DIVINE WORD COLLEGE OF BANGUED

Bangued, Abra
School of Arts, Sciences and Education
Bachelor of Elementary Education/Bachelor of Secondary Education

Introductory Astronomy

Name:Palangi, Genesis B.
Course & Year: BSED 2 Rating________
Answer the following:
1. How can sunspots help to determine the period of rotation of the sun?
The phenomenon easiest to be observed on the surface of the sun is that of sunspots. We can
use a variety of observation methods such as projection and solar filters to make observations
of sunspots. When sunspots appear, they move over the surface of the sun, and from
observations of this movement it is possible to calculate the sun’s rotation period. In 1610,
based on his observations of sunspots, Galileo found that the sun’s rotation period is
approximately 27 days.
The period of rotation of the sun is determined by use of sunspots. The motion of sunspots
determines the rate of rotation at a particular latitude. The sun doesn't rotate as a solid body,
but rather varies its rotation period from the equator to the poles.
Sunspots are phenomena whereby strong and confused solar surface magnetic fields, in a
relatively low temperature region, cause easy solar storms to erupt (these storms include solar
flares, eruptive prominence, and coronal mass ejections). Thus, the number of sunspots
represents the strength of the sun’s surface activities.
The largest sunspot group is more than 13 times the Earth’s surface. Solar flares and coronal
mass ejections speed into space profusion of charged particles known as a plasma cloud.
When this stream of charged particles crosses near the Earth, it will cause disturbances in the
Earth’s electromagnetic field, which may then lead to disruptions to telecommunications.
In high latitudes, the phenomenon of beautiful auroras or “magnetic storms” occurs. These
“storms” may cause damage to communication satellites [4], power generation facilities, and
other faults, affecting satellite television and radio communications, GPS, mobile phones, and
flight facilities. Life on Earth is protected by the Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere, so it will
not be directly harmed by these solar storms. However, astronauts in space stations are at risk
because of their lack of protection, as they are directly exposed to intense radiation, from the
sun. Therefore, if there is a large complex sunspot group in the sun facing the Earth, experts
will repeatedly warn that all telecommunications, communications, air traffic, and power
generation units must pay attention to the development of the situation.
The sun is the most important source of energy for the Earth. Its activity has a far-reaching
impact on the state of the Earth’s ecology and environment. Therefore, any movement on the
surface of the sun is important information for scientists to investigate in relation to
environmental changes.
Source: https://www.hindawi.com/journals/mpe/2015/153407/
 DIVINE WORD COLLEGE OF BANGUED
Bangued, Abra
School of Arts, Sciences and Education
Bachelor of Elementary Education/Bachelor of Secondary Education

