Astronomy and Astrophysics -Lecture 1:

Introductions

Who am I?

Dr. Piyush Kuchhal

Professor, Department of Physics
pkuchhal@ddn.upes.ac.in
 Course Goals
• CO1: Knowledge, understanding and use of the principle of astronomy and
astrophysics.
• CO2: Demonstrate an understanding that science is based upon
observations of the universe and how that is used to understand the evolution
of the solar system, stars, galaxies, black holes and the universe.
• CO3: Understanding the concept of space weather and its effects on the
near Earth environment, effects on satellites and aviation, effect of space
weather on ground power systems, communication- GPS systems, effect on
oil pipes etc.
• CO4: Compute the astronomical parameters like distances, temperature,
luminosity, brightness, density, mass size of the different planets and stars.
 Course Content
• INTRODUCTION TO ASTRONOMY [6L]
• Overview, scales and dimensions, Nighty Sky, Constellations, Sidereal
time. interplanetary space, solar-terrestrial and Earth-Moon systems.
Solar system, heliopause, properties of planets.
• GRAVITATION AND KEPLER’S LAW [4L]
• Two body problem, Application to solar system, Viral theorem, Tidal
forces and Roche Limit.
• PROPERTIES OF ATMOSPHERE [4L]
• Properties of the upper atmosphere, ionosphere, magnetic field, and
magnetosphere of the Earth, Coriolis Force, Van Allen Belts, Magnetic
Properties and Calculations of the Magnetic Field.
OBSERVATIONS AND MEASUREMENTS [6L]
Electromagnetic Waves, Electromagnetic Spectrum, Telescopes, Types, Mounting,
Resolution, Doppler Effect, Parallex, aberration, Photometery, flux density,
intensity, Magnitude Scale; Apparent magnitude, Absolute magnitude, The Color
index, Bolometric Magnitude, Stellar Temperatures, Extinction coefficient, Color
excess.
SPACE WEATHER [4L]
What is Space Weather, Effect of Space Weather on the Ground, Effect of
Space Weather on the Atmosphere, Effect of Space Weather on Spacecraft,
Mitigation of Space Weather.

STARS, STELLAR SPECTRA AND CLASSIFICATION [4L]

Stellar Spectra, Harvard Classification, Saha equation, HR diagram, Distance
and Age determination of Clusters using color magnitude diagram. Stellar
structure, Standard solar model.
PROPERTIES OF STARS [4L]
Early stage of star formation, Evaluation of main sequence, Nebula Phases,
Brown Dwarf, Red Dwarf, Yellow Dwarf, Classification of Stars, Red Giant
Phase, Supernova, Pulsars, Neutron Stars, Black Holes,

INTRODUCTION TO COSMOLOGY [4L]

Cosmology Theories, Big Bang, Big Crunch, Universe Expansion, Red SHift
 What is Astronomy?

aster = star
+
nomie=naming

➢ Astronomy, in modern terms, is observational scientific study of the universe

and its contents.
➢ Astrophysics is the combination of astronomy with theoretical understanding of
the processes taking place in astronomical objects.
➢ Astronomy is NOT Astrology
 A more basic question: What is science?

➢ science is not a collection of facts but It is a process. It’s a means by which we

try to understand how the world works.

Example:
▪ Watch a football game. Try to figure out the rules without knowing them or
having a rule book.

▪ Science is the process of trying to create a universal rule book.

 Role of Astronomy

➢ The Phenomena of the sky aroused Cro Magnon People’s interest a long time ago
around 30,000 yrs ago.
➢ The oldest astronomical documents: Bone engravings depicting the different phases of
moon.
➢ Agriculture Required good knowledge of the seasons.
➢ Religious rituals and prognostication were based on the location of celestial bodies.
➢ During the development of seafaring, for voyages determination of their location was the
challenge. Astronomy has provided the practical solution in terms of precise tables on
the movements of the planets.
➢ Discovery of laws governing the motions of the planets; Copernicus, Kepler, Galilei and
Newton
➢ Astronomical research; Man and Earth play an insignificant role in a vast universe ( in
contrary to anthropocentric view of ancient time)
 Role of Astronomy

