Download Galaxies and Dark Matter

Blossoms Video Module
Galaxies and Dark Matter
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Segment I:
1. What are galaxies?
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2. How do they look different from stars?
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Segment II:
3. Which galaxy is closest to earth? How far away is it? How many stars are in it?
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4. How is a galaxy shaped? What determines its shape?
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5. What makes a star orbit?
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6. What keeps earth’s distance from the sun constant?
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7. If you swing a ball attached to a string and then let it go, what happens to the ball?
What characteristic of matter makes this happen?
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Segment III:
8. What is the equation for centripetal force?
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9. What is the equation for gravitational force?
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10. Using these 2 equations, how can we determine the mass of a galaxy?
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11. What is a Doppler shift?
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12. What can the color of a star tell you about the star?
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13. What could be the reason why the amount of mass determined from velocity differs
from the amount of mass determined from light studies?
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14. What could the extra matter in galaxies be?
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15. What is a neutrino?
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16. What is dark matter?
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17. What is a WIMP?
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18. How can we detect dark matter if it is so small?
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19. Watch the demonstration with the tennis and golf balls. Draw out the diagram of what
they represent and show how you can determine the probability of a particle of dark
matter hitting other matter.
20. Explain a little about the dark matter detector made by scientists at MIT.
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