The Universe

The Universe is….. All matter, including earth, galaxies, and intergalactic space.

Big Bang An idea about how the universe could have formed. The Big Bang Theory says that the universe was originally a dense ball of matter. An explosion occurred and all matter is moving outward from the center and is still moving outward and expanding today.

Evidence for the Big Bang Theory Doppler Effect- Expansion of the Universe Microwave Radiation- energy that is given off by all objects in space. The energy could be left over from the Big Bang. Quasars- old objects at the edge of the universe.

Doppler Effect The Doppler Effect is the apparent change in wavelength of light or sound when an object is moving towards or away from you.

How the Doppler Effect Works If a train comes towards you, its sound waves get compressed and get shorter. You hear a higher pitch. If it moves away from you, the wavelength stretches, and you hear a lower pitch.

The Doppler Effect also applies to light If an object in space is moving towards us, its wavelength shortens, and the light shifts towards the blue end of the color spectrum. If an object is moving away from us, its wavelength lengthens, and the light shifts towards the red end of the color spectrum.

Longer- moving away from us Shorter- moving towards us

What the Doppler Effect shows us… Matter in the universe has a RED SHIFT, which shows it is moving away from us. Therefore, it appears that the universe is expanding. The Big Bang could have caused this expansion.

What do Quasars indicate…. If the Big Bang really happened, the oldest objects should be at the edge of the universe. Quasars are very old objects that give off large amounts of energy located at the edge of the Universe.

Galaxies After the Big Bang, Gravity attracted objects to each other, and they clumped together to form GALAXIES. There are three types of Galaxies: Spiral, Elliptical, and Irregular.

Spiral Galaxies Have spiral shapes. Contain lots of dust and gas between stars.

Elliptical Galaxies Shaped like a football. “Clean” galaxies: Very little dust and gas.

Irregular Galaxies Have no specific shape. Contain some dust and gas.

Hubble Telescope Hubble telescope a telescope that orbits the earth outside our atmosphere. It provides us with many of the images we have of space. It is an especially useful telescope because it does not have to view things through our atmosphere

The Milky Way Our Sun is just a small star in its main sequence among millions of other stars in our galaxy!!!

Jupiter Crab Nebula

The Sombrero Galaxy - 28 million light years from Earth - was voted best picture taken by the Hubble telescope. It has 800 billion suns and is 50,000 light years across

The Ant Nebula, a cloud of dust and gas who resembles an ant when observed using ground-based telescopes. The nebula lies within our galaxy between 3,000 and 6,000 light years from Earth

This picture is called Eskimo because it looks like a face surrounded by a furry hood. The hood is, in fact, a ring of comet-shaped objects flying away from a dying star.

Cat's Eye Nebula

The Hourglass Nebula, 8,000 light years away, has a pinched-in-the-middle look because the winds that shape it are weaker at the center

Cone Nebula The part pictured here is 2 Cone Nebula The part pictured here is 2.5 light years in length (the equivalent of 23 million return trips to the Moon)

The Perfect Storm, a small region in the Swan Nebula, 5,500 light years away, described as 'a bubbly ocean of hydrogen and small amounts of oxygen, sulphur and other elements'

Starry Night, so named because it reminded astronomers of the Van Gogh painting. It is a halo of light around a star in the Milky Way

The glowering eyes from 114 million light years away are the swirling cores of two merging galaxies called NGC 2207 and IC 2163 in the distant Canis Major constellation

The Trifid Nebula. A 'stellar nursery', 9,000 light years from here, it is where new stars are being born

International Space Station