Astronomy

Scale of the Universe

General

1. The diameter of Jupiter is ten times the diameter of the Earth

2. The diameter of the sun is ten times the diameter of Jupiter

3. The sun is 100 times larger than Earth

4. The distance from the Earth to the Sun is 1 astronomical unit or 150,000,000 km away

5. The nearest star to Earth is 4.2 light years away (or 200,200 astronomical units)

6. Our milky way is 100,000 light years across

7. The observable universe is 93 billion light years across

Earth and Sun

1. The speed of a bullet, jet or Liam Kim is 280 meters per second or 1000 km per hour

   1. It would take a bullet 40 hours to go around Earth

   2. It would take a bullet 6 months to go around the sun (which is 109 times the circumference of Earth)

2. It would take the bullet 17 years to get to the sun from earth

   1. It takes sunlight 8 minutes to get from the sun to earth

Solar System

1. The sun is 99.86% the mass of the solar system

2. Jupiter is about 5 astronomical units from the sun

   1. It would take 100 years for a jet to go from Jupiter to the Sun

   2. It would take 40 minutes for light to reach Jupiter

3. Saturn is approximately 9 astronomical units from the sun

4. The Kuiper belt has more astroids than gasses

   1. The Kuiper Belt is located beyond Neptune

5. Voyager 1 travels at 61,000 km per hour

   1. Voyager 1 travelled at a “constant speed” since 1977 (42 years)

   2. Voyager 1 probe left the solar system in August 2012 after streaking through space for 35 years.

   3. It would take 300 years to reach the inner edge of the Oort cloud and 30 000 years to fly beyond it

Life and Death of a Star

Life of a Star

Terms

• Nebula: Massive cloud of dust and hydrogen gas where stars are born

• Protostar: stage of a star between the nebula and nuclear fusion; the stage where the star actually forms

• Nuclear fusion: process of hydrogen fusing together to create helium

• The mass of a star determines how long it lives; the large a star, the faster it goes through fuel.

Steps

1. A galactic collision or supernova causes a nebula to collapse into itself by creating energy that pushes the sides of the nebula in, creating the protostar stage

2. A star takes billions of years to form

   1. When the sides of a nebula are pushed in, the same matter is squeezed into a smaller space. The more mass an object has, the more gravity it has, which attracts more clumps to it thus adding to the mass and making it stronger in gravity.

   2. Hydrogen molecules fuse together to create helium. This is nuclear fusion, which causes heat, light, and energy in stars.

   3. A star is born via nuclear fusion.

   4. Balance: While gravity pulls matter into the star to add to it’s mass, nuclear fusion pushes out, creating balance that keeps the star alive.