➢ Astronomy has a central role in forming a scientific view of the world. “A

scientific view of the world ”means a model of the universe based on
observations, thoroughly tested theories and logical reasoning. Observations
are always the ultimate test of a model: if the model does not fit the
observations, it has to be changed, and this process must not be limited by
any philosophical, political or religious Conceptions or beliefs.
 Roll of Astronomy

➢ Modern astronomy explores the whole Universe and its different forms of matter and
energy. Astronomers study the contents of the Universe from the level of elementary
particles and molecules (with masses of 10−30kg) to The largest superclusters of galaxies
(with masses of 1050kg). Astronomy can be divided into different branches in Several
ways. The division can be made according to either the methods or the objects of
research.
➢ The Key interests of astronomy are earth, earth atmosphere, Moon.
➢ Although spacecraft and astronauts have visited its surface and brought samples.
➢ Space crafts have soft landed on mars and venus
➢ This kind of exploration has been tremendously added to our knowledge of the
conditions on the planets, but continuous monitoring can be made from the Earth.
➢ Many planets in our solar system still waiting for their space crafts.
 Chandrayaan program -II

ISRO has successfully launched

Chandrayaan 2 on July 22 2019 to
become the fourth country to land on
moon and first country to land on South
Pole of the moon. The mission aims to
deliver a rover to an elevated plane close
to lunar South Pole and investigate the
surface for signs of water. Scientific
goals of Chandrayaan 2 are to study the
lunar topography, mineralogy, elemental
abundance, lunar exosphere and
signatures of hydroxyl and water ice.
 Roll of Astronomy

➢ The Solar System is governed by the Sun, which produces energy in its centre
by nuclear fusion. The Sun is our nearest star, and its study lends insight into
conditions on other stars.
➢Some thousands of stars can be seen with the naked eye, but even a small
telescope reveals millions of them.
➢Stars can be classified according to their observed characteristics. A majority are
like the sun; we call them main sequence stars. However, Some stars are much
larger, giants or supergiants, and some are much smaller, whitedwarfs.
➢Different types of stars represent different stages of stellar evolution. Most stars
are components of binary or multiple systems, many are variable: their
brightness is not constant over the time.
 Roll of Astronomy

➢ Among the newest objects studied by astronomers are the compact stars:
neutron stars and black holes. In them, matter has been so greatly compressed
and the gravitational field is so strong that STR must be used.
➢ Stars are points of light in an other wise seemingly empty space. Yet
interstellar space is not empty, but contains large clouds of atoms, molecules,
elementary particles and dust. New matter is injected into interstellar space by
erupting and exploding stars; at other places, new stars are formed from
contracting interstellar clouds.
➢ Stars are not evenly distributed in space, but form concentrations, clusters of
stars. These consist of stars born near each other, and in some cases, remaining
together for billions of years.
 Role of Astronomy

➢The largest concentration of stars in the sky is the MilkyWay. It is a massive

stellar system, a galaxy, consisting of over 200 billion stars. All the stars
visible to the naked eye belong to the MilkyWay. Light travels across our
galaxy in100,000 Light years.
➢ The MilkyWay is not the only galaxy, but one of almost innumerable others.
Galaxies often form clusters of galaxies, and these clusters can be clumped
together into superclusters. Galaxies are seen at all distances as far away as
our observations reach. Still further out we see quasars –the light of the most
distant quasars we see now was emitted when the Universe was one-tenth of
its present age.
16
 Venus

Mercury

Mars

EARTH
17
18
Jupiter Uranus
Neptune

Earth
Pluto
(not a planet)
and its moon
Charon

Saturn
19
 The Sun

The Sun is our nearest

star and 1000 times
massive than Jupiter
which is 300 time
massive than Earth.

