THE CENTER OF THE GALAXY

OBJECTIVE
You will study the historical progress of our understanding of the size of the universe and will
repeat the work of Harlow Shapley to determine where the center of the Milky Way Galaxy is located.

EQUIPMENT
Ruler, protractor, pencil, polar graph paper (provided as last page of this document)

INTRODUCTION
For centuries it was believed that the Earth was the center of the Universe. This belief, known as
the geocentric model, held that the Earth was stationary while the sky revolved above it on a set of
celestial spheres. Aristotle eloquently argued how the Earth must be stationary and thus the center of
the Universe because 1) you could not feel the Earth move, 2) there was no wind due to a moving Earth,
hence it must be stationary, 3) the birds and the clouds would be left behind if the Earth was moving,
and 4) if the Earth was moving the stars would display a parallax effect.

This was to be the common belief for over 1800 years. Not only because of the persuasive
arguments of Aristotle, but also because a feature of the Greek Philosophy was that the Universe was
perfect. So, they believed that the celestial spheres the stars moved on were perfect, and everything in
the sky was perfect. Later, as the Catholic Church rose to prominence, this would be interpreted as a
philosophy of a perfect sky as an indication of a perfect God. Therefore, any philosophy that did not
agree with the geocentric belief was considered heretical. Anyone professing such beliefs risked facing
the wrath of the Church. This understandably made people reluctant to present new ideas.

In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus published Concerning the Revolutions of Celestial Spheres. He was
very elderly, and in fact received the first copy of his book the day he died. This undoubtedly played a
role in his decision to publish because his book presented what we call the heliocentric model. What
Copernicus claimed was that the Sun, not the Earth, was the center of the Universe and the Earth, stars
and planets all revolved about the Sun. It is this book that marks the beginning of modern astronomy
and modern science. Because of the enormous importance of the work, the heliocentric model is
commonly called the Copernican System.

Copernicus’ work was initially rejected and his book was banned by the Church. But the damage
had been done and Johannes Kepler devoted himself to the task of mathematically describing the orbits
of the planets about the Sun. He was able to solve this problem by 1619 with Kepler’s Three Laws of
Planetary Motion.

Galileo declared in the early 1600’s that he believed in the Copernican System, but he didn’t
have the necessary tools to prove it. However, by the end of 1610 Galileo had a new tool to prove his
beliefs, the telescope. In that year, or early 1611, Galileo became the first person to observe the

© 1997 MKS Publishing, Inc. 1

heavens through a telescope. He immediately made several amazing discoveries, including mountains
on the Moon, moons orbiting Jupiter (now known as the Galilean moons), that the Milky Way was made
of thousands of small stars, and Venus went through a whole set of phases like the Moon’s. He
presented his findings in a book called Sidereus Nuncias (the Messenger of the Stars) in 1611. His beliefs
would eventually bring him before the Inquisition, where he was forced to recant his beliefs before the
court and later placed under house arrest, although it was not rigorously enforced.

But the popularity of the Copernican System grew until it was the accepted model before much
more time had elapsed. Does this mean that it was no longer believed that we were the center of the
Universe? No. The belief was that the Sun, not the Earth, was at the center of the Universe. So we were
still focused on the idea that there was something special about us. We had simply moved that universal
center from our planet to our star. One of the reasons for this is because astronomers saw basically the
same numbers of stars in all directions. If we were not the center, they reasoned, then we would see
more stars in one direction than another. Since this was not the case, it must be because we are at the
center.

By the latter part of the 19th century a number of star groups called globular clusters had been
identified. Globular clusters are large, spherical groups of stars, numbering in the hundreds of
thousands, or even millions of stars, and orbit the Milky Way. Distances to the globular clusters could be
calculated and the astronomer Harlow Shapley reasoned that if we were at the center of the Universe,
then there should be an even distribution of globular clusters in all directions. However, when he
plotted the locations of the globular clusters, he found we were not at the center of the Milky Way, and
he was able to make a good estimate of the distance to the true center.

Now it was established that the Sun was not the center of the Universe, but it was still thought
that the center of the Milky Way was the center of the Universe. It was not until the 20th century that it
was finally established that we, our galaxy, are not at the center of the Universe.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chaisson, Eric and Steve McMillan; Astronomy Today, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1993.
North, John; The Norton History of Astronomy and Cosmology, W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1995.
Pasachoff, Jay M.; Astronomy: From the Earth to the Universe, Saunders College Publishing, New York
1996.

