Hubble Law Astronomy Lab

A simulated dataset for use in determining the expansion rate of the universe. Type Ia Supernovae tend to peak at a roughly constant absolute magnitude. Astronomers use this fact in order to determine the distances to supernovae in the universe -- particularly the distances to the host galaxy of the star that is going supernova. Once the distance to the galaxy is determined, spectra are used in order to determine the redshift of the galaxy. The redshift is related to how quickly the galaxy is moving relative to us.

The goal for this activity is to examine how the distance to a galaxy and its velocity are related. As it turns out, the universe is expanding, so galaxies further from us will tend to be moving rather quickly away from us.

Assignment Prompt: [TBA]

Starting Template

Data Columns:

Simulated data for the following:

• Peak apparent magnitude values of type I-a supernovae
• Redshift values of host galaxies containing the type I-a supernovae

Acknowledgements:

This dataset is part of an open source astronomy course intended to gently introduce students to python programming. This work has been supported via NASA Kentucky under NASA award No: 80NSSC20M0047.

Assignment inspired by a similar Excel-based activity at Colorado College.

Thumbnail image: Photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash