ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Price-Whelan 1

Okay, imagine you have a toy car that you want to sell, and you think it is worth $10. When you try to sell your toy car, you need to figure out how much money someone is willing to pay for it. If someone really likes your toy car, they might be willing to pay more than $10 for it. But if nobody is interested in your toy car, they might only be willing to pay less than $10 for it.

So the price of something, like your toy car, is determined by how much people are willing to pay for it. It is not always exactly the same as how much you think it is worth.

Now, let's talk about Price-Whelan 1. It is a mathematical model that helps scientists determine the prices of things in space, like stars and galaxies. Just like your toy car, stars and galaxies have different values based on factors like their size, age, and composition.

Price-Whelan 1 takes a lot of information about these space objects and uses it to estimate their worth. It looks at things like the brightness of a star or the shape of a galaxy to figure out how much people might be willing to pay for it.

This model is important because scientists need to know the value of these space objects to study them better. It helps them understand how stars and galaxies form and how they have changed over time. By using Price-Whelan 1, scientists can create a better picture of the universe and how it works.