Questions:
1. Three scientists who shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 2011 for discovering evidence that the universe is expanding at an accelerated rate. They were X, Brian P. Schmidt and Adam Riess. Name X.
2. The ______-________ law codifies an observation: that galaxies are moving away from the earth at a speed proportional to their distance from the earth. Scientists concluded that the universe’s expansion was accelerating because they found galaxies to be moving away faster than this law predicted. Name the two people for whom the law is named.
3. Based on observations and studies of various properties of the universe, astrophysicists have determined the universe’s expansion began to accelerate in the last of the universe’s three eras. The first two are called the radiation-dominated and matter-dominated eras. Name the third.
4. The laureates in Q1 led two teams that studied light emitted by a type of supernovae. Here, white dwarf stars have become unstable and are exploding. All these explosions follow a common pattern, so the amount of light from these supernovae also follows a pattern. By measuring it, scientists can deduce how far away a star is and how much it is moving away. Name the type.
5. Name the mathematical model that scientists have been using since 2003 to explain the behaviour of the universe’s properties at the largest scale, including the ‘cause’ of the universe’s accelerating expansion.
Visual:
Name this facility. It detects a form of energy that physicists have said can also be used to infer the universe’s expansion rate.
Answers:
1. Saul Perlmutter
2. Edwin Hubble and Georges Lemaître
3. Dark-energy-dominated era
4. Type Ia
5. Lambda-CDM model
Visual: Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO)
