Sloan Digital Sky Survey
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The Universe
 Your Cosmic Address
 How Big is It?
 Expanding Universe
 How do We Know?
 Distances
 Magnitudes
 Redshifts
 Making the Diagram
 Diagram and Universe
 The Big Bang
 More Galaxies
 Research Challenges
 Your Results

The Hubble Diagram with More Galaxies

The data you have so far show a straight line when you plot distance and redshift, which suggests that the universe is expanding. This is an amazing result, but remember that you have only looked at a few galaxies in one tiny part of the sky. Because you looked at so few galaxies, scientists might be skeptical of your conclusions. They might say that something strange was happening in that part of the sky, or that what you found was only a lucky positioning of galaxies.

In fact, Edwin Hubble also had difficulty convincing scientists of his discovery. After he announced it in 1929, he teamed up with astronomer Milton Humason and began looking at more galaxies. They measured the distances and redshifts of thousands of galaxies, trying to prove that all galaxies plotted into a straight line on a Hubble diagram. They succeeded: by 1937, the expanding universe picture was firmly established by these observations.

Try looking at a few more galaxies beyond the six you've already looked at.

Explore 7 (optional): Make a Hubble diagram for the following six galaxies. Use this SkyServer workbook to keep track of your work.


Object ID

RA

Dec

1237674649923616961

168.39631

-0.21128

1237648702972952667

198.14058

-1.09188

1237655746703393411

262.60276

62.72059

1237678617428492404

24.32162

1.23198

1237666408439349389

352.9224

0.24129

1237654949988270431

242.571112

53.248867

Launch the Object Explorer

In Explore 7, you went through exactly the same process that you went through in Explore 4 and 5. But instead of getting a straight line in your Hubble diagram, you got a mess! The reason for this is that the six galaxies in Explore 4 and 5 were chosen to give you a clear Hubble diagram. The galaxies in Explore 7 were chosen more randomly, to give you a more accurate sampling of galaxies in the universe.