AdvancedIOAA 2008 | Bandung, Indonesia | TH S12 | 20 pt

13.2 | A supernova distance and the Hubble time

A Type Ia supernova in a distant galaxy has a luminosity of $5.8\times10^9L_\odot$ at maximum light. Its observed brightness is $1.6\times10^{-7}$ times that of Vega. The host galaxy has redshift $z=0.03$ . Calculate the galaxy's distance in parsecs and the Hubble time.

Use the reference data: Vega's distance $d_V=7.76\,\mathrm{pc}$ and luminosity $L_V=130L_\odot$ .

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Reading resources

Material that covers the physics behind this problem.

An Introduction to Modern AstrophysicsCarroll & Ostlie
The standard reference for olympiad-level astrophysics. Chapters 1-3 cover the celestial sphere, orbits and the magnitude system.
Textbook
Ohio State Astronomy Lecture NotesOhio State University
Clear university-level notes on stars, galaxies and cosmology with derivations you can follow line by line.
Lecture notes
Cosmology CalculatorEdward L. Wright (UCLA)
Converts redshift into distances, lookback time and scale factors. Use it to sanity-check cosmology answers.
Website