AA 100 – Introduction to Astronomy
Homework Week 7 – Light
Learning Objectives
● Identify types of information that one can obtain from an object’s spectrum.
● Practice the types of calculations that professional astronomers make using real data.
Light Equations
Wien’s Law λpeak = brightest wavelength (in nm)
T = temperature (in K)
𝜆𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑘 ⋅ 𝑇 = 2,900,000 𝑛𝑚 ⋅ 𝐾
Doppler Effect v = speed of moving object (in m/s)
c = speed of light = 300,000,000 m/s
𝜆𝑜𝑏𝑠 λobs = observed wavelength of line (in nm)
𝑣 = 𝑐[ − 1]
𝜆𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑡 λemit = rest wavelength of line (in nm)
a negative speed = moving towards
you
a positive speed = moving away
from you
Thermal Spectra
1) As the heating element on a stove top gets hotter, it begins to glow at visible wavelengths.
a) How hot must the heating element be to glow most brightly at red wavelengths of 650 nm?
b) How hot must the heating element be to glow most brightly at blue wavelengths of 440 nm?
c) Hotter objects emit bluer light, and cooler objects emit redder light. So why is it that your hot
water faucet is labeled red, but your cold water faucet is labeled blue?
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Homework Week 7 – Light
Line Spectra and Doppler Shifts
The real spectrum below was collected for a spiral galaxy, much like the one shown in the following
figure. The lines in its spectrum are shifted overall because the entire galaxy is moving away from us.
However, the lines from either side of the galaxy show an additional redshift or blueshift because the
galaxy is rotating.
To collect a galaxy spectrum, you must first place a very thin slit over the galaxy, so that you don’t
collect any light from the background sky. Then you separate that light into different wavelengths using
a prism or a grating.
Depending upon the composition of the galaxy, some wavelengths show strong emission while others
don’t. Of course, a camera only detects how bright light is; it won’t really produce a color image unless
you use special filters. Then, because half of a galaxy is rotating towards Earth and the other half is
rotating away, one side of its spectrum will be blueshifted and the other side will be redshifted compared
to the center of the galaxy.
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Homework Week 7 – Light
2) The red x’s on the real spectrum above show the location of the hydrogen alpha line for different
parts of the disk in a galaxy’s spectrum. In the laboratory, the rest wavelength of hydrogen alpha
emission is 656 nm.
a) At what speed is this galaxy moving away from Earth? Hint: measure the observed wavelength
of the hydrogen alpha line for the center of the galaxy.
b) At what overall speed are stars at the top edge of this galaxy moving away from Earth? Hint:
measure the observed wavelength of the hydrogen alpha line for the top edge of the galaxy.
c) How fast are stars at the edge of this galaxy orbiting? To figure this out, subtract your answer
for a) from your answer for b).
Let’s assume that the stars at the edge of this galaxy are moving in circular orbits.
If so, their speed would be given by the following equation. Speed (v) is distance
travelled over time (here P stands for orbital period), and the circumference of a
circle depends on its radius (R).
3) Since you know the speed that these stars are moving at in their orbits from part c), use the
radius of their orbit to calculate how long it takes one star at the edge of the disk to complete
one orbit; this is known as the orbital period.
Before you calculate this, speed is in m/s, so radius has to be in meters. Convert 33,000 light
years to meters first. (1 light year = 9.5 x 1015 meters.) The orbital period will come out in
seconds. Convert this to years so that it makes more sense.
4) Kepler’s Third Law tells us that an object’s orbital period (P) depends on
the radius of its orbit (R) and the amount of matter (M) exerting enough
gravitational force to keep it in orbit.
In the simplified version of Kepler’s Third Law shown above, the units are a bit strange. The
equation in this form only works if the period is in years, the radius is in astronomical units, and
the mass of the galaxy is in solar masses. Use the period (in years) that you know from your
previous results, and the radius of the galaxy (in astronomical units, 1 AU = 1.5 x 1011 meters)
to calculate how much mass this galaxy contains (in solar masses).
*As a point of reference, the Milky Way contains a few hundred billion stars; you can assume
they each have an average mass of about 1 solar mass.
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