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TOresearch article

Construction of a Hubble diagram: a tool for

astronomy teaching

Construction of a Hubble Diagram: A Tool for Teaching Astronomy

Construction of a Hubble Diagram: A Tool for Astronomy Education

Giovanni Cardona Rodríguez1

Jaime Duvan Reyes2
Mauricio Giraldo3

Reception date:November 2015 Acceptance date:March 2016

To cite this article: Rodríguez, G., Reyes, J. & Giraldo, M. (2016). Construction of a hubble diagram: a tool for
teaching astronomy. Scientific Magazine, 24, 17-23.Doi:10.14483/udistrital.jour. RC.2016.24.a2

Summary run Astronomy clubs and want to address the issue of

An activity is presented that can support the work
of teachers who run astronomy clubs and want to
address the topic of the evolution of the universe,
since Hubble's law is reconstructed from the
reproduction of a Hubble diagram with data taken
from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), from
which the value of the Hubble parameter is
obtained and the expansion of the universe is
inferred. This didactic activity allows teachers to
guide their students along the path that Hubble
followed to determine his Law. In this sense, some
implications of its application are exposed in the
context of the training of physics teachers and
clubs. of astronomy.
Keywords:Didactics, astronomy, physics, Hubble,
teaching.
Abstract
This article presents the construction and analysis of an
activity that can support the work of teachers who
evolution of the Universe. Here Hubble's law is
reconstructed by reproducing a Hubble diagram with
Sloan Digital Sky Survey's (SDSS) data, from which the
Hubble parameter value is obtained and the expansion
of the Universe is inferred. This educational activity
allows teachers to guide their students along the path
followed by Hubble to determine his law. In this sense
some implications of applying the latter are discussed in
the context of teachers' training in Physics and
Astronomy clubs
Keywords:Physics, didactic, physics, Hubble,
astronomy.
Summary
An activity is presented that can support the work of
two professors who lead Astronomy clubs and want
to address the question of the evolution of the
Universe, such as Hubble's reading is reconstructed
from the reproduction of a Hubble diagram with
data taken from Sloan digital Sky Survey

1.
Francisco José de Caldas District University, Bogotá Colombia. Contact: gcardonar@udistrital.edu.co
2.
Francisco José de Caldas District University, Bogotá Colombia. Contact: jdreyesr@udistrital.edu.co
3.
Bogotá Colombia District Planetarium, Bogotá Colombia. Contact: mauricio.giraldo@idartes.gov.co

