery was a major challenge to Einstein's model, and he later abandoned the cosmological
constant, calling it his "greatest mistake."

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An urban legend attributes this change of perspective to when American astronomer

Edwin Hubble showed Einstein his observations of redshift in the light emitted by far away
nebulae today known as galaxies. But the reality is more complex. The change in Einstein’s
viewpoint, in fact, resulted from a tortuous thought process. Now researchers explain how
Einstein changed his mind following many encounters with some of the most influential
astrophysicists of his generation.

Expansion and Redshift

Expansion and redshift are two related

phenomena in cosmology that are intimately connected
to the large-scale structure of the universe. The
expansion of the universe is the gradual increase in the
distances between galaxies over time. It was first
discovered by Edwin Hubble in 1929, who observed that
galaxies further away from us appeared to be moving away at faster speeds than those closer
to us. This is commonly referred to as Hubble's Law.
The expansion of the universe is now thought to be driven by a mysterious force known
as dark energy. Redshift, on the other hand, is a phenomenon where light from distant objects
appears to be shifted towards longer, redder wavelengths. This occurs because as the universe
expands, the wavelengths of light that are emitted by distant objects are stretched out over
time, making them appear redder. This effect is known as cosmological redshift and is a direct
consequence of the expansion of the universe. The relationship between expansion and
redshift is described by Hubble's Law, which states that the speed at which a galaxy is moving
away from us is proportional to its distance from us.

B. Expansion

Expansion is a fundamental concept in cosmology that describes the increase in the

scale of the universe over time. The idea of an expanding universe was first proposed by
Belgian astronomer Georges Lemaître in 1927 and later confirmed by the observations of
Edwin Hubble in 1929. According to the Big Bang theory, the universe began as an extremely
hot and dense state and has been expanding and cooling ever since. The evidence for this
expansion comes from observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which is
the leftover radiation from the early universe.

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C. Redshift

Scientists measure cosmic distances via redshift, the

extent to which light is "shifted" towards the red (lower
energy) part of the electromagnetic spectrum during its long
journey across the universe. The greater the distance, the
higher the redshift. Redshift is a term used in astronomy to
describe how light from distant objects in space appears to be shifted towards longer
wavelengths, which means that it appears redder than it would if it were emitted from a
stationary source nearby. This is because the universe is expanding, causing the light waves
to stretch out as they travel towards us.

D. Other galaxies and their recession

This effect is not limited to galaxies in our

immediate vicinity, but rather it is observed for all
galaxies, no matter how far away they are. The rate at
which galaxies are receding from us depends on their
distance. This relationship is described by Hubble's
Law, which states that the speed at which a galaxy is
moving away from us is proportional to its distance from us. This means that the more distant
a galaxy is, the faster it appears to be receding from us. The observation of the recession of
other galaxies has led to the development of the concept of the "cosmic distance ladder," which
is a series of methods used to determine the distances to objects in the universe.

E. Hubble’s Law

Hubble's law is a fundamental relationship in

cosmology that describes the expansion of the universe. The
law is named after American astronomer Edwin Hubble, who
first observed the relationship between the distance of galaxies
and their redshift. Hubble's law states that the recessional
velocity of a galaxy is proportional to its distance from us. In
other words, the farther away a galaxy is from us, the faster it appears to be moving away from
us. This relationship is expressed mathematically as: v = H0 x d where v is the recessional
velocity of the galaxy, d is its distance from us, and H0 is the Hubble constant, which is a
measure of the rate of expansion of the universe.

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Hubble's law is based on the observation of the redshift of light from distant galaxies.
As the universe expands, the wavelengths of light from these galaxies are stretched out,
causing them to appear redder. This redshift is proportional to the velocity of the galaxy and
can be used to determine its distance from us. The discovery of Hubble's law was a significant
milestone in the development of modern cosmology, providing strong evidence for the
expanding universe and the Big Bang theory.

H. Friedman Model’s
Friedmann models are mathematical models that
describe the large-scale structure and evolution of the universe.
They are named after Russian physicist Alexander Friedmann,
who developed the first mathematical model of an expanding
universe in the 1920s. Friedmann models are based on the
equations of general relativity, which describe the behavior of
gravity and the geometry of space time. They assume that the universe is homogeneous and
isotropic on large scales, meaning that it looks the same in all directions and at all points in
space. Friedmann models predict that the universe is expanding, and that the rate of
expansion is determined by the density of matter and energy in the universe. If the density is
high enough, the universe will eventually stop expanding and collapse in on itself in a "Big
Crunch." If the density is too low, the universe will continue to expand forever. Friedmann
models also predict that the universe underwent a period of rapid expansion in its early stages,
known as inflation.

