Stars and Galaxies

Seeing into the PaSt

We cant travel into the past, but we can get a glimpse of it. Every time we look at the Moon, for example, we see it as it was a little more than a second ago. Thats because sunlight reflected from the Moons surface takes a little more than a second to reach Earth. We see the Sun as it looked about eight minutes ago, and the other stars as they were a few years to a few centuries ago. And then theres M31, the Andromeda galaxy the most distant object thats readily visible to human eyes. This great amalgamation of stars stands almost directly overhead late this evening. When viewed from a dark skywatching location, far from city lights, it looks like a faint, fuzzy blob. But that blob is the combined glow of hundreds of billions of stars seen as it looked more than two million years ago. Andromeda is like a larger version of our own Milky Way galaxy. Its a flat disk that spans more than a quarter-million light-years. Its brightest stars form spiral arms that make the galaxy look like a pinwheel. Yet the galaxy is so far away that its structure is visible only through telescopes. The light from M31 has to travel about two and a half million light-years to reach us about 15 quintillion miles the number 15 followed by 18 zeroes. Yet even across such an enormous gulf, the galaxy is so bright that we can see it faintly with our own eyes, crossing high overhead late tonight.

Student Page
A galaxy is a gravitationally bound system of stars, gas, and dust. Galaxies range in diameter from a few thousand to a few hundred thousand light-years. Each galaxy contains billions (10 9) or trillions (10 12) of stars. In this activity, you will apply concepts of scale to grasp the distances between stars and galaxies. You will use this understanding to elaborate on the question, Do galaxies collide?
On a clear, dark night, you can see hundreds of bright stars. The next table shows some of the brightest stars with their diameters and distances from the Sun. Use a calculator to determine the scaled distance to each star (how many times you could fit the star between itself and the Sun). Hint: you first need to convert light-years and solar diameters into meters. One light-year equals 9.46 x 1015 meters, and the Suns diameter is 1.4 x 109 meters.
Star
(Constellation)

exPlore

Diameter
(Sun=1)

(light-years)

Distance 261 489 1,402 17 26 8.6

Scaled Distance

(distancediameter)

Spica (Virgo) Betelgeuse (Orion) Deneb (Cygnus) Altair (Aquila) Vega (Lyra) Sirius (Canis Major)

8 600 200 2 2.7 1.6

There are three galaxies beyond the Milky Way that you can see without optical aid: the Andromeda galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud, and the Large Magellanic Cloud. Figure the scaled distance to these galaxies (how many times you could fit the galaxy between itself and the Milky Way).
Galaxy Milky Way Andromeda Galaxy Large Magellanic Cloud Small Magellanic Cloud Diameter 100,000 125,000 31,000 16,000 Distance 0 2,500,000 165,000 200,000 Scaled Distance
(distancediameter) (no conversion needed)

(light-years)

(light-years)

exPlain
This is the transcript of a StarDate radio episode that aired October 14, 2006. Script by Damond Benningfield, 2006.

How does the scaled distance of galaxies compare to stars?

elaborate

Do you think galaxies collide? Why or why not?

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