20
The Solar
System
21
 The Milky Way
(Our Galaxy)

A hundred, thousand,
22 million stars!
 the Milky Way
as seen from
the Enterprise

Light would take 100 000 Light

years to travel across the galaxy.
The light will take around 25000
years to reach at earth from the
centre of the Galaxy.
A hundred thousand light years across
23
 Distances

• It takes 8 minutes for light to reach us from the

Sun.
• A light-year is the distance travelled by light in 1
year.

• The Sun is our nearest star.

• Our next nearest star, Alpha Centauri is 4 light
years away.

• The Milky Way is 100 000 light years across.

24
 The local group of galaxies
Andromeda is
the nearest big
galaxy to the
Milky Way

Milky
Way
25
Light from Andromeda takes
2 million years to reach us.

Milky
Way

Andromeda

26
 The Local Supercluster
Here the local group has shrunk to the size of the Milky Way in
the last slide.

Local
group 27
Light from Virgo has taken 65 million years to reach us. It left
when the dinosaurs were on Earth.

Virgo
Cluster

28
 The Universe is mind-bogglingly big!

• The Sun is about 150 000 000 km away from

Earth (1.5 X1011 m)

• Bright stars in the night sky are about 1000 000 (1

million) times as far away as the Sun.

• The near galaxies are about 100 000 times as far

away as the bright stars.
– 15 000 000 000 000 000 000 km
29
 Astronomers measure length in
meters, astronomical units, & light-years

Basic unit of length = meter

Distance from Earth to Sun  1 astronomical unit (AU)

= 1.510 meters
11

= 150 million kilometers (= 93 million miles)

Distance traveled by light in one year  1 light year (ly)

= 9.51015 meters
= 63,000 astronomical units
Astronomers measure time in seconds & years
Basic unit of time = second

Time for Earth to go around Sun  1 year

= 3651/4 days = 3.2  10 seconds
7

Age of astronomer 1.2 10 seconds 40 years

9

Age of Earth = 4.6 109 years

 Astronomers measure mass in
kilograms

Note: mass and weight are NOT the same thing.

MASS = amount of matter.

WEIGHT = force with which gravity tugs on matter.

Mass = 1 kilogram = 35.274 ounces

Weight = 35 ounces on Earth;
6 ounces on Moon;
13 ounces on Mars.
 Density

➢ The greatest density met on the earth is 22,500 kg/m3 (Osmium Transition metal
M= 76)

𝑘𝑔
➢ While in neutron stars 𝜌 ~ 1018 𝑚3

➢ The density in the best vacuum achieved on earth is only 10-9 kg/m3 but in
interstellar space the density of the gases may be 10-21 kg/m3 or even less.

➢ Modern accelerators can give particle energy of the order of 10 12 ev, while cosmic
rays coming from the space may have energy over 1020 eV.
Mass of astronomer
= 70 kilograms (kg)

Mass of Earth
= 6 10 kg
24

Mass of Sun
= 2 10 kg
30

= 330,000  mass of Earth The Earth as seen from the Moon. The picture was taken on
the first Apollo flight around the Moon, Apollo 8 in
1968.(Photo NASA)
 Nighty Sky
➢ If seeing conditions are favorable, a view of the night sky provides a far wider variety of
celestial phenomena.
➢ Shapes of Moon If it is visible; crescent or gibbous or even circular. At the last condition, its
apparent diameter is very close to that of the Sun.
➢ We can see a ‘Man in the Moon’, a ‘Beautiful Lady’ or a ‘Rabbit’, sketched out by these
features.
➢ Some two to three thousand tiny, twinkling points of light—the stars are seen, ranging in
brightness from ones easily visible just after sunset to ones just visible when the Moon is
below the horizon and the sky background is darkest.
➢ Careful comparison of one bright star with another shows that stars have different colours; for
example, in the star pattern of Orion, one of the many constellations, Betelgeuse is a red star in
contrast to the blue of Rigel.
➢ With the eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness, a faint band of light, the MilkyWay,
catches the observer’s attention. Modern astronomers, with the aid of telescopes, know that
this luminous region stretching from horizon to horizon across the sky in a great circle is made
up of a myriad of stars too faint to be resolved with the naked eye.
 Nighty Sky

➢As darkness falls, the first stars become visible above the eastern horizon. With the
ending of twilight the fainter stars can be seen and, as the hours pass, the stellar groups
rise from the eastern horizon, reach their maximum altitude like the Sun, then set or
become dim and invisible as daylight returns.
➢The impression of being on a flat plane surmounted by a dark revolving bowl to which
the stars are projected is strong, especially when it is seen that there are many stars in a
particular region of the sky that revolve, never rising, never setting, about a hub or
pivot. These stars are said to be circumpolar.
➢ Occasionally a bright object, called a meteor, shoots across the sky in a second,
looking like a fast-moving or ‘falling star’.
➢It may be too that faintly luminous sheets are seen, hanging down the bowl of the
heavens like great curtains. These are the aurorae.
 Nighty Sky

➢it is quite likely that one or more faint specks of light will be seen to cross the
sky, taking a few minutes to do so, their presence giving reminder that man-made
satellites are now in orbit about the Earth. Indeed, one of the latest satellites the
International Space Station is exceedingly bright as bright as the brightest planet
Venus and bears testament to the continual development of manned orbiting
laboratories.
 Celestial Sphere

➢ The ancient universe was confined within a finite spherical shell The stars were fixed to this
shell and thus were all equidistant from the Earth, which was at the centre of the spherical
universe. It helps us to easily understand the diurnal and annual motions of stars, and, more
important, to predict these motions in a relatively simple way.
➢ Since the distances of the stars are ignored, we need only two coordinates to specify their
directions. Each coordinate frame has some fixed reference plane passing through the centre
of the celestial sphere and dividing the sphere into two hemispheres along a great circle.
➢ The Horizontal Plane; tangential plane at the point of observation on Earth.
➢ The Equatorial system; The plane perpendicular to axis of rotation of Earth.
➢ The elliptic System; The orbital plane of Earth
➢ Galactic Coordinates; For studies of the Milky Way Galaxy, the most natural reference
plane is the plane of the Milky Way
Celestial Sphere

➢ The geometry of the sphere is made up of

great circles, small circles and arcs of these
figures. Distances along great circles are
often measured as angles since, for
convenience, the radius of the sphere is made
unity.
➢ A great circle is defined to be the
intersection with the sphere of a plane
containing the centre of the sphere. Since the
centre is equidistant from all points on the
sphere, the figure of intersection must be a
circle by definition.
➢ If the plane does not contain the centre of the
sphere, its intersection with the sphere is a
small circle.
Position on the Earth’s surface Latitude and
Longitude
The Equator
The equator is located at zero degrees latitude. The equator runs
through Indonesia, Ecuador, northern Brazil, the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, and Kenya. It is 24,901.55 miles
(40,075.16 kilometers) long. On the equator, the sun is directly
overhead at noon on the two equinoxes - near March and
September 21. The equator divides the planet into the Northern
and Southern Hemispheres. On the equator, the length of day and
night are equal every day of the year - day is always twelve hours
long and night is always twelve hours long
Prime Meridian

While the equator divides the Earth into Northern

and Southern Hemispheres, it is the Prime Meridian
at zero degrees longitude and divides the Earth into
the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. The Eastern
Hemisphere consists of Europe, Africa, Asia, and
Australia while the Western Hemisphere includes
North and South America. The Prime Meridian and
all lines of longitude are completely imaginary lines
and have no significance with regard to the Earth or
to its relationship with the sun. The longitude may be
expressed in angular measure or in time units related
to each other
 Astronomical Latitude

