Created by: Mariana Cano Díaz (Catedrática CONACYT – Institute of Astronomy, UNAM), Jessica Andrea Gallegos Salgado (Bachelor’s degree in Physics, Faculty of Science, UNAM), Zenaida Berenice Sánchez Méndez (Bachelor’s degree in Physics, Faculty of Science, UNAM)
Although our target audience is high school and undergraduate students, anyone interested in astronomy can participate in this virtual exercise.
This activity was designed as an outreach project by the Institute of Astronomy of the UNAM, with the objective of introducing students to astronomical topics. Here you will learn the main characteristics of galaxy morphology, the spectroscopy as a method to identify elliptical and spiral galaxies, you will associate each spectrum with the type of galaxy of interest and finally it will be your turn to classify different spectra.
In this exercise you will be able to use real data, just as astronomers do, since the data you will see were obtained with the observations of the MaNGA study (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO) of the SDSS (Sloan Digital Sky Survey) and they’re available to the public through the Marvin platform, offering the data of more than 10,000 galaxies.
It is important to mention that this activity is still a work in progress, which, with the help of your comments, we will be able to improve. Later, the final version may become part of the SDSS Voyages education and outreach website, where you will find other activities that will guide you to learn more about galaxies and many other astronomy topics.