I. Geometry of the Universe

The geometry of the universe refers to the shape and

curvature of the universe as a whole. The geometry of the
universe has been a topic of study in cosmology, the branch of
astronomy that deals with the origin, evolution, and structure
of the universe. The geometry of the universe is determined by
the distribution of matter and energy within it. There are three possible geometries of the
universe, based on the relationship between the density of matter and energy in the universe
and the expansion rate of the universe:

1. Flat universe: A flat universe has a geometry that is flat like a sheet of paper. In a flat
universe, the density of matter and energy is just right to balance the expansion rate
of the universe, resulting in a universe that appears flat. A flat universe has a critical
density of matter and energy.

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2. Closed universe: A closed universe has a geometry that is curved like a sphere. In a
closed universe, the density of matter and energy is greater than the critical density,
causing the expansion of the universe to eventually slow down and reverse, resulting
in a universe that is finite in size. A closed universe has a positive curvature.

3. Open universe: An open universe has a geometry that is curved like a saddle. In an
open universe, the density of matter and energy is less than the critical density, causing
the expansion of the universe to continue indefinitely, resulting in a universe that is
infinite in size. An open universe has a negative curvature.

J. Scale Factor

In cosmology, the scale factor is a dimensionless parameter that describes how the size
of the universe changes over time. The scale factor is denoted by the symbol "a" and is defined
as the ratio of the size of the universe at any given time to its size at a reference time. The
reference time is usually chosen to be the present time, so that the scale factor at the present
time is equal to one. The evolution of the scale factor is described by the Friedmann equations,
which are a set of equations that govern the dynamics of the universe. According to these
equations, the scale factor is proportional to the age of the universe, so that a larger scale
factor corresponds to an older universe. The scale factor is related to the redshift of light from
distant galaxies, which is a measure of how much the wavelength of the light has been
stretched due to the expansion of the universe. The relationship between the scale factor and
redshift is given by the equation: a(t) = 1 / (1 + z) where "t" is the time since the Big Bang
and "z" is the redshift. The scale factor is an important concept in cosmology because it allows
us to understand how the universe has evolved over time, including its expansion, cooling,
and formation of structure.

K. Non-Relativistic Friedman Solutions

The Friedman equations are a set of differential equations that describe the evolution
of the universe in the context of general relativity. They are named after the Russian physicist
Alexander Friedman, who derived them in 1922.

In the simplest case, the Friedman equations can be solved in a non-relativistic limit,
which is appropriate for describing a universe dominated by non-relativistic matter (such as
cold dark matter) and radiation. The non-relativistic Friedmann solution is obtained by
assuming that the energy density of the universe is dominated by non-relativistic matter, such
as dark matter or baryonic matter, and that the pressure is negligible. This assumption allows
us to simplify the Friedmann equations and obtain an analytical solution for the evolution of

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the universe. The non-relativistic Friedmann solution can be expressed in terms of the scale
factor "a" and the Hubble constant "H", which is the rate at which the universe is expanding.
The solution is given by: a(t) = (t/t0)^(2/3) where "t" is the time since the Big Bang and
"t0" is the present age of the universe.

The non-relativistic Friedman equations are:

(1) H^2 = (8πG/3) ρ - (kc^2/a^2)
(2) 2a¨/a + H^2 = (4πG/3) (ρ - 3p)
Solving the Friedman equations in this case yields the following solutions:

(a) Flat universe (k = 0): a(t) = (3/2) H0t^ (2/3), where H0 is the present-day value of the
Hubble parameter.
(b) Closed universe (k = 1): a(t) = (2/3) H0^ (-1) {1 – cos [(3/2) H0t]}
(c) Open universe (k = -1): a(t) = (2/3) H0^ (-1) {sinh [(3/2) H0t]}

L. Modern Modification of the Model

The standard cosmological model, also known as the Lambda-CDM model, has been
very successful in describing the large-scale structure of the universe and the cosmic
microwave background radiation. However, there are some observations that cannot be
explained by the standard model, leading to the development of various modifications to the
model. Here are some examples of modern modifications to the standard model:
1. Modified gravity: One possible modification to the standard model is to modify the
laws of gravity on large scales. This can be done by introducing additional terms to the
Einstein field equations or by modifying the properties of dark matter. Modified
gravity models can explain the observed acceleration of the expansion of the universe
without the need for dark energy.

