Документ взят из кэша поисковой машины. Адрес оригинального документа : http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/pfrancis/roleplay/ziggy/Briefing2.pdf Дата изменения: Tue Jun 4 07:02:29 2002 Дата индексирования: Tue Oct 2 09:57:52 2012 Кодировка: Поисковые слова: universe

The Universe of Planet Ziggy
Assignments 4, 5 and 6 for ASTR1002. Second Data Set.


The Story Continues.
· You have now been on Ziggy for a week. · The Xenobiologists have identified a new carniverous species: they look rather like Koalas, but drop from the "trees" on top of other animal's heads and then devour them. · Much progress has also been made in the astrophysics section. · Ziggy's sun has still not risen, but Ziggy's moon has set, making it much easier to see faint things in the sky. · There does not appear to be a Milky Way in Ziggy's sky. · Instead, you see a huge fuzzy ball, covering a quarter of the sky, which you are calling the "Milk Stain".


The Milk Stain.


Telescope View
· You have now dismantled some of the USS Drongo's telescopes and set them up outside (protected by an electric fence from the sabre-toothed bunnies). · When you look anywhere in the sky you see vast numbers of stars. · But when you look at any part of the Milkstain, you see vast numbers of stars packed close together. · You do not see any general glow - just the light of countless stars.


Telescope view of part of the Milkstain.

Telescope view of another part of the sky.


A Pulsing Star
· While observing one of the central regions of the Milkstain, you found several stars that seem to pulse in brightness. They take four hours to do each pulse. · You remember seeing several similar star slast year, while exploring in the Canopus region. These stars also pulsed every four hours. · Your telescope picks up around one photon per second from each of these stars. · When you observed last year's stars with the same telescope (from a distance of one parsec), you detected around 100 million photons per second.


The Fuzzballs
· While scanning the sky (away from the Milkstain) with your most powerful telescope, you kept coming across small fuzzy objects, which you are calling "fuzzballs". · They seem to be scattered pretty randomly across the whole sky. · Some are bigger and brighter than others.


Some Fuzzballs.


Fuzzball Spectra.
· You used your best telescope to look in detail at the biggest brightest fuzzball. · You also obtained a spectrum of it.


Image of the Brightest Fuzzball


Spectrum of the Nearest Fuzzball
Energy Per Unit Wavelength

Wavelength (nm)


A Wandering Star
· Another curious fact: · Most of the stars you see have continued doing circles around the zenith. · But two stars were recently spotted which appear to be doing something rather different...


Initial View.


Same view one hour later


Same view another hour later


What can you deduce?
· Once again, Captain Howard would like to hear what you've learned about the universe into which the alien wormhole flung you, and Ziggy's place in this universe.