Experiencing Hubble: Exploring the Milky Way

Description

On a dark, clear night, a magnificent band of hazy light arches overhead that ancient Greeks likened to a trail of milk spilled across the sky. It is the Milky Way, the galaxy where we live, seen edge-on from our vantage point on the inside. There are countless stars at all stages of stellar life, vast clouds of interstellar gas and dust, star clusters, and even satellite galaxies, but no close-up view can match that of the Hubble Space Telescope, which has been surveying the wonders of the Milky Way for three decades. Professor Biography......Page 3 Course Scope......Page 7 Lecture 1—The Unseen Face of Our Spiral Galaxy......Page 10 The Vastness of the Milky Way......Page 11 Edwin Hubble’s Observations......Page 12 The Search for a Milky Way Look-Alike......Page 14 Lecture 2—Viewing the Galaxy through a Comet......Page 23 The Motion and Distance of Solar System Objects......Page 24 Comet ISON......Page 27 Lecture 3—A Cloud of Stardust: The Horsehead Nebula......Page 33 Star Formation in Nebulae......Page 34 The Horsehead Nebula......Page 36 The Orion Nebula......Page 42 Lecture 4—A Star Awakens: The Jets of Herbig-Haro 24......Page 45 Bipolar Jets of Outflowing Gas......Page 46 HH 24......Page 53 Lecture 5—A Star Cluster Blossoms: Westerlund 2......Page 58 Main-Sequence Stars......Page 59 The Westerlund 2 Star Cluster......Page 63 The Future of Young Massive Star Clusters......Page 66 Lecture 6—An Interstellar Cavity: The Bubble Nebula......Page 68 Stellar Winds and Mass Loss......Page 69 The Bubble Nebula......Page 71 Superbubbles......Page 75 Lecture 7—The Interstellar Echo of a Variable Star......Page 78 Reflections and Light Echoes......Page 79 The Pulsations of RS Puppis......Page 81 The Period-Luminosity Relation......Page 85 Lecture 8—Tracing the Veil of a Prehistoric Supernova......Page 88 Elemental Composition of Stars......Page 89 Types of Supernova Explosions......Page 91 The Veil Nebula......Page 94 The Big Picture......Page 101 Lecture 9—The Stellar Vortex at the Galactic Center......Page 102 The Galactic Center Star Cluster......Page 103 Supermassive Black Holes......Page 110 Lecture 10—The Galactic Halo’s Largest Star Cluster......Page 113 Globular Clusters......Page 114 Omega Centauri......Page 119 Lecture 11—Satellite Galaxies: The Magellanic Clouds......Page 126 The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds......Page 127 The Tarantula Nebula......Page 131 Galactic Interactions......Page 137 Lecture 12—The Future of the Milky Way......Page 141 Spirals in the Galactic Neighborhood......Page 142 Future Interactions......Page 147 The Milky Way–Andromeda Merger......Page 150 Quiz......Page 158 Bibliography......Page 165