dr. stephen hughes queensland university of technology ...a distant type ia supernova explosion...
TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Stephen Hughes
Queensland University of Technology,
Brisbane, Queensland
Towards the edge of the
visible universe as seen
by the HST in 1996
Andromeda galaxy –
closest neighbour to the M
ilky W
ay -home to billions of stars -at
a distance of over 2 m
illion light years this is the furthest object visible to the naked eye
There are m
ore stars in the visible universe than grains
of sand on all the beaches and deserts of the
earth combined!
The Eagle Nebula (M16) where stars are born (im
age courtesy of Johannes Schedler)
Pleiades Star Cluster
The Pleiades star cluster is blue for the same reason the sky is
blue on Earth -scattered light. The Sun appears redder at sunrise
and sunset because the light comes through a greater thickness of
atm
osphere and so is scattered m
ore.
A key-hole view into
the centre of our galaxy.
Most of the centre of the
Milky W
ay is obscured by
dust, but this view was
obtained by Hubble through
a gap in the dust. The
myriad colours indicates
stars of different age and
temperature.
The earth seen from 6 billion km
How long would it take to
drive to the Sun 24/7
at 100 km/h?
170 years!
15 m
illion K
Tarong power station, Queensland
Power output = 1400 M
W.
Tarong power station w
ould have
to run for 9 billion years to produce
the same amount of energy that
the sun produces every second!
5800 K
Spica –
a blue giant star
23,000 K
23,000 K
Movies of the Sun
taken by space
telescopes
The red giant star Betelgeuse is
so huge that our solar system
out to Jupiter would fit inside
the star!
Orbit of Jupiter
Orbit of Earth Sun
HST image of Betelgeuse, the
brightest star in the constellation
Orion, about
The Eskim
o nebula -
a planetary nebular is m
ade from m
aterial ejected
from a red giant star leaving behind a white dwarf
Sirius B –
a W
hite Dwarf
Sirius B
Sirius A
White dwarfs photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. When W
Ds
cool the carbon in the centre turns into diamond -exactly as in ‘Twinkle,
twinkle little star…’
A distant type Ia supernova explosion (SN1994D) in galaxy
NGC4526 ~53 light years away from the Earth
Crab nebula in Taurus,
remnant of a SN observed
by the Chinese in 1054 AD.
At the centre of this nebula
lies a pulsar.
Parkes radio telescope, NSW, Australia
The lovely
song of the
pulsar
Imag
e of
a h
uge
X-r
ay fl
are
that
occ
urre
d ne
ar a
supe
rmas
sive
bla
ck h
ole,
abou
t 3.7
mill
ion
times
mor
e m
asiv
e th
an o
ur s
un
at th
e ce
nter
of o
ur g
alax
y,
asso
ciat
ed w
ith th
e
com
pact
rad
io s
ourc
e
Sag
ittar
ius
A
Sim
ulation of an X-ray flare
Qui
ckT
ime™
and
aC
inep
ak d
ecom
pres
sor
are
need
ed to
see
this
pic
ture
.Q
uick
Tim
e™ a
nd a
YU
V42
0 co
dec
deco
mpr
esso
rar
e ne
eded
to s
ee th
is p
ictu
re.
Plot of the m
otion of the stars in
the vicinity of the black hole at
the centre of our galaxy (im
age
courtesy of ESO)
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Biloela State High School for
allowing us to use the venue, Tanya Roach for organising
the equipment and catering, and astronomer Johannes
Schedler of Panther Observatory, Austria for the use of
many of his images in this presentation and HST/N
ASA.
The End