Astronomy Calculations: Kepler, Distances, Magnitudes & Light

What you'll build

What you will be able to do

Each lab ends with a concrete result that you build yourself and the checker confirms, cell by cell.

• Build the light-year and the parsec from exact IAU constants and convert six real distances from light-years to parsecs.
• Test T² = a³ on the eight planets, measure the exponent 1.5 with SLOPE on logarithms and plot the log-log line.
• Calculate escape and low-orbit speeds for six worlds, Earth's speed around the Sun and the Sun's mass from Earth's orbit.
• Turn measured parallaxes into distances in parsecs and light-years, count the stars within 6 pc and find the farthest one.
• Compute distance moduli and absolute magnitudes, compare stars with the Sun and use a standard candle to measure a distance.
• Compute the Sun's power output from its size and temperature, the sunlight each planet receives and where other stars would warm a planet like the Sun warms Earth.
• Find where each star's light peaks, label the band, assign the spectral class and colour with a lookup and work backwards from a peak to a temperature.
• Fit the Hubble constant to ten galaxies with SLOPE, turn it into the Hubble time, measure a distance from a redshift and draw the Hubble diagram.