2. Explain why meteors are more often seen late at night and usually numerous before dawn.
Most of the meteors seen during one of the annual showers arise from fluffy particles not much
larger than sand grains. As a particle enters Earth's atmosphere, it collides with gas atoms and
molecules. On any night of the year, meteors appear faster, brighter, and more numerous after
midnight.
Many perhaps most of the meteors that strike Earth are associated with specific comets. Some
of these periodic comets still return to our view; others have long ago fallen apart, leaving only
a trail of dust behind them. The dust particles from a given comet retain approximately the orbit
of their parent, continuing to move together through space but spreading out over the orbit with
time. When Earth, in its travels around the Sun, crosses such a dust stream, we see a sudden
burst of meteor activity that usually lasts several hours; such an event is called a meteor
shower.
The dust particles and pebbles that produce meteor showers are moving together in space
before they encounter Earth. Thus, as we look up at the atmosphere, their parallel paths seem
to come toward us from a place in the sky called the radiant. This is the direction in space from
which the meteor stream seems to be diverging, just as long railroad tracks seem to diverge
from a single spot on the horizon. Meteor showers are often designated by the constellation in
which this radiant is located: for example, the Perseid meteor shower has its radiant in the
constellation of Perseus. But you are likely to see shower meteors anywhere in the sky, not just
in the constellation of the radiant. 
Sources:
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/astronomy/chapter/meteors/
https://astronomy.com/observing/observe-the-solar-system/2010/04/meteors-and-meteor-
showers#:~:text=Most%20of%20the%20meteors%20seen,with%20gas%20atoms%20and
%20molecules.&text=On%20any%20night%20of%20the,and%20more%20numerous%20after
%20midnight.
3. Why are comets more clearly visible when they approach the sun?
Kepler's Laws were shown by Newton to explain the motion of comets. They orbit the Sun in
highly elliptical orbits coming close to the Sun for a while and then moving off to the outer
reaches of the Solar System to return many years later. The orbit period of a comet may vary
form a few years (Encke's comet has a period of 3.28 years) to many thousands or even
millions of years for very long period comets.
Comets are huge balls of grit and ice many kilometers in diameter. (Halley's comet has a
nucleus about 16 km x 8 km across).
When they come near the Sun the heat melts some of the ice and this produces a huge cloud
of gas and dust that we see as the tail of the comet. These tails, millions of kilometers in length,
become visible as they near the Sun. The tail always points away from the Sun because of the
pressure of the solar wind on its tiny particles.
When a comet's orbit brings it close to the Sun, it heats up and spews dust and gases into a
giant glowing head larger than most planets. The dust and gases form a tail that stretches
 DIVINE WORD COLLEGE OF BANGUED
Bangued, Abra
School of Arts, Sciences and Education
Bachelor of Elementary Education/Bachelor of Secondary Education

away from the Sun for millions of miles. There are likely billions of comets orbiting our Sun in
the Kuiper Belt and even more distant Oort Cloud.
Sources:
https://www.schoolphysics.co.uk/age14-16/Astronomy/text/Comets_/index.html
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/comets/overview/?
page=0&per_page=40&order=name+asc&search=&condition_1=102%3Aparent_id&condition_2=comet
%3Abody_type%3Ailike
4. Why will space crew require an extensive Mathematics background?
When astronauts fly into space to conduct missions, it is made possible because of precise
mathematical calculations, from how the spacecraft leaves Earth's atmosphere to how the
astronauts pilot the craft. Designers use math to calculate distance, speed, velocity, and their
own safety when creating space-faring vehicles.
Source:
http://weusemath.org/?career=astronaut
5. How does the color of a star indicate its stage?
Astronomers have long used stars' color to identify their temperature, and they created a
classification system called spectral classes to do so, which places stars into a category based
on their temperature:

http://
www.seasky.org/celestial-objects/stars.html
Class O stars, which are blue in color, are the hottest, and class M stars, which are red in color,
are the coldest. This can be tricky to remember, as we typically think of blue as a cool color and
red as a hot one. Thus, it's helpful to understand the reason blue stars are hot and red ones
are cool:
Remember that the temperature of an object is a direct measure of the amount of motion within
it. The hotter the star, the faster its particles move and the more energy they radiate.
Cool stars radiate most of their energy in the red and infrared region of the electromagnetic
spectrum — which means shorter wavelengths and less energy.
Thus, they appear red, while hot stars — in which particles are moving much more quickly —
emit more energy and thus emit mostly at blue and ultra-violet wavelengths, making them
appear blue or white.
Source:
https://socratic.org/questions/what-does-the-color-of-a-star-indicate
 DIVINE WORD COLLEGE OF BANGUED
Bangued, Abra
School of Arts, Sciences and Education
Bachelor of Elementary Education/Bachelor of Secondary Education

