Slide 1
The Milky Way
Our Galactic Home
Slide 2
Slide 3
Structure of our Galaxy.
Its size and shape.
How do stars and things move through it?
Mass and Dark Matter.
The Galactic Center.
Slide 4
Stars
Dust
Gaseous Nebulae
Open Clusters
Globular Clusters
Pulsars
Black Holes
How do they all fit together to make our galaxy?
Slide 5
Slide 6
Near-Infrared stellar emission – copyright E. L. Wright and COBE
Slide 7
Far-Infrared dust emission – copyright E. L. Wright and COBE
Slide 8
Radio emission from neutral hydrogen – copyright J. Dickey
Slide 9
X-ray emission from hot gas – copyright S. Digel and ROSAT
Slide 10
Gamma-ray emission from pulsars and black holes – copyright NASA
Slide 11
We aren’t at the center of the Milky Way.
Where is the center then?
Globular Clusters point the way.
M10 – copyright Credner and Kohle
Slide 12
Slide 13
Slide 14
Near-Infrared stellar emission – copyright E. L. Wright and COBE
Slide 15
How do we know the distance to stars and clusters in our galaxy?
Trigonometric parallax good out to 100 pc.
We believe galaxy is ~30 kpc wide.
How do we know?
Slide 16
If you know how luminous a star REALLY is and how bright it looks from Earth, you can determine how far away it must be to look that faint.