2. Dark energy models: Another modification to the standard model is to modify the
properties of dark energy, which is currently assumed to be a cosmological constant
that drives the acceleration of the expansion of the universe. Alternative models of
dark energy, such as quintessence, can provide a different explanation for the
acceleration of the expansion and can have different observable effects.

3. Modified cosmological initial conditions: Another possible modification to the

standard model is to modify the initial conditions of the universe. This can be done by
introducing new fields or particles that were present in the early universe or by
changing the assumptions about the initial conditions. This can lead to different

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predictions for the cosmic microwave background radiation and the large-scale
structure of the universe.

4. Alternative inflationary models: The standard model assumes a period of rapid

inflation in the early universe to explain certain observations, such as the homogeneity
and isotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation. However, there are
alternative inflationary models that make different predictions for the properties of
the cosmic microwave background radiation and the large-scale structure of the
universe.

M. Cosmological constant strikes

Vacuum energy is thought to be the main ingredient

in the “cosmological constant,” a mathematical term in the
equations of general relativity. The enormous discrepancy
between the predicted amount of vacuum energy and the
measured amount is often called the cosmological constant
problem.

In the late 1990s two teams of astronomers were competing to measure how much the
expansion of the universe was slowing down as a result of gravity pulling matter inward. In
1998 and 1999 they published their results, based on measurements of special supernovae
whose distances could be determined very accurately. Although the cosmological constant
allowed scientists to balance the Einstein field equations again, making them predict an
accelerating universe like the one astronomer had observed, the value of the constant didn't
make sense.

N. Standard cosmological model

The standard cosmological model, also known as the

Lambda-CDM model, is the prevailing theory for the evolution
and large-scale structure of the universe. It is based on the
principles of general relativity and the assumption of a
homogeneous and isotropic universe on large scales. The
Lambda-CDM model has several key components:

1. Big Bang cosmology: The model assumes that the universe began with a hot, dense,
and expanding state known as the Big Bang. This expansion continues to this day and
is observed as the redshift of distant galaxies.

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2. Cosmic microwave background radiation: The model predicts the existence of

a background radiation that is a remnant of the Big Bang, known as the cosmic
microwave background radiation. This radiation was discovered in the 1960s and has
been measured in great detail by various experiments, providing strong evidence for
the Big Bang and the standard model.
3. Dark matter: The model assumes the existence of a non-luminous and non-
interacting form of matter known as dark matter, which is necessary to explain the
observed large-scale structure of the universe. Dark matter interacts only through
gravity and is responsible for the observed gravitational lensing of galaxies and
clusters of galaxies.
4. Dark energy: The model assumes the existence of a form of energy known as dark
energy, which is responsible for the observed acceleration of the expansion of the
universe. Dark energy is assumed to be a constant energy density known as the
cosmological constant, which acts as a repulsive force that counteracts the
gravitational attraction of matter.
5. Formation of structures: The model predicts the formation of structures, such as
galaxies and clusters of galaxies, through the gravitational collapse of dark matter and
baryonic matter.

The Lambda-CDM model has been very successful in describing the large-scale structure
of the universe and the cosmic microwave background radiation, and it is supported by a wide
range of observations and experiments. However, there are still many open questions and
mysteries in cosmology, such as the nature and origin of dark matter and dark energy, the
physics of the early universe, and the ultimate fate of the universe of dark matter and baryonic
matter.

The Lambda-CDM model has been very successful in describing the large-scale structure
of the universe and the cosmic microwave background radiation, and it is supported by a wide
range of observations and experiments. However, there are still many open questions and
mysteries in cosmology, such as the nature and origin of dark matter and dark energy, the
physics of the early universe, and the ultimate fate of the universe.

