Models of The Universe

Purpose

To examine how our understanding of the Universe has changed over time using a webquest.

Task

For this project you will be gathering up information about the history of how our model of the Universe has changed over time. Your task is to gather the information and put it all together in a final product, which can be a paper, presentation, song, movie… As you perform your research you need to keep notes with citations, so that you can cite your sources in the final product.

Part 1: Early Astronomy

Read through Ancient Astronomers, summarize what early astronomy was all about.

Part 2: Galileo and the Scientific Revolution

Go on the web and find out information on the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems. Compare and contrast the two, and describe 2 pieces of evidence that Galileo discovered using his telescope that supported the Copernican system.

Part 3: The Great Debate

It has been known since the late 18th century that our Sun was part of a larger group of stars called the Milky Way. Here is a map the William Herschel produced in 1785 by assuming that all stars are inherently the same brightness (not correct, but remember the inverse square law?)

Source: On the Construction of the Heavens. By William Herschel, Esq. F. R. S. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 75. (1785), pp. 213-266.

However from that time going forward for over a hundred years a debate raged as to whether or not the Milky Way was the extent of the Universe, or if it was only a small part of it. At the center of the debate were objects that were catalogued as nebulae.

Research the Great Debate about Nebulae and how Cepheid Variable Stars helped to end it.

Part 4: Galaxies Are Receding

In 1923 Edwin Hubble discovered most galaxies were moving away from our own. Find out what evidence he had for this, and how that evidence leads to an idea of a Big Bang.

Part 5: Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

Find out what the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is and why its existence is crucial to the Big Bang Theory. Also find a more recent article on scientists’ search for evidence of gravitational waves, and what they can tell us about the universe.

Part 6: And Still More Unanswered Questions

Research Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Find out what evidence leads astronomers to think they are part of the universe, and what scientist’s believe they are.

Part 7: The Gnab Gib

How will the universe end? Find 2 different theories of how the universe might end. Compare and contrast the two.

Rubric