Redshift 7
Rory Anastasiou and Henry Faulkner
9570485 and 9624571
School of Physics and Astronomy
The University of Manchester
First Year Laboratory Report
November 2015
Abstract
Using Redshift 7 to record the areas swept out by a planet’s radius vector over a certain time period, Kepler’s 2nd law was verified for Jupiter for intervals of 50 days with the areas swept out being about 4.7 × 1022 m2. The distances to the Pleiades and Hyades clusters were found to be 79.4±20.6pc and 36.3±9.4pc respectively, using Redshift 7, by recording the apparent magnitudes and colour index of stars in each cluster.
1. Introduction
Before Kepler proposed his 3 laws, astronomy was purely mathematics and was only used to calculate the positions of planets.…show more content… This was used to show that a planet’s velocity as it moves through its orbit varies, with it being fastest when it is closest to the Sun and slowest when furthest away.
“If indeed the numbers and distances of the night sky are so large that they become nearly meaningless, then let us find the meaning under our feet."-Paul Bogard[3]
The given quote by Paul Bogard perfectly shows the need for the human race to understand the history and structure of the universe we live in. This can be done by finding the distances to clusters, which helps astronomers learn how stars are born and…show more content… 4. Conclusions
Kepler’s 2nd law was verified for Jupiter at time intervals of 50 days by showing the areas swept out were around 4.7 × 1022 m2. To further verify the law one should measure the areas swept out for different time intervals and for different planets in our solar system. This should show that Jupiter at a time interval of 50 days is not a special case and is true for all planets and time intervals.
The distances to the Pleiades and Hyades clusters were successfully found to be 79.4±20.6pc and 36.3±9.4pc respectively using the main sequence fitting method. To make the measurements more accurate more stars should be sampled in both clusters and computer software should be used to find the m-M value. Also, other methods, such as parallax and Cepheid variable stars, could be used which can be more accurate in certain circumstances.
References
[1] Field JV. The origins of proof II: Kepler’s proofs [Internet]. 1999 [cited 2015 Nov 11]. Available from: https://plus.maths.org/content/origins-proof-ii-keplers-proofs
[2] Johannes Kepler: The 2nd law: Equal areas over equal time [Internet]. [cited 2015 Nov 11]. Available from:
