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Pathways to Astronomy

Stephen E. Schneider

Chapter 70

Discovering the Milky Way - all with Video Answers

Educators


Chapter Questions

01:56

Problem 1

If the total mass of the Milky Way is $10^{12} M_{c}$, and $10 \%$ of that is in the disk, how many solar masses of dust and gas are in the Galaxy?

Sunny Guha
Sunny Guha
Numerade Educator
01:24

Problem 2

How long does it take light from the center of the Milky Way, $8 \mathrm{kpc}$ away, to reach the Solar System?

Bryan Li
Bryan Li
Numerade Educator
01:18

Problem 3

Traveling at 60,000 kph, how long would it take us to reach the center of the Milky Way?

Raj Bala
Raj Bala
Numerade Educator
05:44

Problem 4

Suppose a galaxy like the Milky Way is about 2 million ly away (the distance to the nearest galaxy similar in size to the Milky Way). What would its angular size be, given that its disk is about 100,000 ly across?

Laszlo Zalavari
Laszlo Zalavari
Numerade Educator
00:58

Problem 5

If we made a model of the Milky Way that had the diameter of the Earth, how big would the Earth itself be in this shrunken model? (Assume that the Milky Way's diameter is 35 kpc for this problem.)

Matthew Baker
Matthew Baker
Numerade Educator
01:51

Problem 6

Kapteyn used observations of the smaller shift in the position of stars that are farther away to estimate their distances. This is essentially a consequence of the angular size versus distance relationship discussed in Unit $10,$ as illustrated by the following: (a) If stars move at a typical speed of $20 \mathrm{km} / \mathrm{sec}$, how far will they move in 10 years? (b) If a star is 10 pc distant, what will its angular shift be over these 10 years? (c) If a star is 100 pc distant, what will its angular shift be?

Carson Merrill
Carson Merrill
Numerade Educator
01:22

Problem 7

If Shapley had found that his variable stars had half the luminosity he'd thought they had, how would this have affected his estimate of the size of the Milky Way?

Matthew Miranda
Matthew Miranda
Numerade Educator