Death of a Star

Small/Average Star

1. Star runs out of fuel (nuclear fusion stops)

2. Red Giant

   1. Star turns red because it cooled down

   2. It gets bigger because the outer layers are expanding

3. Planetary Nebula - continues to expand until only the core is left

4. White dwarf- leftover core

5. Black dwarf- result of a white dwarf cooling down

Large Star

1. Star runs out of fuel

2. Red Supergiant

   1. Star gets red because it cooled down

   2. It gets bigger because the outer layers are expanding

3. Supernova

   1. Nuclear fusion stops completely, hindered by the core

   2. The gasses bounce off the core and back out, breaking through the outer layer and causing an explosion

   3. This is the death of a star; it causes an expanding nebula of gas and dust

4. Black hole

   1. Core of a dead star so dense it collapsed under its own gravity

   2. So dense and strong not even light can escape

5. Neutron Stars

   1. Core left behind by a supernova of tightly packed neutrons

   2. One spoonful could weigh as much as Mount Everest and the whole star is 300,000 times as heavy as the earth

   3. If they spin quickly, they emit high frequency radio waves detected in pulses called pulsars

Glossary Terms

Chapter 8

8.1

1. Astronomy - scientific study of what is beyond the earth

2. Celestial object - any object that exists in space

3. Universe - everything that exists, including all energy, matter and space

4. Star - massive collection of gasses held by its own gravity and emits huge amounts of energy

5. Luminous - producing or giving off light/ shining

6. Sun - our star, an average star

7. Scientific notation - putting numbers into manageable form

   • First number is between 1 and 9

   • The exponent is the number of decimal places

8. Planet - a large round celestial object that travels around a star

9. Solar system - the sun and everything that travels around it

10. Satellite - a celestial object that travels around a planet or dwarf planet

11. Orbit - the closed path of a celestial object or satellite as it travels around another celestial object

12. Moon- a type of satellite

13. Galaxy - a huge, rotating collection of gas, dust and billions of stars, planets, and other celestial objects

14. Milky way - galaxy the Earth is in

8.2 - 8.3

1. Corona - outer part of the sun’s atmosphere

2. Sunspots - dark spots on the earth’s surface that are cooler than the area surrounding them

3. Galileo Galilei - astronomer who lived approximately 400 years ago- the first to observe and study sunspots in detail

4. Aurora Borealis - display of shifting colours in the northern sky caused by solar particles colliding with matter in the Earth’s upper atmosphere

5. Aurora Australis - simultaneous display of Aurora Borealis in the southern pole

6. Astronomical unit - approximately 150 million km

   • Average distance from the sun to earth

7. Dwarf planet - a celestial object that orbits the sun and has a spherical shape but does not dominate its orbit

8. Astroid - space rocks with metal found in a band called the “astroid belt” between Mars and Jupiter

9. Meteoroid - pieces of rocky debris smaller than asteroids

10. Meteor shower - when a number of meteors radiate from one point in the sky visibly on a certain date

11. Comet - chunk of ice, dust, and rock that breaks down when it approaches the sun (the ice melts)

12. Coma - a gaseous cloud when a comet sublimates from the sun’s heat

8.9 - 8.11

1. Light pollution - pollution from manmade lights, often found near cities

2. Artificial satellites - helps forecast the weather monitor agriculture, and in telecommunication technologies, navigation, assist military activities, and explore the universe

3. Sputnik 1 - First artificial satellite sent by the Soviet Union

4. Alouette 1 - Used to observe the Earth’s ionosphere

   • First satellites by Canada, placing us third in the space race

5. RADARSAT - allows satellites to view all parts of the Earth in polar orbits

6. GPS - a group of satellites that work together to determine the positions of given objects on the surface of the earth

Chapter 9

Miscellaneous

1. Kuiper Belt - space past neptune and holds space junk

2. Eris - dwarf okabet ub tge jyouer vekt

3. Oort Cloud - most distant region of our solar system that is filled with icy objects of space debris

Chapter 9 Terms

1. Light years - is a unit of distance, not time - the distance that light travels in a year

2. Solar Mass

3. Andromeda - Furthest thing we can see without technology, and are on a crash collision course with us where the Milky Way will be absorbed

4. Edwin Hubble - first to see other galaxies but DID NOT make the Hubble telescope

5. Dark matter Isn’t visible but must be there because of the way other objects interact and move/ makes up the majority of the universe

6. Dark energy - isn’t visible but is responsible for the expansion of the universe/ is stronger than gravity

7. Big Bang Theory

Miscellaneous

Tunguska Event

1. June 1908

2. Large space object penetrated Earth’s atmosphere and exploded in the air causing damage to trees and livestock in a 2000 km radius

3. Object exploded 5 - 10 km above the earth’s surface

4. In 2007, scientists discovered Lake Cheko and have concluded it is a result of the explosion

The three M’s

1. Meteoroids - pieces of rocky space debris SMALLER THAN asteroids

2. Meteor - a small meteoroid that enters the earth’s atmosphere appearing as a streak of light

3. Meteorite - a meteor that has fallen to earth’s surface