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Booklet 4 Cosmology
Contents
4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 Olbers' Paradox ............................................................. 4 RedShift ....................................................................... 6 Big Bang....................................................................... 8 Cosmic Microwave Background ........................................ 9 Open, Flat, Closed? ...................................................... 10 Critical Density ............................................................ 11 Dark Matter ................................................................ 12 Other Materials............................................................ 13
Figures
4.1 4.2 Recreation of Hubble's Original Data ................................. 6 Fate of the Universe ..................................................... 10
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Olbers' Paradox
The Universe as Newton saw it gave rise to a paradox, known as Olbers' paradox after Heinrich Olbers, who raised the issue in 1823. He deduced that in an infinite Universe of infinite age, there would be an infinite number of stars. If you were, therefore, to look in any direction in the sky, your line of sight would eventually hit on a star's surface. Since every direction would lead to a star, and given the absolute luminosity of a star and the inverse square law for the dimming of light with distance, the night sky would be infinitely bright. Olbers' paradox asks the question "why is the night sky dark?"
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Astronomers now conclude that the Universe began some 12-15 billion years ago. We are, however, only seeing the part of it that lies within 12-15 billion light years from us, with the rest of the stars beyond our sight. The number of stars whose light reaches us is not enough to fill the sky with light. In addition, astronomers now argue that while the Universe is infinite, there are a finite number of stars filling it, and the expansion of the Universe explains the lack of absolute starlight in the night sky.
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4.2 RedShift
Early in the 20th century, astronomers noticed that features in spectra from distant galaxies were shifted towards the red end of the spectrum. The degree of redshift is related to the velocity of recession, or how fast away from us the galaxy is moving. In 1929 astronomer Edwin Hubble produced a paper that plotted the relationship between the velocity of recession and the distance.
v = H xd
[4.1]
H0 = 75 10 kms 1 /Mpc
Age of Universe = 13.5 Giga Years
Hubble's observations suggested that the farther away the galaxy the faster the recession. This phenomenon is described as the Doppler redshift. It is similar to the effect that makes a car sound lower-pitched as it travels away from you. A similar effect Teachers Notes Booklet 4: Cosmology Page 6 of 14
applies to light as well, so that if an astronomical object is travelling away from the Earth, its light will be shifted to longer, red wavelengths. It is this Doppler red shift in the spectra of distant galaxies that leads scientists to conclude that the Universe is expanding.
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A Uniform Background
One of the basic tenets of the Big Bang model is that the Universe is expanding, which automatically implies that it was smaller, denser and hotter in the past. Thus, if we know how old the Universe is and its expansion rate, we can also estimate what its current thermodynamic temperature must be, and consequently its radiation frequency. Scientists have calculated that the expansion of the Universe has led to a background radiation of a temperature of 2.73 K, which falls into the microwave region of the temperature spectrum. Human eyes cannot see the microwaves from the CMB, although detectors such as those to be carried by ESA's Planck mission will be able to detect them. CMB is the farthest and oldest light that any telescope can detect.
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Figure 4.2: The Different Fates of the Universe Depending on Critical Density
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c =
3H 2 8G
[4.2]
The derived value of critical density is, therefore, dependent on the Hubble Constant. The greater the accuracy of H, as derived in equation [4.1], the more precise the value for c. Another useful equation relates to the matter density parameter, , the critical value of which is defined as
c =
[4.3]
where is the observed density of the Universe and c the critical density. The fate of the Universe can then be defined in terms of . < 1 open Universe = 1 flat Universe > 1 closed Universe
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Each booklet can be used to cover a topic on its own, or as part of a series. Booklets 5 and 6 expand on the material covered in the other booklets and there is, therefore, some overlap in content. All the booklets can be accessed via the ESA Science and Technology at: http://sci.esa.int/teachernotes For other educational resources visit the ESA Science and Technology Educational Support website at: http://sci.esa.int/education
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