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O. Distances in Astronomy

Distances are a crucial aspect of astronomy, as they

allow us to determine the physical properties and scale of the
universe. However, measuring distances in astronomy can be
challenging, as astronomical objects are often very far away
and difficult to observe directly. There are several methods
astronomers use to measure distances in astronomy,
including:

1. Parallax: This method is based on the apparent shift in the position of a nearby star
as the Earth orbits the Sun. By measuring the angle of this shift, astronomers can
determine the distance to the star.

2. Standard candles: Certain types of stars, such as Cepheid variables, have a known
relationship between their luminosity and their period of variability. By measuring the
apparent brightness of these stars, astronomers can determine their distance.

3. Supernovae: Type IA supernovae have a very consistent peak brightness, making

them useful as standard candles for measuring distances to very distant galaxies.

4. Redshift: The redshift of light from distant galaxies is proportional to the distance of
the galaxy, due to the expansion of the universe. By measuring the redshift of galaxies,
astronomers can determine their distance.

5. Cosmic microwave background radiation: The fluctuations in the cosmic

microwave background radiation provide a "ruler" for measuring the scale of the
universe. By measuring the angular size of these fluctuations, astronomers can
determine the size and age of the universe.

Each method has its own strengths and weaknesses, and astronomers often use multiple
methods to cross-check their results and improve their accuracy. Overall, measuring distances
in astronomy is a challenging but crucial aspect of understanding the universe.

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THE EARLY UNIVERSE

Introduction
INTRODUCTION

For nearly 400,000 years ago, the entire cosmos was opaque, which means we have
no direct observations of everything that happened during that time. Even after the universe
became transparent, it was still a long time before the first stars and galaxies are formed,
leaving us with limited information about that period. Despite those problems, the early
epochs of cosmic history are essential for everything that came after, leading researchers and
scientists to find ways to figure out exactly what happened when our universe was in its
infancy.

Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
⚫ Explain the Big Bang;
⚫ Associates the presence of CMB to the legitimacy of the Big Bang theory; and
⚫ Analyze the evolution of the universe.

THE BIG BANG COSMOLOGY

The idea that the universe started at some

point in time and has expanded ever since. The
Big Bang cosmology is the current accepted
model of cosmology among others. The universe
began at 13.8 billion years ago, and in its early
years, it looked completely different than it does
now. The Big Bang marked the origin of the universe, the beginning of its expansion from a
singularity (something close to a singularity), single point that was infinitely small, infinitely
hot, and infinitely dense.

Big Bang theory is the leading explanation for how the universe began. Simply put, it
says the universe as we know it started with an infinitely hot and dense single point that

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inflated and stretched-first at unimaginable speeds,

and then at a more measurable rate over the next
13.7 billion years to the still-expanding cosmos that
we know today. The Big Bang Theory was proposed
and suggested by a Belgian priest named Georges
Lemaitre in the early 1920s, when he theorized that
the universe began from a single primordial atom.
His idea received major boost from Edwin Hubble’s observations that galaxies are speeding
away from us in all directions as well as from the 1960s discovery of cosmic microwave
radiation.

Cosmic Microwave Background: An Echo

The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is the

cooled remnant of the first light that could ever travel
freely throughout the universe. This is also often referred
to as ‘Fossil Radiation’, or the leftover radiation from the
Big Bang or the time when the universe was born; the
furthest that any telescope can see and was released soon after the Big Bang. Scientists
consider it as an ‘echo’ or the ‘shockwave’ of the Big Bang. Over time, this primeval light has
cooled and weakened considerably; nowadays we detect it in the microwave domain.

CMB Discovery
On May 20, 1964, American radio astronomers Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias
discovered the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation which is the ancient light that began
saturating the universe 380,000 years after its creation. And they did so pretty much by
accident. The Bell Lab’s Holmdale Horn Antenna in new jersey picked up an odd buzzing
sound that always came from all parts of the sky.

The noise puzzled Wilson and Penzias who did their best to eliminate all possible
sources of interference, they did even remove some pigeons that were nesting in the antenna,
and it was indeed big. Penzias and Wilson had spotted the CMB, the predicted thermal echo
of the universe’s explosive birth. The landmark finds put the Big Bang theory on solid ground,
suggesting that the cosmos did indeed grow from a tiny seed- a single point- about 13.8 billion
years ago. The two radio astronomers won the 1978 Nobel prize in physics for their work,
sharing the award with soviet scientist Pyotr Kapitsa.

