PHYS 005 Midterm #2 Study Notes

1. Galactic collisions/mergers
a. Stars pass each other, interstellar media collides violently
b. Gravitational effects can throw stars out of their galaxy into space
c. Milky Way and Andromeda galaxy are going to collide
i. In about 3.75 billion years
ii. Will result in larger galaxy
d. Cannibalism
i. Rich cluster will continue to capture smaller galaxies
ii. Produces a giant elliptical galaxy
2. Dark matter
a. Luminous mass not enough to account for motion
i. Must be unobserved mass
b. Lensing distant galaxies viewed through a foreground cluster shows us the distribution of
dark matter
3. Galactic formation/evolution
a. Galaxies arise from mergers of gas clouds
i. From the bottom up
b. Fast star formation results in elliptical galaxy, slow star formation results in spiral or
lenticular galaxy
4. Finding distance using hydrogen signature
a. Hydrogen element has a prismatic signature
i. We know where all the lines should be
b. Redshift/blueshift will have the lines shifted
i. We can find the distance using this shift
c. This is how we discovered quasars
5. Quasars
a. Looks like a star but with a huge redshift
b. Named from quasi-stellar -> quasar
c. Common only during the early universe
d. Several hundred megaparsecs or more from Earth (as we can tell from Hubble law)
i. Must be very luminous, around 10k times Milky Way
e. 10% are radio loud (visible through radio spectrum); rest are radio quiet
f. Energy emitted is radiation high speed particles in a strong magnetic field
6. Seyfert galaxies
a. Spiral galaxies with bright nuclei
b. Strong sources of radiation
c. Nearby, low luminosity quasars
7. Radio galaxies
a. Only bright at radio frequencies, not that bright as visible light
b. Ellipticals midway between lobes of a double radio source
c. Particles ejected from nucleus called jets
8. Blazars
a. Bright, starlike, variable luminosity
b. Radio galaxies or quasars seen head on

9.

10.

11.
12.

13.

c. One jet aimed toward earth

Active galaxies
a. Quasars, blazars, Seyferts and radios
b. Energy source at the center is an AGN: Active galaxy nucleus
c. Fluctuations in brightness show that region that emits radiation is small
Black holes as central engines
a. AGN powered by supermassive black hole
b. Mass of black hole limits luminosity of AGN (Eddington limit)
c. Gas forms accretion disk due to conservation of angular momentum
d. Magnetic field twisted into a helix by disk rotation
e. Outflowing particles focused into two jets
Unified model
a. Difference between AGN is simply the angle at which viewed
Evolution of AGN
a. Central engine has less and less matter to act as fuel
b. Quasar becomes less active
Olbers Paradox: Why is the sky dark?
a. Newton thought universe was static and infinite
b. Stars evenly distributed; similar brightness
c. Olber realized this would mean that sky is bright at night