Understanding Our Universe
3rd Edition
ISBN: 9780393614428
Author: PALEN, Stacy, Kay, Laura, Blumenthal, George (george Ray)
Publisher: W.w. Norton & Company,
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Question
Chapter 14, Problem 38QAP
To determine
Fraction of the volume of the Milky Way taken up by the disk.
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Our galaxy is approximately 100,000 light years in diameter and 2,000 light years thick through the plane of the galaxy. If we were to compare the ratio of the diameter galaxy and its thickness to the ratio of the diameter of a CD and its thickness (CD has a diameter of 12 cm and thickness of 0.6 mm), what would be the factor differentiating those ratios? Put differently, if the galaxy were scaled down to the diameter of a CD, how many times thicker or thinner would the galaxy be than the CD? (For example if it would be twice as thick, you would answer 2 and if it were twice as thin you would answer 0.5 (aka 1/2))
The disk of the Milky Way galaxy contains roughly 200 billion (1 billion = 109 ) stars. The disk is not solid, but rather is a volume about 100,000 light-years in diameter (1 ly = 9500 billion kilometers) and 1000 light-years in thickness. What is the number density of stars in the Milky Way galaxy disk, in units of stars per cubic light-year? How about in units of stars per cubic km?
The Milky Way galaxy has about 5 x 10⁹ solar masses of gas in total. If 13 solar masses of that gas is turned into stars each year, how many more years could the Milky Way keep up with such a star formation rate?
years
(Note for comparison that the age of the universe is about 13.5 billion years, which can be written 1.35e10 years. Also, the value given is in the ballpark of how much gas in the Milky Way is used to make new stars each year.)
Chapter 14 Solutions
Understanding Our Universe
Ch. 14.1 - Prob. 14.1CYUCh. 14.2 - Prob. 14.2CYUCh. 14.3 - Prob. 14.3CYUCh. 14.4 - Prob. 14.4CYUCh. 14 - Prob. 1QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 2QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 3QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 4QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 5QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 6QAP
Ch. 14 - Prob. 7QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 8QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 9QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 10QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 11QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 12QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 13QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 14QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 15QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 16QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 17QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 18QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 19QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 20QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 21QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 22QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 23QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 24QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 25QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 27QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 28QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 29QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 30QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 31QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 32QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 33QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 34QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 35QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 36QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 37QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 38QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 39QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 40QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 41QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 43QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 44QAPCh. 14 - Prob. 45QAP
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- If the sun is 4.6 billion years old, how many times has it orbited the Milky Way? (The sun is 8,300 pc from the cemetery of the Milky Way, and orbits the center at a speed of 225 km/s.) ______ timesarrow_forwardLet us assume that our galaxy consists of 2.5 × 1011 stars each of one solar mass. How long will a star at a distance of 50,000 ly from the galactic centre take to complete one revolution ? Take the diameter of the Milky Way to be 105 light year.arrow_forwardAssume that dark matter is uniformly distributed throughout the Milky Way, not just in the outer halo but also throughout the bulge and in the disk, where the solar system lives. How much dark matter would you expect there to be inside the solar system? Would you expect that to be easily detectable? Hint: For the radius of the Milky Way’s dark matter halo, use R=300,000 light-years; for the solar system’s radius, use 100 AU; and start by calculating the ratio of the two volumes.arrow_forward
- If the diameter of the Milky Way Galaxys visible disk, 80,000 ly, is represented in a model by a dinner plate with a diameter of 10 inches, what is the model distance to galaxy M31, 2.6 millionly away? What is the model distance to the Virgo galaxy cluster, 16 Mpc away? (Convert answers to feet.)arrow_forwardUsing the information provided in Table 18.1, what is the average stellar density in our part of the Galaxy? Use only the true stars (types OM) and assume a spherical distribution with radius of 26 light-years. Stars within 21 Light-Years of the Sunarrow_forwardStars form in the Milky Way at a rate of about 1 solar mass per year. At this rate, how long would it take for all the interstellar gas in the Milky Way to be turned into stars if there were no fresh gas coming in from outside? How does this compare to the estimated age of the universe, 14 billion years? What do you conclude from this?arrow_forward
- Suppose the average mass of a star in the Galaxy is one-third of a solar mass. Use the value for the mass of the Galaxy that we calculated in Exercise 25.19, and estimate how many stars are in the Milky Way. Give some reasons it is reasonable to assume that the mass of an average star is less than the mass of the Sun.arrow_forwardThe best parallaxes obtained with Hipparcos have an accuracy of 0.001 arcsec. If you want to measure the distance to a star with an accuracy of 10%, its parallax must be 10 times larger than the typical error. How far away can you obtain a distance that is accurate to 10% with Hipparcos data? The disk of our Galaxy is 100,000 light-years in diameter. What fraction of the diameter of the Galaxy’s disk is the distance for which we can measure accurate parallaxes?arrow_forwardMost distances in the Galaxy are measured in light-years instead of meters. Why do you think this is the case?arrow_forward
- Consider the following data on four stars: Which star would have the largest radius? Which star would have the smallest radius? Which star is the most common in our area of the Galaxy? Which star is the least common?arrow_forwardThe Sun orbits the center of the Galaxy in 225 million years at a distance of 26,000 light-years. Given that a3=(M1+M2)P2 , where a is the semimajor axis and P is the orbital period, what is the mass of the Galaxy within the Sun’s orbit?arrow_forwardThe center of a faint but active galaxy has magnitude 26. How much less bright does it look than the very faintest star that our eyes can see, roughly magnitude 6?arrow_forward
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