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 Construction of a Hubble diagram: a tool for teaching astronomy
RodRíguez, g., Reyes, J. & giRaldo,M.
(SDSS), is the Hubble parameter and infers the
expansion of the universe. This educational activity
allows teachers to guide their students along the path
Hubble followed to determine the meaning. In this
sense there are some implications of the application of
the same context in the training of physics teachers and
astronomy clubs.
Key words:Teaching, astronomy, physics, Hubble,
education.
Introduction
In the city of Bogotá there are 358 district schools,
of which 59 report having formed an astronomy
club with at least one year of existence. When
these clubs were surveyed, with the support of the
District Planetarium of the city of Bogotá
(Colombia), it was possible to establish a
classification of both the contents of interest and
the activities developed there, highlighting the
topic of the evolution of the universe as one of the
most significant in 34 of these clubs. However, it
was also found that the activities associated with
this topic are very scarce.
This document presents an activity that can
support astronomy clubs on the topic of the
evolution of the universe, since Hubble's law will
be reconstructed from the design and
development of a Hubble diagram with real
galaxy data. , so that the value of the Hubble
parameter can be determined and the
expansion of the universe can be inferred. In
recent studies (Camino, 2012) a classification is
presented for didactic activities in which the one
we develop here can be included, since this
experience offers possibilities to teachers who
direct Astronomy clubs, especially with regard to
orientation. of his students in the development
of the process that Hubble followed to
determine his law, and specifically with regard
to collecting real data, graphing, inferring the
expansion of the universe and estimating its age
from the Hubble parameter.
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Size and expansion of the universe
Thinking that the size of the universe does not
change led Einstein, initially, to not recognize
the dynamic character that his equations
admitted. However, it is appropriate to
remember the work of Slipher who, in 1919,
managed to demonstrate the dynamics of the
universe through observations of red shifts of
the spectral lines in the spectra of faint nebulae,
which allowed him to estimate the speeds with
which they moved the nebulae away (Ducrocq,
1966, p. 49). These observations were followed
by astronomers such as Hubble (1929, p. 168),
who compared the distances to the galaxies
with the velocities found in 1919 and identified
thatIf the galaxy is further away it moves faster.
Therefore, Hubble's interpretation was thatthe
universe is expanding,just as Einstein's
equations admitted.
This path developed by Hubble constitutes a
historical source of knowledge construction in
astronomy. Chevallard (1997, p. 11) states that
this path of knowledge construction can be
transformed didactically by the teacher in the
company of his students, so that it becomes an
experience through which not only the idea of
expansion of the universe, but a way of building
scientific knowledge.
Methodology
The reconstruction work was planned to later be
developed with a group of Physics Bachelor's
students from the Francisco José de Caldas
District University. The methodological
perspective followed in the development of the
activity is descriptive in terms of the process of
constituting knowledge from historical and
epistemological references, particularly with
regard to the possibilities of questioning ideas
about the universe and its expansion.
 Construction of a Hubble diagram: a tool for teaching astronomy
RodRíguez, g., Reyes, J. & giRaldo,M.
For the purposes of this communication, the
organization of the process is described below:
the first part will show how to obtain the SDSS
data by performing an SQL query in DR7; The
data obtained will then be processed to identify
magnitudes and redshifts that will allow
distances and speeds to be obtained; Finally,
with these data the Hubble diagram will be
constructed so that conclusions can be drawn.
Obtaining the data
The SDSS contains images and spectra of
different objects such as: galaxies, nebulae,
stars, asteroids and quasars. The fundamental
objective of this study is to make a map of the
universe. The data, taken with a 2.5-meter
diameter optical telescope at the Punto Apache
observatory in New Mexico, USA, can be freely
downloaded at http://www.sdss.org.
Query via SQL
Gray (2002) presents the way to obtain
information en masse from the SDSS through
Table 1.SQL queries. For a more detailed example see Gray, 2002, p. twenty.
Characteristic
Here the parameters about the information we
need are specified. If we need more than one, we
SELECT separate them by comma. For example, to obtain
1 the right ascension and declination of objects, you
must writeselect ra,dec.
Here you specify which tables the above
2 DESDE
parameters are searched for.
If desired, the search can be restricted by
imposing on a parameter. For example, if we are
WHERE only interested in galaxies with a redshift valuez
3 between 0.1 and 0.5, we write and z between 0.1
and 0.5.
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performing an SQL query (Structured Query
Language). The queries basically consist of three
parts (see table 1). For the case study, it is
exemplified with 1000 galaxies with their
respective redshift values and magnitudes.
Data management: apparent magnitude
Hipparchus of Nicaea, around the 2nd century BC,
was the first astronomer who discriminated the stars
according to their magnitude and created a catalog
that contained the positioning of around a thousand
stars, visible to the naked eye. He grouped them into
six categories that he calledmagnitudes: the
brightest, he classified them asfirst magnitude and
the faintest ones likesixth magnitude.
For the development of the didactic proposal, it
must be considered that themagnitudeIt is a
logarithmic measure relative to the brightness of
celestial objects, it is dimensionless and expresses
their luminosity (Karttunen, 2006, p.86). In this sense,
the data shown by the SDSS are of magnitudes in
different filters. For the study associated with our
case we will takethe red filter and the z value(
redshift). Then, to obtain a classical Hubble diagram,
the magnitudes must be converted
Example for 1000 galaxies
selecttop 1000, pz
desdegalaxy p, specobjs
where p.objid=s.bestobjid
and sz BETWEEN 0.1 AND 0.5
 Construction of a Hubble diagram: a tool for teaching astronomy
RodRíguez, g., Reyes, J. & giRaldo,M.

at relative distances and redshifts at velocities.
Firstly, given that the relationship that existed
between the brightnesses of different magnitudes is
associated with a factor of 2.511, if it had magnitude
1, or first magnitude, compared to magnitude 6, or
sixth magnitude1 is 100 times brighter than 6. If you
want to relate magnitude 1 to 3, you find that it is
approximately 16 times brighter, which shows that
there is a decrease in brightness equal to the fifth
root of one hundred, but the magnitude that we call
apparent, is considered as the brightness that is
appreciated and influences the distance of the star
with respect to the Earth.
Secondly, the mathematical process to find the
apparent magnituderegarding brightness. For this
we denote the brightness with Fand with subscripts
the magnitude corresponding to the different
brightnesses. From what was said above, the
quotient betweenYoFandi+1F always gives a constant
2,511. The process is illustrated in table 2.
In this way, if we have the distance to the
nearest galaxy, and for convenience we choose
its flux is equal to unity in its
respective units, we can estimate the distance to
the other galaxy.
Results
red shift
When comparing the spectrum of light from some
celestial bodies with the spectra measured in the
laboratory of the chemical species contained in
these bodies, it is observed that they are not the
same since the spectral lines coming from space
are displaced towards positions of greater or
greater magnitude. shorter wavelength, either
towards the red or blue side of the
electromagnetic spectrum. The way to determine
this displacement is by comparing the wavelengths
between the spectra received from the celestial
body and the laboratory.
The expression to determine the velocity
from the redshift (z) is v=cz. It is clarified that z is
a dimensionless magnitude, v the recession
speed of the galaxy and c the speed of light

Table 2.Process for calculating distance between galaxies.

Fa F1 F4 F4 F4 F5
The reasons They are constant. =k =k =k =k =k
Facebook
F2 F5 F5 F5 F6
And by relating the first magnitude to the k5= 100
sixth magnitude with respect to its brightness F1= 100F6
we obtain: k5= 2,5115
If the difference between magnitudes is F1 =k(m −m )
1 2

considered. F2

Where the logarithm allows us to obtain

Pogson's law.

