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EXERCISE 12
(Note: this exercise is a continuation of Exercise 11.) It turns out that, not only is the average position of the hydrogen-alpha line at 789.0 nm, but the half-width at half maximum of your distribution is 21.0 nm. Your random and systematic measurement errors total 1.0 nm. (You may find a review of statistical analysis useful - it's posted on last semester's webpage.) (a) How do you explain the large spread of velocities you've measured? Also, what does this tell you about the motion of galaxies in clusters such as Abell 2218? A short paragraph or two will suffice. (b) You find that one of the galaxies in the cluster, at a distance of 1000 kpc from the cluster's center, is moving at a velocity of 950 km/sec relative to the cluster's center. Remember that the escape velocity of an object is given by v = sqrt(2 * G * M / r). Given the mass of visible matter you calculated in Question 2(b), should this galaxy stay gravitationally bound to the cluster, or should it escape? |