The Structure and Form of the Universe - Assignment Example

Curtis held his argument that our galaxy bares a diameter of 30,000 light-years; with the sun close to the center of our galaxy. He further believed that the observed spiral nebulae are similar to our galaxy. However, Shapley opposed Curtis’ fact on the relation of our universe to the galaxy, by saying that our galaxy bares a diameter of 300,000 light-years; with the sun being 60,000 lightyears away from the center of the galaxy. He also further argued that the observed spiral nebulae are just a cloud of gas that makes up the whole universe. Shapley meant that the spiral nebulae are not just galaxies on their own, but also part of our universe.

Question 3
Before the microwave background discovery, Andrew McKellar (9140) had already concluded that the rotational states of CN molecules were influenced by an equilibrium temperature of 2.3 Kelvin. Thus, the latter result was a year later confirmed by Walter Adams to be true. However, their discovery was never taken into consideration due to the emergence of World War 2, which shifted the scientific and physical knowledge of astronomers into the invention of military equipment. Hence, the emergence of the latter war was the main reason why McKellar missed the noble prize, of being the founder of the microwave background. Since, during the period of World War 2 he served in the Canadian Navy while neglecting his cosmic discovery, of the thermal temperature required for a microwave background. Thus, a lot of the physics knowledge that he had was bridged to the war. However, after the Second World War, McKellar’s idea on the thermal equilibrium rotation of CN molecules was later used for the discovery of microwave radiation, which as a result pioneered the invention of cosmic microwave background in 1965. Thus, the 1965 discovery of CMB was made by radio astronomers from America (Arno Penzias & Robert Wilson), who have later crowned the Nobel Prize for discovering the microwave background. Read More