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Quarter 2 – Module 16
How the Speeds and Distances
of Far-off Objects are Estimated
(e.g., Doppler Effect and Cosmic
Distance Ladder)
Physical Science
Alternative Delivery Mode
Quarter 2 – Module 16: How the Speeds and Distances of Far-off Objects are Estimated (e.g.,
Doppler Effect and Cosmic Distance Ladder)
First Edition 2020
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Answer Key
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What I Need to Know
This module was designed and written with you in mind. It is here to help you
master on how the speeds and distances of far-off objects are estimated (e.g.,
Doppler effect and cosmic distance ladder. The scope of this module permits it to be
used in many different learning situations. The language used recognizes the
diverse vocabulary level of students. The lessons are arranged to follow the
standard sequence of the course. But the order in which you read them can be
changed to correspond with the textbook you are now using.
The module focuses on how the speeds and distances of far-off objects are
estimated (e.g., Doppler effect and cosmic distance ladder).
After going through this module, you are expected to explain on how the speeds
and distances of far-off objects are estimated (e.g., Doppler effect and cosmic
distance ladder).
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What I Know
Choose the letter of the best answer. Write the chosen letter on a separate sheet of
paper.
1. What is the branch of science that deals with the celestial objects, space, and
the physical universe as a whole?
a. astronomy
b. biology
c. chemistry
d. physics
2. Which of the following technologies provides the least information about
celestial bodies in our solar system?
a. global positioning system
b. remote sensing
c. spectral analysis
d. telescope
3. Why does Hubble Space Telescope produce clearer images than similar
telescopes that are used on Earth?
a. There is no air pressure in space excretion.
b. There is no interference from Earth’s atmosphere in space.
c. The Hubble Space Telescope is closer to the stars that it is viewing.
d. The Hubble Space Telescope is in orbit at about 550 km from Earth.
4. What condition has the increase or decrease in the frequency of sound, light, or
waves as the source and observer move toward or away from each other?
a. cosmic distance ladder
b. cosmic microwave background
c. Doppler effect
d. redshift
5. Why do astronomers conduct spectral analysis?
a. to determine the composition of stars
b. to map the location of celestial bodies in the sky
c. to observe celestial bodies that were previously invisible
d. to see images in space that are not distorted by Earth’s atmosphere
6. What method do astronomers use in determining the distances to celestial
objects?
a. cosmic distance ladder
b. cosmic microwave background
c. Doppler effect
d. redshift
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7. Which of the following ripples in the geometry of space is produced by the
acceleration of moving objects?
a. Doppler effect
b. elongation
c. granulation
d. gravitational waves
8. Which of the following determines the distance by measuring the angle of
apparent shift in an object’s position?
a. cosmic distance ladder
b. Doppler effect
c. parallax
d. redshift
9. What technique is used in studying the motion of stars and search for double
stars?
a. cosmic distance ladder
b. Doppler effect
c. parallax
d. redshift
10. What celestial body emits large amounts of energy and having a star-like image
in a telescope?
a. asteroid
b. comet
c. meteor
d. quasar
11. What system is used to detect the presence, direction, distance, and speed of an
object?
a. frequency
b. map
c. radar
d. radio
12. Which of the following terms is defined as the rate of which a vibration occurs
that constitutes a wave in an electromagnetic field?
a. frequency
b. map
c. radar
d. radio
13. What wave of compression and rarefaction propagates a sound in an elastic
medium?
a. air
b. light
c. solar
d. sound
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14. What do you call the band of colors produced by the separation of the
components of light with their different degrees of refraction?
a. lens
b. mirror
c. sound
d. spectrum
15. What word best describes the distance between successive crests of wave?
a. length
b. measurement
c. sound wave
d. wavelength
Even in this era of giant telescopes, infrared and ultraviolet telescopes, telescope
arrays and telescopes in space, the business of estimating the distance of far-away
objects remains astonishingly uncertain.
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What’s In
Activity 1.1
The general relativity is a major building block of modern physics. It explains
gravity based on the way space can 'curve'. To put it more accurately, it associates
the force of gravity with the changing geometry of space-time.
With your learnings of postulates of general relativity, list down five ways on how
you observe the general relativity in real life. Explain each way.
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What’s New
Activity 1.2
Experiment time! Ask the company of someone (must be an adult) with car or
motorcycle.
