What is the significance of the Shapley Curtis debate?
The Great Debate, also called the Shapley–Curtis Debate, was held on 26 April 1920 at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, between the astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis. It concerned the nature of so-called spiral nebulae and the size of the universe.
What was the Shapley Curtis debate about quizlet?
The Shapley-Curtis debate was all about the nature of spiral nebulae. Shapley thought that the spiral nebulae were relatively small, nearby objects scattered around the Galaxy like globular clusters. Curtis thought that some of these spiral nebulae were an isolated and rotating system of stars much like our own Galaxy.
How was the Shapley Curtis debate resolved quizlet?
In 1924 the Shapley Curtis debate was settled by Edwin Hubble who had been studying the Andromeda Nebula and saw what he thought was a nova. Hubble showed that the andromeda spiral must be outside the Milky Way and is its own galaxy. You just studied 24 terms!
What did Harlow Shapley argue?
The participants were Heber D. Curtis, then of Lick Observatory, and Harlow Shapley of Mount Wilson Solar Observatory. In brief, the controversy concerned the scale and makeup of the universe. Shapley argued that the universe was comprised of a single galaxy, while Curtis held that it contained many galaxies.
Was Shapley and Curtis correct?
Thus, Shapley proved to be correct about the size of our galaxy and the sun’s location in it, while Curtis correctly predicted that the universe is composed of many galaxies, among them the spiral nebulae which are very similar to our own galaxy – a point Shapley readily conceded when the new evidence came to light.
Who was more correct about the Milky Way’s place in the universe Shapley and Curtis?
Curtis argued that our Galaxy was small, the sun was near the center, and spiral nebulae were other galaxies similar to our own. Both Curtis and Shapley were incorrect on the first point (Curtis guessed too small, Shapley too large), and Curtis was also incorrect on the second point.
What was the Shapley Curtis debate all about was a winner declared at the end of the debate whose ideas turned out to be correct?
What was the Shapley-Curtis “debate” all about? Was a winner declared at the end of the “debate”? Whose ideas turned out to be correct? The debate was over whether or not the spiral nebulae was within the Milky Way galaxy.
How did Hubble prove that the spiral nebulae were outside the Milky Way?
Hubble not only found a number of stars in Andromeda, he found Cepheid variable stars. That’s more than eight times the distance to the farthest stars in the Milky Way. This conclusively proved that the nebulae are separate star systems and that our galaxy is not the universe.
What settled the debate on whether or not spiral nebulae were inside the Milky Way’s boundaries?
The debate was over whether or not the spiral nebulae was within the Milky Way galaxy. Shapley believed the spiral nebulae was within our galaxy; Curtis argued that the spiral nebulae could be its own rotating star system. There was no “winner” in the end because neither had sufficient proof to back up their theories.
What does the darkness of the night sky tell you about the universe?
How does the darkness of the night sky tell us something important about the universe? Because the universe is not infinite in age or static. The distant stars have light that hasn’t hit earth because they are so far away. This shows us the universe had a beginning because we see a time before the stars began to shine.
What did Harlow Shapley discover in 1917?
Thus Shapley in 1917 displaced the sun from the center of our galaxy. Moreover, Shapley concluded that our galaxy, lens-shaped, is of immense dimensions: 300,000 light-years in diameter and 30,000 light-years thick. (These estimates had to be revised later to take account both of interstellar absorption and W.
What did Heber Curtis argue?
He argued that the analysis of light from spiral nebulae indicated that they were clusters of stars (with similar features to the spectrum of light from the Milky Way itself). “The spectrum of the spiral nebulae offers no difficulties in the island universe theory of the spirals,” Curtis stated.
Who was involved in the Shapley-Curtis debate?
The 1920 Shapley-Curtis Debate sheds a bright light on the commonly held cosmology of the nineteenth century – a time when astronomers thought very differently about the structure and form of the Universe than we do today. Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis were two prominent astronomers who had spent their careers studying the Milky Way galaxy.
What was the debate between Heber Curtis and Harlow Shapley?
It’s been a century since Heber Curtis and Harlow Shapley had a spirited debate about the true nature of the cosmos. An infrared view of the center of the Milky Way. When it comes to polarized opinions, astronomers can be just as guilty as the rest of us.
Who was more comfortable in front of crowds Curtis or Shapley?
“There’s no question that Curtis was a gifted speaker,” John Mulchaey, director of the Carnegie Observatories at the Carnegie Institution for Science, tells Astronomy. “Shapley was much more uncomfortable in front of crowds, and that no doubt affected his performance.”
Where was the scale of the universe debate held?
The meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington on 26 April 1920, at which Harlow Shapley of Mount Wilson and Heber D. Curtis of Lick Observatory both gave talks under the title “The Scale of the Universe”, has passed into the literature as “The Great Debate”. [1]