THE CENTER OF THE GALAXY Prelab Questions

1. What is meant by a “geocentric” model?
The belief that the earth was the center of the universe. It was thought that earth was
stationary and the sky, stars, and celestial spheres revolved around it.

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 2. What arguments did Aristotle use to justify the geocentric model? Give at least 2 arguments.
Aristotle justified the geocentric model by saying you could not feel the Earth move and because
there was no wind due to a moving earth

3. What is meant by a “heliocentric” model?

The belief that the sun was the center of the universe (not the earth).

4. What would you call a model that has the center of the Galaxy as the center of the Universe?
(Use your imagination!)
Galacentric model (galaxy – centric)

5. What is the difference between the Galaxy and the Universe?

A galaxy is inside the universe and it contains stars that are held together by a shared
gravitational pole. In contrast, the universe contains everything in space (objects, phenomena,
stars, galaxies, planets, etc).

6. What was one of the main reasons that the heliocentric model took so long to be proposed?
For over 1800 years people believed in the geocentric model which was backed up by the
church. Greek philosophy portrayed the universe as perfect which the catholic church
encouraged given that, to them, a perfect sky / heaven supported the idea of a perfect God.
Therefore, anything that contradicted the geocentric model was deemed heretical.

7. Copernicus’ book was banned by the Catholic Church. Galileo was a devout Catholic and was a
personal friend of the Pope. Do you think Galileo read Concerning the Revolutions of Celestial
Spheres? What do you base your answer on?

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 Yes, I do think that Galileo read the book because he believed in the Copernican System and
spent year trying to scientifically prove it. He even invented the telescope with the hope of
finding a way to support the Copernican System.

8. List 4 discoveries Galileo made using his telescope.

Mountains on the moon, moons orbiting Jupiter, the fact that the Milky Way was made of
thousands of small stars and the fact that Venus went through a whole set of phases just like the
moon.

9. Why do you think the center of the Galaxy is not the center of the Universe?
I think the center of the galaxy is not the center of the universe because it’s not even at the
center of our local group. Additionally, it has been proven that our local group is located in the
outskirts of the local super cluster.

10. Where do you think the center of the Universe is? Why?
I don’t think the universe has a perfect center because the universe is constantly expanding at
different rates which makes it hard to pinpoint a center.

© 1997 MKS Publishing, Inc. 4

EXERCISE
Use the data listed in Table 1 to plot the location of the globular clusters on the polar graph
paper provided on page 4. Right Ascension (RA) goes in a counter-clockwise direction. That is,
RA 0h is at the top, 6h is directly to the left, 12h is straight down, and 18h is directly to the right.
Once you determine the direction you need using the RA provided, go the distance indicated
(count outward from 0, at the center of the graph paper) and make a mark. Do this for each of
the clusters listed.

Pal 2 04.8h 3.5

T Cen 13.4h 5.2

EXERCISE QUESTIONS
Answer the questions on the Answer Sheet. Turn in your plot with your Answer Sheet on or before
the due date for the Lab.

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THE CENTER OF THE GALAXY – Answer Sheet
EXERCISE QUESTIONS
1. Does your plot indicate a direction that you would believe to be toward the center of the
Galaxy? What is the RA of that direction?
The high amount of globular clusters between the 17 and 18 RA region suggest the center of the
galaxy could be there.

2. The center of the Milky Way actually lies in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. Use the
star charts in the Appendix A of your textbook to find the RA of Sagittarius. What is the RA of
Sagittarius? (it should be very close to 19h) How does this compare with your answer to #1
above?
Sagittarius is at 17.75 which is my estimate. Therefore, I believe that using the globular cluster
to estimate the center of the galaxy is a good method of estimation.

3. Estimate how far it is to the center of the Galaxy using your plot? What is that distance in kpc?
Around 7kpc based on the area that has the highest amount of globular cluster.

4. Use your textbook to find the actual distance to the center of the Galaxy in light years (from
chapter “Our Galaxy”). Convert this distance to kpc (1 kpc = 3261.56 light years) and compare it
to your answer to #3 above. Show your calculations here.
We are roughly 25,000 light years away from the center of the galaxy. The actual distance is 7.7
kpc and it isn’t far from our estimation.

5. Summarize what you have learned from this exercise. Write at least 4 complete sentences.
I learned a great deal of interesting things from this lab. Primarily, I learned how to plot globular
clusters in the polar graph and how to interpret the plot in order to make estimations on
locations of these globular clusters. I learned the history behind the geocentric and heliocentric
models. I also learned the contributions of Galileo and Copernicus to the scientific community
regarding astronomy, among other things.

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