Figuring for Yourself
Using the information from Example 28.1, how much fainter an object will you have to be able to measure in order to include the same kinds of galaxies in your second survey? Remember that the brightness of an object varies as the inverse square of the distance.
Using the information from Example 28.1, if galaxies are distributed homogeneously, how many times more of them would you expect to count on your second survey?
Using the information from Example 28.1, how much longer will it take you to do your second survey?
Galaxies are found in the “walls” of huge voids; very few galaxies are found in the voids themselves. The text says that the structure of filaments and voids has been present in the universe since shortly after the expansion began 13.8 billion years ago. In science, we always have to check to see whether some conclusion is contradicted by any other information we have. In this case, we can ask whether the voids would have filled up with galaxies in roughly 14 billion years. Observations show that in addition to the motion associated with the expansion of the universe, the galaxies in the walls of the voids are moving in random directions at typical speeds of 300 km/s. At least some of them will be moving into the voids. How far into the void will a galaxy move in 14 billion years? Is it a reasonable hypothesis that the voids have existed for 14 billion years?
Calculate the velocity, the distance, and the look-back time of the most distant galaxies in Figure 28.21 using the Hubble constant given in this text and the redshift given in the diagram. Remember the Doppler formula for velocity and the Hubble law (v = H × d, where d is the distance to a galaxy). For these low velocities, you can neglect relativistic effects.
Assume that dark matter is uniformly distributed throughout the Milky Way, not just in the outer halo but also throughout the bulge and in the disk, where the solar system lives. How much dark matter would you expect there to be inside the solar system? Would you expect that to be easily detectable? Hint: For the radius of the Milky Way’s dark matter halo, use R = 300,000 light-years; for the solar system’s radius, use 100 AU; and start by calculating the ratio of the two volumes.
The simulated box of galaxy filaments and superclusters shown in Figure 28.29 stretches across 1 billion light-years. If you were to make a scale model where that box covered the core of a university campus, say 1 km, then how big would the Milky Way Galaxy be? How far away would the Andromeda galaxy be in the scale model?
The first objects to collapse gravitationally after the Big Bang might have been globular cluster-size galaxy pieces, with masses around 106 solar masses. Suppose you merge two of those together, then merge two larger pieces together, and so on, Lego-style, until you reach a Milky Way mass, about 1012 solar masses. How many merger generations would that take, and how many original pieces? (Hint: Think in powers of 2.)