“Scale the Universe” Exploring your Universe from Inner to Outer Space Presented by: Teena Della NASA’s Educator Ambassador Teacher at Terry Fox Secondary

What is GLAST/Fermi? GLAST: Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope Launched in 2008 (watch launch)‏watch launch Fermi has two instruments: –Large Area Telescope (LAT)‏ –Gamma ray Burst Monitor (GBM)‏ Fermi looks at many different objects within the energy range of 10keV to 300GeV. LAT GBM

EM Spectrum

Viewing the Universe in Different Wavelengths Visible Infrared Radio Gamma-ray

Who is GLAST/Fermi? A collaboration between the BIG (Astrophysics) and the small (Particle Physicists)‏ By studying the largest most energetic things in the Universe (GRB’s), answers to the smallest subatomic particle/energy relationships are hoped for. LAT GBM

What is GLAST/Fermi? 1 st ever pair conversion telescope –Gamma rays are produced in the annihilation of electron-positron pairs as dictated by relativity. –The GBM operated on a backwards principle; Turns gamma rays into electron-positron pairs that CAN be traced. GBM

The Universe is a VERY Big Place At least 13 billion light-years (or about 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilometres)‏ It is full of VERY big numbers! And small!

Scientific Notation and Tens = 1x = 1x = 1x = 1x = 1x = 1x = 1x = 1x = 1x 10 -4

How this works:

Powers of Ten $100 bill is 0.1mm thick Then a Stack of $1000 (10x$100 bills) = 1mm thick Stack of $10,000 (100x$100 bills)= 1cm thick Stack of $100,000 (1000x$100 bills)= 10cm thick Stack of $1 million (10,000x$100 bills) = 1m thick Stack of $1 billion (100,000,000x=$100 bills) = 1km thick!!!

Light Year Drive Student produced video of the proportional distance of the nearest star (4.3 ly away):video

Distance Tabs On your desk there should be one or more pieces of paper with tape attached. Put them in order on the wall with: smallest on the left, largest on the right

Ordering Distance Objects Width of DNA Helix 2x10 -9 m

Ordering Distance Objects “Average Virus” 7.5x10 -8 m

Ordering Distance Objects “Average Bacterium” 2x10 -6 m

Ordering Distance Objects Height of “Average” Human 1.7x10 0 m

Ordering Distance Objects Mount Everest ( 8.85x10 3 m

Ordering Distance Objects Fermi Orbital distance above Earth’s Surface 5.5x10 5 m

Ordering Distance Objects Moon Radius ( images/d4/moon.jpg)‏ 1.74x10 6 m

Ordering Distance Objects Moon’s Orbital Radius & Sun 3.84x10 8 m

Ordering Distance Objects Earth Orbital Radius 1.5x10 11 m

Ordering Distance Objects Pluto Orbital Radius 5.9x10 12 m

Ordering Distance Objects HD70642 (Sun-like star with Jupiter-like planet)‏ 9.4x10 17 m

Ordering Distance Objects Crab Pulsar 7x10 19 m

Ordering Distance Objects Radius of the Milky Way (APOD 09/08/95)‏ 5x10 20 m

Ordering Distance Objects LCM – Large Magellanic Cloud (APOD 02/22/00)‏ 1.8x10 21 m away

Ordering Distance Objects Andromeda (APOD 03/14/04)‏ 2.9x10 22 m away

Ordering Distance Objects AGN 3C 273 7x10 25 m away

Ordering Distance Objects GRB (Gamma-ray Burst)‏ 1x10 26 m away

Powers of Ten Also check out this power point that zooms in and out by factors of 10 from the largest to smallest objects in the universe.power point An online version also exists:

Graphing… How could we plot all these distances/sizes on the same scale? –If you used a detailed enough scale to show the small objects, your graph would go far into outer space. –If you used a large enough scale to fit all the larger distances, the small objects would pile on top of each other at zero.

Graphing… Solution: Use a logarithmic scale…

Activity Log Scale Activity –Cut out and paste the Distance Tabs onto the Log Scale

The TOPS Guide This book (worth $16 US, free to you) is organised into 3-stand-alone sections: –A: A1: Orders of Magnitude A2: Unit Analysis (stacks of money)‏ –B: B1: Ordering Distance – Sticky and Cutout (what we did) B2: Using a Log Scale (what we just did)‏ –C: C1: Scale the Universe (1)‏ C2: Scale the Universe (2)‏ C3: Scale the Universe (3)‏ C4: Proportional Thinking C5: Ordering Time

Brainstorm Time How can we use this in our science classroom? Where would scientific notation be useful? Where would logarithms be useful? How can we adapt for different ability levels?

“Scale the Universe” GLAST/Fermi Education and Public Mission Website: More great material from TOPS: My webpage: