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The Cosmic Perspective A Modern View 1 of the Universe ▲ About the photo: This Hubble Space Telescope photo shows thousands of galaxies in a region of the sky Sampleso small you could cover it with a grain pagesof sand held at arm’s length. LEARNING GOALS 1.1 The Scale of the Universe 1.3 Spaceship Earth ■■ What is our place in the universe? ■■ How is Earth moving through space? ■■ How big is the universe? ■■ How do galaxies move within the universe? 1.2 The History of the Universe 1.4 The Human Adventure of Astronomy ■■ How did we come to be? ■■ How has the study of astronomy affected human ■■ How do our lifetimes compare to the age of the history? universe? 1 M01_BENN4364_09_SE_C01.indd 1 01/11/2018 15:45 It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and Our Cosmic Address The galaxies that we see in the blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut Hubble Space Telescope photo are just one of several key levels of structure in our universe, all illustrated as our one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. “cosmic address” in FIGURE 1.1. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small. Earth is a planet in our solar system, which consists of —Neil Armstrong on looking back at the Earth from the Sun, the planets and their moons, and countless smaller the Moon, July 1969 objects that include rocky asteroids and icy comets. Keep in mind that our Sun is a star, just like the stars we see in our night sky. Chapter 1 Overview Our solar system belongs to the huge, disk-shaped col- lection of stars called the Milky Way Galaxy. A galaxy is ar from city lights on a clear night, you can gaze upward at a great island of stars in space, all held together by gravity Fa sky filled with stars. Lie back and watch for a few hours, and orbiting a common center. The Milky Way is a rela- and you will observe the stars marching steadily across the sky. tively large galaxy, containing more than 100 billion stars, Confronted by the seemingly infinite heavens, you might won- and we think that most of these stars are orbited by planets. der how Earth and the universe came to be. If you do, you will Our solar system is located a little over halfway from the be sharing an experience common to humans around the world galactic center to the edge of the galactic disk. and in thousands of generations past. Billions of other galaxies are scattered throughout space. Modern science offers answers to many of our fundamental Some galaxies are fairly isolated, but most are found in questions about the universe and our place within it. We now groups. Our Milky Way, for example, is one of the two larg- know the basic content and scale of the universe. We know the est among more than 50 galaxies (most relatively small) in ages of Earth and the universe. And, although much remains to be discovered, we are rapidly learning how the simple ingredi- the Local Group. Groups of galaxies with many more large ents of the early universe developed into the incredible diversity members are often called galaxy clusters. of life on Earth—and, perhaps, life on other worlds as well. On a very large scale, galaxies and galaxy clusters appear In this first chapter, we will survey the scale, history, and to be arranged in giant chains and sheets with huge voids motion of the universe. This “big picture” perspective on our between them; the background of Figure 1.1 represents this universe will provide a base on which you’ll be able to build a large-scale structure. The regions in which galaxies and gal- deeper understanding in the rest of the book. axy clusters are most tightly packed are called superclusters, which are essentially clusters of galaxy clusters. Our Local Group is located in the outskirts of the Local Supercluster 1.1 The Scale of the Universe (also called Laniakea, Hawaiian for “immense heaven”). For most of human history, our ancestors imagined Earth to Together, all these structures make up our universe. be stationary at the center of a relatively small universe. This In other words, the universe is the sum total of all matter idea made sense at a time when understanding was built and energy, encompassing the superclusters and voids and upon everyday experience. After all, we cannot feel the con- everything within them. stant motion of Earth as it rotates on its axis and orbits the Think about it Some people think that our tiny physical size Sun, and if you observe the sky you’ll see that the Sun, Moon, in the vast universe makes us insignificant. Others think that planets, and stars all appear to revolve around us each day. our ability to learn about the wonders of the universe gives Nevertheless, we now know that Earth is a planet orbiting a us significance despite our small size. What do you think? rather average star in a rather typical galaxy in a vast universe. The historical path to this knowledge was long and com- plex. In later chapters, we’ll see that the ancient belief in an Astronomical Distance Measurements The labels in Earth-centered (or geocentric) universe changed only when Figure 1.1 give an approximate size for each structure in kilo- people were confronted by strong evidenceSample to the contrary, and meters (recallpages that 1 kilometer ≈ 0.6 mile), but many dis- we’ll explore how the method of learning that we call science tances in astronomy are so large that kilometers are not the enabled us to acquire this evidence. First, however, it’s useful most convenient unit. Instead, we often use two other units: to have a general picture of the universe as we know it today. ■■ One astronomical unit (AU) is Earth’s average distance from the Sun, which is about 150 million kilometers (93 What is our place in the universe? million miles). We commonly describe distances within Take a look at the remarkable photo that opens this our solar system in AU. chapter (on page 1). This photo, taken by the Hubble Space ■■ One light-year (ly) is the distance that light can travel Telescope, shows a piece of the sky so small that you could in 1 year, which is about 10 trillion kilometers (6 trillion block your view of it with a grain of sand held at arm’s miles). We generally use light-years to describe the dis- length. Yet it encompasses an almost unimaginable expanse tances of stars and galaxies. of both space and time. Nearly every object within it is a galaxy filled with billions of stars, and some of the smaller Be sure to note that a light-year is a unit of distance, smudges are galaxies so far away that their light has taken not of time. Light travels at the speed of light, which is billions of years to reach us. Let’s begin our study of astron- 300,000 kilometers per second. We therefore say that one omy by exploring what a photo like this one tells us about light-second is about 300,000 kilometers, because that our own place in the universe. is the distance light travels in one second. Similarly, one 2 PART I DEVELOPING PERSPECTIVE M01_BENN4364_09_SE_C01.indb 2 19/03/19 2:12 PM Our Cosmic Address FIGURE 1.1 Our cosmic address. These diagrams show key levels of structure in our universe. For a more detailed view, see the “You Are Here in Universe Space” foldout diagram in the front of the book. approx. size: 1021 km ≈ 100 million ly Local Supercluster approx. size: 3 x 1019 km ≈ 3 million ly Local Group approx. size: 1018 km ≈ 100,000 ly Milky Way Galaxy Solar System (not to scale) Earth Sample pages approx. size: 1010 km ≈ 60 AU approx. size: 104 km CHAPTER 1 A MODERN VIEW OF THE UNIVERSE 3 M01_BENN4364_09_SE_C01.indd 3 01/11/2018 15:45 The Cosmic Perspective, 9e Bennett Pearson Education 9780134874364 Fig 01.01 File Name: 8743601001 Troutt Visual Services lm 08/09/18 93p1 x 19p4 light-minute is the distance that light travels in one minute, we cannot yet know about them because the light from one light-hour is the distance that light travels in one hour, these events has not yet reached us. and so on. Mathematical Insight 1.1 (page 6) shows that The general idea that light takes time to travel through light travels about 10 trillion kilometers in one year, so that space leads to a remarkable fact: distance represents a light-year. The farther away we look in distance, the further back we look in time. Looking Back in Time The speed of light is extremely fast by earthly standards. It is so fast that if you could make The Andromeda Galaxy (FIGURE 1.3) is about 2.5 million light go in circles, it could circle Earth nearly eight times light-years away, which means we see it as it looked about in a single second. Nevertheless, even light takes time to 2.5 million years ago. We see more distant galaxies as they travel the vast distances in space. Light takes a little more were even further in the past. Some of the galaxies in the than 1 second to reach Earth from the Moon, and about 8 Hubble Space Telescope photo that opens the chapter are minutes to reach Earth from the Sun.
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