answers for the hst scavenger hunt - top stars | inspiring...

Sheree’ Kearns NASA Top Stars, 2009

Answers for the Student Worksheet for the Hubble Space Telescope Scavenger Hunt

Instructions: Answers are typed in blue. FIND IT! NAME IT! EXPLORE IT!

Crab Nebula

What is embedded in the center of the nebula? Neutron star Who first recorded this event? Japanese and Chinese astronomers recorded this violent event nearly 1,000 years ago in 1054, as did, almost certainly, Native Americans.

Spiral Galaxy M100

What is the difference between a galaxy and a nebula? A nebula is a cloud of gas and dust located between stars and/or surrounding stars. A galaxy is a collection of stars, gas, and dust bound together by gravity. How are galaxies classified? Galaxies are classified or grouped by their shape.


FIND IT! NAME IT! EXPLORE IT!

NGC 1300 Barred Spiral Galaxy

How is this type of galaxy different from a regular spiral galaxy? A barred spiral galaxy has a “bar” of stars and interstellar matter, such as dust and gas, slicing across its center. A typical spiral galaxy has a spherical central bulge of older stars surrounded by a flattened galactic disk. Greek astronomers called a galaxy “galaxies kuklos”, which is also thought to be the same kind of galaxy pictured. What is the name of this galaxy? The Milky Way.

NGC 1132 Elliptical galaxy

What kind of galaxy is this? Elliptical galaxy Write a definition for this type of galaxy. Elliptical galaxies are comprised mostly of old stars and contain very little dust and “cool” gas that can form stars.

M82 Irregular galaxy.

What kind of galaxy is this? Irregular galaxy. Write a definition for this type of galaxy. A galaxy that appears disorganized and disordered, without a distinct spiral or elliptical shape. Irregular galaxies are usually rich in interstellar matter, such as dust and gas.



Antennae Galaxies (NGC 4038/4039)

What is happening to these two galaxies? Image shows the Antennae galaxies, which are margining. What are the two orange blobs in the picture? The orange blobs to the left and right of image center are the two cores of the original galaxies.

White dwarf stars

In what galaxy are these stars located? The Milky Way Approximately how old are these stars? The ancient white dwarf stars are at least 12 to 13 billion years old. Give a definition of these kinds of stars. Hot, dense remains of a low-mass star like our Sun that has exhausted its sources of fuel for thermonuclear fusion.

Nebula M1-67 around Star WR124

What is a Wolf-Rayet Star? Massive stars, which are usually are surrounded by out-flowing gas clouds. How is this star type different from white dwarf stars? Wolf-Rayet stars are very young stars and represent an early short-lived stage in stellar evolution. White dwarf stars are very old and are in one of the final stages of stellar evolution with thermonuclear energy sources will become extinct.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Parsons,_3rd_Earl_of_Rosse

Lord Rosse/ William Parsons What did this scientist see in 1845? A nebulaʼs spiral shape, M51. This galaxy is now known by this name. Whirlpool glaxay. How far away is this galaxy from the Milky Way galaxy? 31 million light years

Edwin Hubble In 1929 this scientist aimed the 100-inch telescope on Mt. Wilson in California at Great Spiral in the Andromeda Galaxy . What was this scientistʼs name? Edwin Hubble This scientist actually found the existence of one of these. Another galaxy.

Take a journey to this http://hubblesite.org/explore_astronomy/

Black hole Take a journey to a black hole. When visiting a black hole, what force distorts the view seen by bending the light coming from distant stars? Gravity Name the location of the two black holes featured in this interactive video. Cygnus X-1 binary star system and Andromeda galaxy


Credit: Answers and photos taken from http://hubblesite.org/ http://www.answers.com/ http://www.nasa.gov http://en.wikipedia.org/


This number expresses the rate at which the universe expands with time.

Hubbleʼs constant

In this news release, Riess used Hubble Space Telescope's crisp view along with 2003 data from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe to refine the value of the universe's expansion rate to three percent. What does this new value imply about dark energy? This new value implies that dark energy really is a steady push on the universe as Einstein imagined, rather than something more effervescent that changes markedly over time.

Term commonly used to describe how the universe began. Check this web page: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2004/28/

The Big Bang What percent of the way back in time has the Hubble looked to see glimpses of the beginning of the universe? 95 percent

Event horizon Define this term. The spherical outer boundary of a black hole. Once matter crosses this threshold, the speed required for it to escape the black hole’s gravitational grip is greater than the speed of light. When scientists used the HST to study Cygnus X-1, they were able to observe two of these events, which defines the tern defined above. Infall events or dying pulse train," the rapidly decaying, precisely sequential flashes of light from a hot blob of gas spiraling into the black hole.

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