36th Annual Student Research Conference
A Median Statistic Analysis of the Distance to Galaxy M87
Nicholas Rackers
Dr. Bharat Ratra (Kansas State University) and Dr. Rasanjali Jayathissa, Faculty Mentors
de Grijs and Bono compiled 211 independent measurements of the distance to Galaxy M87 in the Virgo cluster and reported the arithmetic mean of a subset of this compilation as the best estimate of the distance. We study the Gaussianity of the full dataset and two sub-compilations and calculate three different central estimates for each dataset. We use median statistics to analyze the subgroup systematics of the full dataset. We find the median to provide the most reliable estimate due to the non-Gaussianity of the datasets. We recommend an M87 distance modulus of 31.02+0.04 −0.07 mag (15.99+0.29−0.51Mpc) at 68.27% significance.
Keywords: Median Statistics, Galaxy, Astrophysics, statistical error, systematic error, Gaussian
Topic(s):Physics
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Session: 310-2
Location: MG 1096
Time: 1:30