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CMB Anisotropy

The universe is filled with radiation at a temperature of 2.728K, whose spectrum peaks
at about 300GHz. This radiation was first detected several decades ago and is known as the
Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). If we observe the microwave sky, we find that the
temperature of the CMB is not exactly the same in all directions: it is Anisotropic. There are
small fluctuations in of about 1 part in 100,000: the microwave background temperature
anisotropies.

In the Hot Big Bang Model of the universe was much hotter and denser in the past. It
has been adiabatically cooling as it expands. At early times the universe was almost entirely
ionized. Photons and Baryons (protons and electrons) were tightly coupled by Compton
scattering and electromagnetic interactions. At a redshift of about 1000 the universe cooled
enough to form hydrogen. With the rapid drop in the free electron density the photon-matter
interactions effectively ceased. After several decades of searching, CMB anisotropies are now
being routinely detected and mapped over a range of angular scales and frequencies.

Ground Studies of the CMB

The discovery of Cosmic Microwave Background is putting the Big Bang theory on
solid footing. This CMB is useful to scientists because it helps us learn how the early universe
was formed. It is at a uniform temperature with only small fluctuations visible with precise
telescopes. By studying these fluctuations, cosmologists can learn about the origin of galaxies
and large-scale structures of galaxies, and they can measure the basic parameters of the Big
Bang theory.

While portions of the CMB were mapped in the ensuing decades after its discovery, the
first space-based full-sky map came from NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE)
mission, which launched in 1989 and ceased science operations in 1993. The “baby picture”
of the universe as NASA calls it, confirmed the Big Bang theory predictions and also showed
hints of cosmic structure that were not seen before. In 2006, the Nobel prize in physics was
awarded to COBE scientist John Mather at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and
George Smoot at the university of California, Berkeley. A more detailed map came in 2003
courtesy of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which launched in June
2001 and stop collecting data in 2010. The first picture pegged the universe’s age at 13.7 billion
years (a measurement since refined to 13.8 billion years) and also revealed a surprise: the
oldest stars started shining about 200 million years after the Big Bang, far earlier than
predicted.

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CMB Fluctuations Spectrum

When WMAP measures the

temperature of the CMB radiation
over the full sky, it sees a nearly, but
not exactly uniform glow-there will be
variations or fluctuations, across the
sky like ripples on a pond. By
measuring the CMB temperature in progressively smaller and smaller patches of the sky,
variations are measured in terms of an “angular fluctuation spectrum”, or the amplitude of
strength of temperature fluctuation as a function of angular size.

CONSERVATION OF ENERGY

There are many forms of energy in the universe, thus that energy changes form all
the time. Scientists went from the idea of the convertibility of energy to an important physical
law. In any closed system, the total amount of energy is constant, and this is the Law of
Conservation of Energy. This law operates in an astronomical orbit. The total energy in a
closed orbit is constant. An elliptical orbit has a continual exchange between kinetic and
potential energy, but the sum does not change.

The conservation of energy is an absolute law, and yet it seems to fly in the face of
things we observe every day. Even the seemingly paradoxical Dark energy causing the
universe’s expansion to accelerate, we will see obeys this rule. The universe itself is a closed
system, so the total amount of energy in existence has always been the same. The forms that
energy takes, however, are constantly changing. The universe is expanding at a faster and
faster rate propelled by something called Dark energy.

Speculations; How the universe End?

Although the end of the universe as we know it is very uncertain, there are four theories
that claim to put us closer to understanding this inconceivable concept.

1. The Big Freeze- a stable state of low, dissipated energy is reached. This implies systems
will not have enough energy to produce mechanical work.
2. The Big Crunch- this occur if there is enough collective matter in the universe so that
the force of gravity can stop the expansion and pull everything back in towards a single
point. The galaxies will collide and destroy planets and stars.
3. The Big Rip- it states that as the universe expands, there is more and more energy in
empty space until, quite literally, the fabric of space time itself tears.

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4. The Big Slurp- it refers to the lowest potential energy state, or a change in the energy
level of Higgs field would cause a “bubble” of broken physics to expand throughout the
universe at the speed of light.

EVOLUTION OF THE EARLY UNIVERSE

The Planck Era

It was the earliest stage of Big Bang, before the time passed was equal to the Planck
time(tp) or approximately 10 -43 seconds. At this time, all matter was condensed on a single
point of infinite density and extreme heat.

