Dr. Stephen Hughes

Queensland University of Technology,

Brisbane, Queensland

Towards the edge of the

visible universe as seen

by the HST in 1996

Andromeda galaxy –

closest neighbour to the M

ilky W

ay -home to billions of stars -at

a distance of over 2 m

illion light years this is the furthest object visible to the naked eye

There are m

ore stars in the visible universe than grains

of sand on all the beaches and deserts of the

earth combined!

The Eagle Nebula (M16) where stars are born (im

age courtesy of Johannes Schedler)

Pleiades Star Cluster

The Pleiades star cluster is blue for the same reason the sky is

blue on Earth -scattered light. The Sun appears redder at sunrise

and sunset because the light comes through a greater thickness of

atm

osphere and so is scattered m

ore.

A key-hole view into

the centre of our galaxy.

Most of the centre of the

Milky W

ay is obscured by

dust, but this view was

obtained by Hubble through

a gap in the dust. The

myriad colours indicates

stars of different age and

temperature.

The earth seen from 6 billion km

How long would it take to

drive to the Sun 24/7

at 100 km/h?

170 years!

15 m

illion K

Tarong power station, Queensland

Power output = 1400 M

W.

Tarong power station w

ould have

to run for 9 billion years to produce

the same amount of energy that

the sun produces every second!

5800 K

Spica –

a blue giant star

23,000 K

23,000 K

Movies of the Sun

taken by space

telescopes

The red giant star Betelgeuse is

so huge that our solar system

out to Jupiter would fit inside

the star!

Orbit of Jupiter

Orbit of Earth Sun

HST image of Betelgeuse, the

brightest star in the constellation

Orion, about

The Eskim

o nebula -

a planetary nebular is m

ade from m

aterial ejected

from a red giant star leaving behind a white dwarf

Sirius B –

a W

hite Dwarf

Sirius B

Sirius A

White dwarfs photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. When W

Ds

cool the carbon in the centre turns into diamond -exactly as in ‘Twinkle,

twinkle little star…’

A distant type Ia supernova explosion (SN1994D) in galaxy

NGC4526 ~53 light years away from the Earth

Crab nebula in Taurus,

remnant of a SN observed

by the Chinese in 1054 AD.

At the centre of this nebula

lies a pulsar.

Parkes radio telescope, NSW, Australia

The lovely

song of the

pulsar

Imag

e of

a h

uge

X-r

ay fl

are

that

occ

urre

d ne

ar a

supe

rmas

sive

bla

ck h

ole,

abou

t 3.7

mill

ion

times

mor

e m

asiv

e th

an o

ur s

un

at th

e ce

nter

of o

ur g

alax

y,

asso

ciat

ed w

ith th

e

com

pact

rad

io s

ourc

e

Sag

ittar

ius

A

Sim

ulation of an X-ray flare

Qui

ckT

ime™

and

aC

inep

ak d

ecom

pres

sor

are

need

ed to

see

this

pic

ture

.Q

uick

Tim

e™ a

nd a

YU

V42

0 co

dec

deco

mpr

esso

rar

e ne

eded

to s

ee th

is p

ictu

re.

Plot of the m

otion of the stars in

the vicinity of the black hole at

the centre of our galaxy (im

age

courtesy of ESO)

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Biloela State High School for

allowing us to use the venue, Tanya Roach for organising

the equipment and catering, and astronomer Johannes

Schedler of Panther Observatory, Austria for the use of

many of his images in this presentation and HST/N

ASA.

The End