6. Compare the rotational period of the inner and outer planets.

The inner planets have shorter orbits around the Sun, and they all spin more slowly. The
Rotation Period of the Inner Planets
     To see how this works, consider the case of the Earth. The Earth goes around the Sun in
one year, or approximately 365 1/4 days. The number of degrees in a circle is 360 degrees,
which is about the same as the number of days in a year, so the angle that the Sun seems to
move relative to the stars during one rotation is approximately one degree.
      To calculate how long it takes for the Earth to rotate through an angle of one degree, we
divide the length of a day, 24 hours or 1440 minutes, by the 360 degrees it turns through during
that rotation, obtaining a rotational speed of 4 minutes per degree. Since the Sun's motion
differs from the stars' motion by one degree, and it takes 4 minutes for the Earth to turn through
one degree, it takes the Sun 4 minutes longer to go around the sky than it takes for the stars to
do so, and the rotation period of the Earth is 4 minutes less than the length of its day. Since we
define a day as having exactly 24 hours, the rotation period of the Earth is 23 hours 56
minutes.
The Rotation Periods of the Outer Planets
      For the outer planets we can use the same sort of calculation that we just did for the Earth,
taking advantage of the fact that they have much longer orbital periods, so the number of
rotations in a year is much larger and the distance they move during one rotation is
correspondingly smaller.
      For Mars, the year is nearly twice as long as ours, 686.98 days, and the rotation period is a
little longer than ours, 24 hours 37 minutes 22.66 seconds (this is often erroneously listed as
the length of the day). Dividing the rotation period into the year we find that Mars rotates 670
times in a year, moving around the Sun about half a degree during each rotation. Since Mars
rotates at about the same rate that we do, it would take about 2 minutes to make up for this
half-degree motion; so on Mars the day must be about 2 minutes longer than the rotation
period. These calculations are rounded off considerably, so the results are only approximate;
but if the calculations were accurately done the results would be reasonably accurate, as well.
      For planets which are even further out, the motion around the Sun is even smaller and the
time required to compensate for it is only a few seconds. For Jupiter the difference between the
rotation period and the length of the day is about 3 seconds; and for Saturn, Uranus and
Neptune, the difference is about 1 second. Even for Pluto, which has a much longer rotation
rate than the Jovian planets, the difference between the rotation period and the day is less than
40 seconds — a small difference compared to its rotation period of more than six days. As a
result, the day length and rotation period are about the same, and we often treat them as being
the same (just as we often do, though not as accurately, for the Earth).
      The above technique works well for the planets with rotation rates which are rapid
compared to their orbital periods, so that they rotate hundreds, thousands, or even tens of
thousands of times in each orbit. But for objects which rotate very few times in an orbit the
angle A is very large, which means that it takes quite a while for the planet to rotate through
 DIVINE WORD COLLEGE OF BANGUED
Bangued, Abra
School of Arts, Sciences and Education
Bachelor of Elementary Education/Bachelor of Secondary Education