➢ When a plumb-line is suspended by an observer at a point on the Earth’s surface, its

direction makes an angle with the plane of the Earth’s equator. This angle is called the
astronomical latitude, φ. The point where the plumb-line’s direction meets the
equatorial plane is not, in general, the centre of the Earth. The angle between the line
joining the observer to the Earth’s centre and the equatorial plane is the geocentric
latitude, φ.
➢ There is yet a third definition of latitude. Geodetic measurements on the Earth’s surface
show local irregularities in the direction of gravity due to variations in the density and
shape of the Earth’s crust. The direction in which a plumb-line hangs is affected by such
anomalies and these are referred to as station error. The geodetic or geographic
latitude, φ , of the observer is the astronomical latitude corrected for station error.
 Departure
If two places on the Earth’s surface have the same
latitude, they are said to lie on the same parallel of
latitude. Thus, in figure, two places A and B, both
of latitude φ North, lie on the parallel of latitude
AB.
Their distance apart, measured along the small
circle arc AB, is called the departure. In the
example, we assume the Earth to be spherical.
Angle DOB is the latitude φ, so that AC = BD = φ.
If the longitudes of A and B are λA West and λB
West respectively, then their difference in longitude
is λA − λB and CD = Angle COD = λA − λB.
Then, Departure is given by departure = difference in longitude × cos(latitude).
AB = CD cos BD
 Nautical Miles

➢ Distance on the Earth’s surface is usually measured in nautical miles, a nautical mile being
the great circle distance subtending an angle of one minute of arc at the Earth’s centre.
Although the unit may sound ‘old fashioned’, it is still used in air transport and in ‘down
range’ distances at rocket launches. Because the Earth’s surface is not absolutely spherical,
the length of the nautical mile varies,being 6046 feet at the equator and 6108 feet at the poles.
➢ A mean value of 6080 feet is used in the UK but the International Nautical Mile used by the
Admiralty and most other nations, measures 1·8520 km being defined to be equal to one
minute of arc at a latitude of 45◦.
➢ A rate of 1 nautical mile per hour is termed 1 knot, the unit in which a ship’s speed is usually
measured. The difference in longitude may be expressed in minutes of arc, this number being
equal to the number of nautical miles. The departure can then be calculated from the equation
departure = difference in longitude × cos(latitude).
➢ It is to be noted that the difference in longitude is formed algebraically taking east longitudes
to be of opposite sign to west longitudes.
 Numerical Questions
Q.1 There are about 7,000 asteroids in our solar system. Assume each one has a mass of 1017 kg. What is the total mass of
all the asteroids? If these asteroids are all rocky, and so have a density of about 3,000 kg/m3, how large a planet could
be formed from them?
Q.2 What is the maximum value of the force of gravity exerted on you by Jupiter?
Q.3 What is the circular velocity of the space shuttle in lower Earth orbit (300 km above the surface)?
Q.4 What is the density of the Earth? How does this compare to the density of rocks (between 2,000 and 3,500 kg/m3)?
What does this mean?
Q.5 An asteroid’s closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is 2 AU, and farthest distance from the Sun (aphelion) is 4 AU.
What is the semi-major axis of its orbit? What is the period of the asteroid? What is the eccentricity?
Q.6 The average speed of atoms in a gas is 5 km/s. How fast will they move if the temperature increases by a factor of
four?
Q.7 What is the average speed of nitrogen molecules (m =4:7 x 10-26 kg) at 758F?

Q.8 Calculate the length of the nautical mile in feet, given that the Earth is a sphere of radius 3960 miles.
Q.9 Two places A and B have latitude and longitude (35◦ 28_ N, 44◦ 32 _ W) and (35◦ 28_ N, 13◦ 30_ W) respectively. Calculate the
departure between them.
Q.9 Two places A and B on the same parallel of latitude 38◦ 33 N are 123◦ 19 apart
in longitude. Calculate in nautical miles (i) their distance apart along the
parallel, (ii) the great circle distance AB.
Q.10 Two seaports are on the same parallel of latitude 42 ◦ 27 N. Their difference in
longitude is 137◦ 35. Ship A and ship B sail at 20 knots from one port to the
other. Ship A sails along the parallel of latitude; ship B sails the great circle
route connecting the two ports. Calculate the time difference in their arrival
times if they leave port together.