For the particular case, F =1 2and m =0.

2

Having the magnitude we can calculate

the flow, with the inverse square law d1 F2
l =
F= for the relationship between two objects
4πd2
between their respective flux and luminosity we
d2 F1
obtain the relationship.

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 Construction of a Hubble diagram: a tool for teaching astronomy
RodRíguez, g., Reyes, J. & giRaldo,M.
Hubble diagram
Figure 1.Hubble Diagram with 1000 Galaxies
taken from the SDSS.
The SQL query allows us to make a Hubble
diagram with 1000 galaxies (figure 1) which was
made with the programOrigin Pro 8, where the
instruction was also executed:Analysis, Fitting,
Fit Linearobtaining a slope:
It has been argued that the time since the
expansion of the universe began can be inferred
from the inverse of this value (Zeilik, 2002). It is
appropriate to consider that the different
cosmological models propose that H can vary
slowly over time and can be treated as a
parameter defined in terms of deceleration, as
evidenced in work with type A1 supernovae
(Arenas, 2014) when assuming a uniform
expansion that does not agree with a more real
model where changes in velocity occur.
Didactic implications
Astronomy and the teaching of this today has
the availability and access to a large number of
real data, presented by large observatories that
make available a huge number of data that can
be requested and manipulated.
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freely through the web. Students can access the
same data used by professional astronomers
and use it to make their own discoveries. This
workshop was applied to a group of students
from the Francisco José de Caldas District
University, in the Bachelor of Physics curricular
program, and was a way of incorporating
classroom activities that use real data, which is
supposed to be a guided investigation, leaving
the possibility of posing challenges and open
investigations. The advantage of using real data
instead of simulated or simplified data is that its
processing can give students a real idea of how
scientific investigations are carried out. HeUsing
real data guides the student to solve real
problems, posing opportunities such as data
processing that no one else has seen and at the
same time being able to make discoveries with
tools typical of professional scientists.
Astronomical data is data obtained from a
variety of instruments, primarily telescopes, but
may also include the results of computer
simulations of theoretical astrophysics and the
like. These may include spectrophotometric
readings, images, information such as magnetic
field intensity, temperature, magnitude in different
filters and redshift. These data can be in different
bands of the electromagnetic spectrum without
being limited to the optical one.
The challenge in this activity is the
construction of the Hubble diagram by the
students. Recent studies (Navone, Scancich,
Vázquez, 2011) raise the need to emphasize the
historical analysis of the moment in which
Hubble found its law and highlight the
contributions of different scientists. However, it
should be noted that the 1929 Hubble diagram
has a problem in measuring distances, so much
so that the age of the universe from this
diagram is younger than the age of certain stars
studied at that time. The activity begins with the
students generating the query to download the
galaxy data in the SDSS. The first
 Construction of a Hubble diagram: a tool for teaching astronomy
RodRíguez, g., Reyes, J. & giRaldo,M.
Hubble diagrams that students obtain in the
activity are diagrams that present magnitude
versus redshift, which are the data presented
directly by the SDSS database. Kirshner (1999)
disseminated this type of diagrams. The
problem with these diagrams (figure 2) is
obtaining the slope, orHubble parameter,having
to make changes to distance and speed in each
case. This change allows us to raise the need to
understand astronomical redshift and the
concept of magnitude. With the concept of
magnitude, students have problems because it
is counterintuitive; it seems to express a scale of
obscurations and in the face of redshift, it is
necessary to present in the classroom by the
instructor the relativistic correction of the same,
for the large number of galaxies that present a
redshift greater than one.
Figure 2.Hubble diagrams in redshift and magnitude
and their corresponding version in distance and
velocity for 50 galaxies made by the students.
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The slope in the right panel of Figure 2 is of
the order of
km
heither=73.6
sMpc
This result is approximate to the values obtained
with the study of Cephee variables by Riess, Macri,
Casertano, Lampeitl, Ferguson (2011). The
variations, or indeterminacy of the constant, lie in
the uncertainty in the measurement of distances
and limitations in the cosmological parameters
used in the distance module.
Conclusions
In the teaching of astronomy where learning is
oriented towards the reconstruction of physical
laws, it is important to be consistent with the
observational profile of astronomy, giving
students the possibility of reconstructing
knowledge in an area that has many open
problems.
In the case of this innovation, the
reconstruction of models with a direct
relationship with observation is allowed, where
the appropriate way to describe astronomical
phenomena is identified based on the
processing of real data.
It is important that the teachers in charge of
the astronomy clubs commit to the development
of proposals of this type, guiding students in the
interpretation of graphs with data from recognized
observatories, which helps and supports the work
in the astronomy clubs. teachers and can activate
the interest of students.
At this point, knowing that the students
already manage the process of downloading the
data and its translation into magnitudes of
interest, challenges or questions can be
generated to continue the research work, such
as creating the Hubble diagram for galaxies with
high redshift, interpret Hubble diagrams derived
from studies of Supernovae Ia and evidence of
accelerated expansion.
 Construction of a Hubble diagram: a tool for teaching astronomy
RodRíguez, g., Reyes, J. & giRaldo,M.

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