Four (4) Fundamental Forces of Nature

1. Gravity- Gradually drew matter together to form the first stars and the first galaxies
wherein galaxies are collected into groups, clusters, and superclusters.
2. Nuclear strong force- Is the fundamental interaction that confines the quarks into
proton, neutron, and other hadron particles. The strong interaction also binds
neutrons and protons to create atomic nuclei where it is called the Nuclear Force.
3. Nuclear weak force- It is the force that allows protons to turn into neutrons and vice
versa through beta decay. This keeps the right balance of protons and neutrons in a
nucleus.
4. Electromagnetic force- It was a dominant force in the interactions of atoms and
molecules. It can be attractive or repulsive.
GUT Era (Grand Unification Era)

Following the Planck Era, taking place between 10 -43 seconds and 10 -35 seconds. This
era began with gravity’s separation from the other three forces and ended with the separation
of the strong force from the electroweak force. This era is the combination of three of the four
forces, but gravity has become distinct.

Electroweak Force

At the beginning of the electroweak era (10 -35 to 10 -10 seconds), the strong force
decoupled from the electroweak force, releasing a tremendous amount of energy, and
triggering a sudden rapid expansion known as Inflation. As space expanded more rapidly than
the speed of light, extremely energetic interactions created elementary particles such as
photons, gluons, and quarks. The era ended with the separation of electromagnetism from the
weak force.

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Elementary Particle Era

Between 10^-10 seconds and 0.001 second, the elementary particle era, a “particle soup”
filled the universe. Quarks and antiquarks, electrons and positrons, and other particles and
antiparticles continually swapped mass for energy via matter-antimatter collisions. As the
universe cooled, the temperature dipped too low to re-create pairs of particles from photons
and the particles continued to annihilate without being replaced. The cooler temperature also
enabled the strong nuclear force to draw quarks together to form protons and neutrons.

Era of Nucleosynthesis

Fusion continued in this era (0.001 seconds-3 minutes), when protons and neutrons
combined into the first atomic nuclei, hydrogen, some of which fused further into helium and
lithium. Cooling continued and soon temperature dipped too low for fusion to continue in the
era of nuclei (3 minutes – 380,000 years). Big Bang nucleosynthesis had left the universe with
roughly 75% hydrogen nuclei, 25% helium nuclei, and trace amount of lithium and deuterium
nuclei. The plasma of positively charged nuclei and negatively charged free electrons filled the
universe, trapping photons in its midst.

Era of Nuclei

In this era, we don’t see much change compared to the era of nucleosynthesis. It is almost
similar to the previous era. The only different thing is the fusion of nuclei has ended in this
era. The universe is expanding, but at a slower rate; hence its size is increasing. The size of the
universe has increased by a factor of 1,000 compared to its size in the previous era or epoch.
It is massive space filled with fully ionized particles. The timeline of this era is between 3
minutes and 500,000 years after the Big Bang. Within this long period, nothing much
happened. The fusion of the nuclei has stopped. All the while, the universe remains just a ball
of hot plasma filled with fully ionized particles.

Era of Atoms

The era of atoms (380,000 years – 1 billion years and so) began as the universe finally
cooled and expanded enough for the nuclei to capture free electrons, forming fully-fledged
neutral atoms. Previously trapped photons were finally free to move through space, and the
universe became transparent for the first time. These photons have been passing through
space ever since, forming the cosmic microwave background. The expansion since the origin
of the universe has redshifted the initially energetic photons to microwave wavelengths. The
CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background) also marks the furthest point back in time we can
observe – the time before is sometimes referred to as the dark ages. And scientists considered
it as an Echo or the Shockwave of the Big Bang.

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Era of Galaxies

This era happens between 1 billion years after the Big Bang and the present day. Before
galaxies were formed, the universe went through what is called the Dark Ages. This occurred
after neutral atoms were formed until the first stars and galaxies reionize the intergalactic
medium entirely. Reionization is when the first stars and quasars gradually form and emit
intense radiation that splits the neutral hydrogen atoms back into plasma of protons and free
electrons for the first time since the recombination and photon decoupling.

A Quasar is an active galactic object and the brightest object in the universe. The epoch
or era of galaxies is were we are currently living in now. The current temperature of the
universe is 2.73 kelvins. As the universe continued to expand, gas pockets became denser,
causing the stars to ignite. These stars grouped with each other to form galaxies.

