ASTRON 2B03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Curved Space, Red Giant, Gliese 581

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Astronomy
• Course: ASTRON 2B03
• Professor: Laura Parker

Document Summary

Gravity is manifestation of the distortion of space. Usually shown in 3d but can show a simpler version in 2d. More massive an object is, more dramatic the stretching is. General relativity: the light never really changes direction, but follows the curvature of space. Light as it passes massive objects gets distorted. Galaxy cluster lots of galaxies that are all gravitationally bound together. Light does(cid:374)"t just tra(cid:448)el i(cid:374) a straight li(cid:374)e to (cid:455)ou, it gets (cid:271)e(cid:374)t because of the cluster. Large mass between us and a distant galaxy gives this distorted image of the galaxy. Disturbances, such as a supernova or collisions of stars, should produce gravitational waves which are ripples in space time. Gravitational waves from two orbiting black holes best kind of sources of gravitational waves. Interferometer used to detect gravitational waves, laser beams shoot out. If there"s (cid:374)o (cid:271)ig gra(cid:448)itatio(cid:374)al (cid:449)a(cid:448)es, laser (cid:271)ea(cid:373)s (cid:272)a(cid:374)(cid:272)el ea(cid:272)h other out. I(cid:373)plest (cid:862)relati(cid:448)isti(cid:272) theor(cid:455) of gra(cid:448)it(cid:455)(cid:863) that fits all o(cid:271)ser(cid:448)atio(cid:374)s.