UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON PHYS1005W1

SEMESTER 1 EXAMINATION 2013-2014

INTRODUCTION TO ASTRONOMY AND SPACE SCIENCE

Duration: 120 MINS (2 hours)

This paper contains 8 questions.

Answer five questions in Section A and only two questions in Section B.

Section A carries 1/3 of the total marks for the exam paper and you should
aim to spend about 40 mins on it.

Section B carries 2/3 of the total marks for the exam paper and you should
aim to spend about 80 mins on it.

An outline marking scheme is shown in brackets to the right of each question.

A Sheet of Physical Constants is provided with this examination paper.

Only university approved calculators may be used.

A foreign language translation dictionary (paper version) is permitted provided

it contains no notes, additions or annotations.

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Section A

A1. What are the apparent geometric patterns of a star on the sky induced by the
annual motion of the Earth, if the star is located:

a) at the pole of the ecliptic (reminder: perpendicular to the plane of the Earth-
Sun orbit); [1]

b) extremely close to the ecliptic; [1]

c) in any other position. [1]

A2. Derive the observed relationship T ∝ Lα , with α ∼ 0.10 − 0.15, between

temperature and luminosity of main sequence stars in the Hertzprung-Russell
diagram. Assume virial equilibrium (kT = GMm p /R), and adopt the empirical
correlation L ∝ M 3.5 . [4]

A3. What is the velocity of a star on the plane of the sky at a distance D = 100 pc
with respect to Earth, if it moves with an apparent motion of 0.1 arcsec/yr? [4]

What is the radial velocity of the same star if its spectrum shows absorption
lines displaced by 0.1% from their rest wavelengths? [3]

A4. If a star has a radius 10 times larger than the Sun’s, what is its temperature
assuming that its luminosity is that of the Sun. (You may assume the blackbody
relation with T ⊙ = 5800 K). [3]

A5. Compare the collecting areas and resolving powers of the main mirror (8.2m
diameter) and one of the four movable mirrors (1.8m diameter) in the auxiliary
telescopes at the Very Large Telescope. What is the true advantage of having
large mirrors? [3]

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Section B

B1. Suppose you are observing a galaxy for which the stellar mass estimate
amounts to about Mstar = 1011 M⊙ .

(a) If the galaxy has a total radius of Rstar = 10 kpc, what would its expected
circular velocity at Rstar /2 be, assuming the virial theorem holds at this
scale? (Note: Use the gravitational constant expressed in units of G ≈
4.3 × 10−6 kpc M−1 2
⊙ (km/s) ) [3]

Suppose now there is also dark matter. What would the new circular
velocity be if the dark matter contained within Rstar /2 amounts to 50% of
the total stellar mass? [2]

(b) What is the expected angle (in arcsec) on the sky subtended by the same
galaxy assuming the galaxy is D = 20 Mpc away from Earth? Adopt the
classical small angle approximation trigonometric formula. [3]

(c) What is the flux (in Watts per square metre) which would be detected by
HST for the same galaxy? (Hint: Simply assume a mass-to-light ratio
Mstar /Lstar = 1 M⊙ /L⊙ and that the luminosity of the Sun is L⊙ = 4 × 1026
Watt.) [4]

What is the surface brightness (in Watts per square metre per arcsec
square) of the galaxy? [3]

(d) Briefly discuss the Hubble galaxy classification sequence and how mor-
phology, number density, and star formation rate change along the se-
quence. [3]

What are the main differences between lenticulars and spirals? [2]

TURN OVER
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B2. There is a growing super-massive Black Hole (SMBH) with a seed mass of
MBH = 103 M⊙ at z = 10. It is accreting at its Eddington limit, with a radiative
efficiency of ϵ = 0.1.

(a) What would its expected mass be at z ∼ 7 assuming all the accretion
parameters (radiative efficiency and Eddington ratio) are kept fixed? (Hint:
Use the exponential growth curve of a SMBH, and consider a time lag
of T = 0.285 Gigayears between z = 10 and z = 7, and recall that the
Eddington timescale is tEdd = 4 × 108 yr.) [4]

Would the resulting SMBH resemble the one recently observed at z ∼ 7? [2]

(b) How massive should the SMBH seed mass be to equal a SMBH of mass
MBH = 109 M⊙ , assuming the same accretion parameters as above? [3]

(c) Compute the bolometric luminosity associated to a SMBH of MBH =

106 M⊙ accreting at the Eddington limit. [3]

What would its luminosity be if the SMBH is obscured by a gas column

density along the line of sight of NH = 1023 cm−2 (assume the optical depth
approximately scales as τ = 2 × [NH /1022 cm−2 ]0.3 )? [3]

(d) Compute the mass density ρBH in M⊙ Mpc−3 of all SMBHs of mass
between log MBH /M⊙ = 9 and log MBH /M⊙ = 9.1, assuming that their
corresponding number density is constant in this mass interval and equal
to ϕ(MBH ) = 10−5 Mpc−3 per unit interval of logarithmic mass. [5]

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B3. Let’s talk about the Sun.

(a) Approximating the Sun as a blackbody with temperature T = 5778 K and

radius of R = 695500 km, what is its flux on Earth (in W m−2 )? [3]

(b) Assume that the extinction suffered by the flux from the Sun on the surface
of the Earth is 2 magnitudes. If you were unaware of such an absorption,
how much would be your error in the estimate of the distance to the Sun? [6]

(c) Saturn orbits the Sun at a distance of 10AU. What would the angular
separation in arcsec between Saturn and the Sun be if viewed from
Proxima Centauri (∼ 1.3 pc)? [3]

Saturn has an average radius of about 57000 km. Calculate the fraction of
the Sun’s light intercepted by Saturn. [3]

(d) Briefly discuss the main evolutionary steps of a 1 M⊙ star like the Sun, from
the main sequence to its final state. [5]

END OF PAPER

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