The Hubble Space Telescope has seen back to about

500 million years after the Big Bang, revealing galaxies with
much less defined and more compact structures, very
different than those close to us in space and time. With the
James Webb Space telescope, astronomers are looking back
even farther to the formation of the universe’s very first
galaxies. By that point, gravity had already condensed gas
into the first stars, which produced the first heavy elements
like carbon and oxygen. Within a few million years, the second generation of stars forming
from the enriched gas and gravity began grouping them into the earliest galaxies. Webb will
help us to understand the structure and composition of these first galaxies.

Video Link about The Early Universe: https://youtube.be/3QbS2e8w33s

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ASTROBIOLOGY

The study of the beginnings, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe
is known as astrobiology. A thorough, integrated understanding of biological, geological,
planetary, and cosmic events is necessary for this interdisciplinary field. Astrobiology is the
study of the origin, early evolution, and diversity of life on Earth as well as the search for
habitable environments in our solar system and on planets orbiting other stars. It also
includes the investigation of the prebiotic chemistry and possible presence of life on Solar
System bodies like Mars, Jupiter's moon Europa, and Saturn's moon Titan.

Three key issues are addressed by astrobiologists: How does life begin and develop? Exists
life in other parts of the universe. What is ahead for life on Earth and in the universe?

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) established the NASA
Astrobiology Institute (NAI) in 1998 as a novel means to promote the science of astrobiology
and provide a scientific underpinning for flight missions as part of a coordinated effort to
solve this challenge. NAI is a virtual, distributed organization made up of teams that were
chosen through a competitive selection process, and it integrates astrobiology research and
training programs in coordination with local, national, and international scientific
communities.

Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
• Explain the possibility of Extraterrestrial life
• Investigate the possibility of Extraterrestrial life
• Create models of the possible forms of Extraterrestrial life

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The existence of life outside of Earth, on other planets,

moons, or even in interstellar space is referred to as
extraterrestrial life. It has long been a focus of scientific
inquiry to find extraterrestrial life, which is a subject of
significant interest. The development and testing of
hypotheses on extraterrestrial life is known as “exobiology”
or “astrobiology,” although astrobiology also considers
Earth-based life in its astronomical context. Many scientists
consider extraterrestrial life to be plausible, but there is no
direct evidence of its existence. Since the mid-20th century, there has been an ongoing search
for signs of extraterrestrial life, from radios used to detect possible extraterrestrial signals, to
telescopes used to search for potentially habitable extrasolar planets. It has also played a
major role in works of science fiction.

Frank Drake is one of the principal founders of

the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). He
was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA on May 28, 1930. He
is best known for devising the Drake equation, which
can be used to estimate the number of intelligent
civilizations in our galaxy; he is one a handful of
scientists who have devised equations that have
penetrated popular culture sufficiently to appear on t-shirts and other merchandise.

Drake has played a key role in composing messages sent out from Earth in the hope
that one day an alien civilization will discover and read them. In addition to his SETI work,
Drake was the first person to map the center of the Milky Way galaxy, and he coined the word
‘pulsar’ to describe rapidly rotating neutron stars. He looked at Jupiter through a 15-inch
telescope and was stunned by what he saw – the beautiful planet, with its famous red spot,
orbited by the four moons Galileo first saw about 337 years earlier. It was a life-changing
moment for Frank Drake. In 1951, age 21, he attended lectures by visiting professor Otto
Struve. In his final lecture, Struve talked about his recent discoveries that:

• spectroscopy can be used to measure how quickly stars are spinning.

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• most stars spin more slowly than might be expected from theoretical calculations.

Struve correctly deduced that stars are usually not alone: like our own solar system, a
central star is accompanied by orbiting planets. He concluded that life might very well be
present elsewhere in the galaxy. So, thought Drake, here is a serious, respected scientist,
talking about life on other planets; it was the first encouragement Drake received at college to
consider the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

DRAKE EQUATION

This famous formula gives us an idea. The Drake Equation, which was the agenda for
a meeting of experts held in West Virginia in 1961, estimates N, the number of transmitting
societies in the Milky Way galaxy. The terms are defined as follows:

N : The number of civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy whose electromagnetic emissions
are detectable.