Experiment No. 1
Materials:
cellphone, someone with a car/motorcycle, wristwatch (preferably digital watch or
watch with seconds)
Procedure:
1. Go out on the road with your friend who can drive a car or motorcycle. Take your
watch for recording time.
2. Look for a long, straight road where there are no houses or other cars. Find a
place where you can safely sit or stand on the side of the road.
3. Tell your friend to pass you three times at different speed (e.g., can be once at
20, once at 30, and once at 40 miles per hour).
4. Ask your friend to blow horn each time as the car or motorcycle passes you.
6. Also make a recording of what the horn sounds like when the car is not moving.
7. Let your friend drive and pass you without telling you the speed.
Guide questions:
1. How did you find the activity?
2. Can you estimate the speed from the pitch of the sound?
3. How does the pitch of the sound help you in estimating the speed?
Experiment No. 2
Materials:
cellphone, picture, scissors, tape, tape measure
Procedure:
1. Post any picture on the wall.
2. From the wall, measure two meters and stand on that spot.
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3. While covering your right eye, look at the picture on the wall and make an
observation.
4. Next, cover your left eye and look again at the picture on the wall. Make an
observation.
Guide questions:
1. How did you find the activity?
What is It
Doppler Effect
Progress over the last few generations has meant overcoming some built-in
problems of circular reasoning. Astronomers would like to use knowledge about
brightness to calculate how far away a galaxy is. They would like to use knowledge
about how far away galaxies are to calculate their typical brightness. They can use
distance to calculate speed, and speed to calculate distance, but not both at once.
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How Does Doppler Effect Apply to Galaxies in Space?
Galaxies are also emitters of waves. They are emitters of electromagnetic waves.
Light waves travel at a specific finite speed of 299,792,458 m/s.
The source of these light waves is largely the abundant quantities of hydrogen and
helium making up most of the mass of the stars in the galaxies. But there are also
many other elements contributing to the colors emitted. The mix of many colors
blends together for an overall white. By passing the light through a prism, the
colors can be separated into a broad spectrum. Interpreting these stellar spectra is
much like looking for fingerprints to identify a person. Notice in the different rows
of spectra from a variety of stars how there are faint dark vertical lines scattered
across each one. These are called absorption lines.
Here is the important point to make. The stars of the distant galaxy might be
moving away from us while the light is emitted. That will cause the absorption lines
to appear at longer wavelengths than if the stars were stationary. The lines will be
shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. Red light is of a longer wavelength than
blue light. The enlarged portion of this image shows such a redshift. And, just as
with sound waves, the amount of shift (∆λ) is an indication of the recession speed of
the source of waves, the stars in this case.
distances that one can measure directly. Fortunately, astronomers have a vital tool
to help them answer that central question: how far? That tool is the cosmic distance
ladder.
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Measurements of the size of the Earth go back in time to at least the ancient
Greeks. Eratosthenes (3rd century BCE) came surprisingly close to determining the
radius of the Earth (he was perhaps one sixth too high). Eratosthenes also invented
the concepts of latitude and longitude. The
great Indian mathematician Aryabhata (CE
476 – 550) was a pioneer of mathematical
astronomy. He came within one percent of
the current value for the circumference of
the Earth.
1. Direct measurement
Direct distance measurements are only possible for stars within a little more than
1000 light years even with precision, space-based telescopes. A similar principle
can be used to work out the distance to stars, but accurately and mathematically
rather than automatically.
2. Parallax diagram
Parallax is an apparent displacement or difference in the apparent position of an
object viewed along two different lines of sight. Triangulation is the technique that
uses parallax. This technique can be used only for objects ‘close enough’ (within
about 1000 parsecs) to Earth. The distance unit parsec stands for parallax second;
the distance at which the angle subtended by the celestial object is one arcsecond.
The first successful measurement of the distance to a star using this method was
carried out by the German astronomer Friedrich Bassel in 1838, when he
determined that 61 Cygni is 10.4 ly away.
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a. Trigonometric parallax: By measuring the apparent motion of nearby stars
against the background, we can directly calculate their distances. This technique
has been used to measure the distances to many nearby stars and star clusters out
to approximately 100 parsecs from
the Earth.
3. Standard candles
While parallax is used to calibrate
the cosmic distance scale by allowing
us to work out the distances to
nearby stars, other methods must be
used for much more distant bodies,
since their parallax angle is too small
to measure accurately.
Cepheids are luminous variable stars that radially pulsate. The strong direct
relationship between a Cepheid’s luminosity and its pulsation period makes them
an important standard candle for galactic and extragalactic. To use them as
standard candles, one observes the pulsation period to get the luminosity (absolute
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magnitude). By then measuring the apparent brightness (value observed at Earth)
one has everything needed to use the distance modulus m–M.
Binary star systems are very important in astronomy because calculations of their
orbits allow the masses of their component stars to be directly determined, which
in turn allows indirect estimates of other stellar parameters, such as radius and
density. This also determines an empirical mass-luminosity relationship from
which the masses of single stars can be estimated. Binaries can sometimes be used
as distance indicators. Binary stars are often detected optically, in which case they
are called visual binaries. These binaries are two separate stars.
Other formula can also be used to determine absolute magnitude, and therefore
distance, such as the Tully-Fisher relation, which links the luminosity of a spiral
galaxy with the range of its rotational velocities, and the Faber-Jackson relation,
from which the luminosity of an elliptical galaxy can be calculated from the
dispersion of velocities of the stars in its center.
4. Redshift
As well as realizing that the Andromeda Galaxy is separate from our own, Hubble
discovered that the redshift of light from other galaxies is proportional to how far
away they are – this is now known as Hubble’s law.
The large redshifts of the light from what are now known to be distant galaxies
were first noted by the American astronomer Vesto Slipher in 1912 and are a result
of the Doppler Effect. Galaxies further from the Earth are moving away from it
faster than ones close by.
What’s More
Activity 1.3
Another simple experiment! Ask the company of your sibling or anyone present at
home.
Materials:
cellphone, hammer, medium size nail, pair of scissors, string, tape, two pieces of
tin cans (preferably milk cans)
Procedure:
1. Open the tin cans but make sure the bottom lids remain unopen.
2. Put a hole in the middle part of the bottom lid using a hammer and a medium-
sized nail.
3. Cut a string at an appropriate length (2.5 meters- 4 meters).
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4. Insert the string in the two holes.
5. Secure the string by putting a tape on each hole.
6. Get one tin can and give the other one to your sibling.
7. Let the two of you pull the string from a distance.
8. Hold one tin can up to your ear while asking your sibling to whisper or talk on
the other tin can and vice versa.
9. Repeat procedures number 7 and 8. This time from a different distance.
10. Record the time (in seconds) when the sound reaches from point (where you
stay) to another point (where your sibling stays).
11. Make a video of the whole experiment to know what is happening.
Guide questions:
1. How did you find the activity?
2. What did you observe between the time at two different distances?
3. How does the sound from a distance reach from one area to another?
After doing the experiment, create a poem on how speed and distances of far
objects are estimated.
Spelling and All spelling and Some spelling and Some spelling Notable spelling
Grammar grammar are grammar error and grammar and grammar
correct error error
Score Sheet
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What I Have Learned
Activity 1.4
Analogy: Choose the best answer on the given words inside the box.
What I Can Do
Activity 1.5
Eyes and ears are two of the most important parts of a human body. These serve as
the soul of an individual, but these may also be the root of some evil. Some people
used to criticize one person with his/her physical appearance. Some are fond of
making false spoken statement which causes damage to a person's reputation. This
situation happens especially in any social media platforms. Below is a verse from
the Bible. Write your insight about this verse.
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2 Corinthians 12:20 NIV
“For I am afraid that when I come, I may not find you as I want you to be, and you
may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be discord, jealousy, fits
of rage, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder.
Assessment
True or False. Write T if the statement is true and F if the statement is false. Write
your answer on a sheet of paper.
Additional Activities
Activity 1.6
Watch the video on “How is it possible to measure the distance to stars and
galaxies?” After watching the video, make your own summary of what you learned
about the topic.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6iIutoaM-g.
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Answer Key
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References
Biblestudytools.com.”2-Corinthians 12- 20.” Accessed May 30, 2020.
https://www.biblestudytools.com/2-corinthians/12-20.html
Commission on Higher Education. Teaching Guide for Senior High School: Physical
Science Book.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B869YF0KEHr7SHFGVG5mVFFhcXc
/view. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0
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