R* : The rate of formation of stars suitable for the development of intelligent life (number per
year).

fp : The fraction of those stars with planetary systems.

ne : The number of planets, per solar system, with an environment suitable for life.

fl : The fraction of suitable planets on which life actually appears.

fi : The fraction of life bearing planets on which intelligent life emerges.

fc : The fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that produces detectable signs of
their existence.

L : The average length of time such civilizations produce such signs (years).

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Why can’t we see any sign of life elsewhere in

the universe?

The Fermi Paradox refers to the dichotomy between

the high probability that extraterrestrial intelligence
exists and the fact that we have no evidence for such
aliens.

The Fermi Paradox – named after the Italian-

American physicist Enrico Fermi – can be summed up in a simple question that anyone
looking out at the night sky has probably asked themselves: Where is everybody? Or, to put it
another way, it’s a big universe, so why can’t we see life anywhere but here on Earth? That’s
the question that occurred to Fermi at launch one day in 1950, after a discussion about UFO
sightings. Unlike most idle daydreamers, however, he put some mathematical grunt into
addressing the problem. Fermi immediately recognized that the aliens have had more than
enough time to pepper the Galaxy with their presence. But looking around, we don’t see any
clear indication that they’re out and about. We don’t see any obvious evidence of a galactic
empire or a United Federation of Planets.

EVIDENCE OF DARK MATTE

Exobiology, the study of extraterrestrial life exclusively and therefore criticizable as “a

science that lacks a subject matter.” Unlike exobiology, astrobiology respects the scientific
possibility that life beyond Earth may never be found. Indeed, no evidence for life beyond
Earth has been adduced. However, the design of astrobiological experiments forces critical
examination of the generality of assumptions derived from Earth life. The search for
extraterrestrial life is most clearly grasped by imagining the reverse situation. For example, if
humans were on Mars, examination of Earth for life with the full armoury of contemporary
scientific instrumentation and knowledge would be illuminating. Both remote and in situ
testing might be attempted. In remote testing, light of any wavelength reflected from or
emitted by the target planet can be examined. Remote-sensing methods seek thermodynamic
disequilibrium, especially in the fluid phases (atmosphere and hydrosphere) of the planet.
With in situ studies, samples of a planet must be acquired by instrumentation that lands there
and performs experiments.

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There is no conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial life at present, but many scientists

believe that the existence of life beyond Earth is highly probable, given the vastness of the
universe and the number of potentially habitable planets that have been discovered. Some of
the most promising targets for the search for extraterrestrial life are the moons of Jupiter and
Saturn, which are thought to have liquid oceans beneath their icy surfaces.

The search for extraterrestrial life involves a variety of methods, including the use of
telescopes to detect the presence of habitable planets, the study of microbial life forms in
extreme environments on Earth, and the exploration of our own solar system with robotic
probes.

The discovery of extraterrestrial life would have profound implications for our
understanding of the universe and our place within it. It would also raise a number of
philosophical and ethical questions about the nature of life, the meaning of existence, and our
relationship with other forms of intelligent life.

Modern Advances on the search of Extraterrestrial life

New technologies that enable new strategies are revitalizing the Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), by not only augmenting the traditional search for
intelligently generated radio signals but also allowing searches for other signs of life and
technological activity.

1.) Pioneered by Frank Drake's Project

In 1960 Scientists now are designing state-
of-the-art techniques to detect a variety of
signatures that can indicate the possibility of
extraterrestrial technologies. Such
"technosignatures" can range from the chemical
composition of a planet’s atmosphere to laser
emissions, to structures orbiting other stars,
among others.

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2.) The National Radio Astronomy Observatory

NRAO is a Federally Funded Research and
Development Center that conceives, designs, builds,
operates, and maintains radio telescopes used to
study all types of astronomical objects, from bodies
in our own Solar System to galaxies in the distant
Universe.

3.) Very Large Array (VLA)

Top of Form the VLA is one of the most

productive radio telescopes in the world and consists of
27 antennas spread over 23 miles of desert real estate.
Since 2017, it has been engaged in a project known as
VLASS (Very Large Array Sky Survey), a radio
reconnaissance of 80 percent of the sky. But while these
observations are being undertaken, a tap on the signal distribution network will shunt a copy
of the data into a special receiver sporting very narrow (approximately one hertz wide)
channel.

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