that extra angle, and the difference between the day and the rotation period can become
surprisingly large.
Source: https://cseligman.com/text/sky/rotationvsday.htm
7. If a space vehicle is designed to orbit around the Earth very slowly, should it be put into a low
or high orbit? Explain.
The International Space Station is in low Earth orbit, or LEO. LEO is the first 100 to 200 miles
(161 to 322 km) of space. LEO is the easiest orbit to get to and stay in. One complete orbit in
LEO takes about 90 minutes.
Satellites that stay above a location on Earth are in geosynchronous Earth orbit, or GEO.
These satellites orbit about 23,000 miles (37,015 km) above the equator and complete one
revolution around Earth precisely every 24 hours. Satellites headed for GEO first go to an
elliptical orbit with an apogee about 37,015 km. Firing the rocket engines at apogee then
makes the orbit round. Geosynchronous orbits are also called geostationary.
Any satellite with an orbital path going over or near the poles maintains a polar orbit. Polar
orbits are usually low Earth orbits. Eventually, Earth's entire surface passes under a satellite in
polar orbit. When a satellite orbits Earth, the path it takes makes an angle with the equator.
This angle is called the inclination. A satellite that orbits parallel to the equator has a zero-
degree orbital inclination. A satellite in a polar orbit has a 90-degree inclination.
Source: https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/nasa-knows/what-is-orbit-58.html
8. Why doesn’t a total lunar eclipse occur every month?
It’s true that the Moon goes around Earth every month, but it doesn’t always get in Earth’s
shadow. The Moon’s path around Earth is tilted compared to Earth’s orbit around the Sun. The
Moon can be behind Earth but still get hit by light from the Sun.
Because they don’t happen every month, a lunar eclipse is a special event. Unlike solar
eclipses, lots of people get to see each lunar eclipse. If you live on the nighttime half of Earth
when the eclipse happens, you’ll be able to see it.
Source: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/eclipses/en/
9. How do the moon and sun cause tides?
The ocean tides on earth are caused by both the moon's gravity and the sun's gravity. In
general, ocean tides are not generated by the overall strength of gravity, but instead by
the differences in gravity from one spot to the next (the gravitational gradient). Even though the
sun is much more massive and therefore has stronger overall gravity than the moon, the moon
is closer to the earth so that its gravitational gradient is stronger than that of the sun. Because
ocean tides are the effect of ocean water responding to a gravitational gradient, the moon plays
a larger role in creating tides than does the sun. But the sun's gravitational gradient across the
earth is significant and it does contribute to tides as well.
As detailed in "The Moon Book" by Kim Long, the ocean tides we experience on earth are
caused by the sum of the moon's gravitational gradient and the sun's gravitational gradient.
When the sun and the moon are aligned, or nearly aligned, their gravitational gradient fields
add together constructively, leading to extra strong tides (high tide is extra high and low tide is
extra low). This alignment happens when the moon is a new moon or a full moon, which occurs
 DIVINE WORD COLLEGE OF BANGUED
Bangued, Abra
School of Arts, Sciences and Education
Bachelor of Elementary Education/Bachelor of Secondary Education

about every two weeks. The moon takes about a month to orbit the earth, hence strong tides
occur about twice a month. In contrast, when the sun and the moon are unaligned, their
gravitational gradients tend to cancel out, leading to weak tides (high tide is not very high and
low tide is not very low). But even when the sun and moon are perfectly unaligned (they form a
90 degree angle relative to the earth), there are still tides because the moon's gravitational
gradient is stronger than the sun's. The sun's gravitational gradient never completely cancels
out the moon's. The biweekly strong tides are called "spring tides" even though they occur all
year long. The name does not refer to the season "Spring", but to the verb "spring" which
means to leap forth, because the strong high tides leap higher up the shore. The biweekly
weak tides are called "neap tides".
Note that the position of the moon and sun relative to the earth just causes the two-week cycle
of strong and weak tides. The daily pattern of high and low tides is not caused by the changing
position of the sun and moon, but is directly caused by the rotation of the earth. Because the
earth takes one day to rotate about its own axis, the high tide/low tide cycle repeats twice a
day. In truth, the tidal bulges of ocean water are fixed relative to the sun and moon, and the
earth is rotating underneath these bulges. Just like the earth's rotation makes the sun appear to
rise and set every day, it makes the tidal bulges appear to sweep across the earth, when in
reality the earth is rotating under the tidal bulge. The reason that there are two high-tide/low-
tide cycles every day is because there are two tidal bulges and not one. The fact that there are
two tidal bulges is a direct result of the gravitational gradient being the cause of tides and not
the overall strength of gravity being the cause. The two-week cycle and the half-day cycle of
the tide can be seen in the chart below. Note that the actual tidal patterns from one specific
location to the next varies because of local factors such as water depth, shore shape, and
ocean currents.
Source: https://www.wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2013/05/09/why-does-the-moons-gravity-cause-tides-on-
earth-but-the-suns-gravity-doesnt/
10. Suppose you find a dense, irregular fragment on the ground. How can you tell whether it is a
meteorite or not?
Meteorites are fragments of rock or metal that fall to Earth from space. They are very rare, but
many people find unusual rocks or pieces of metal and wonder if they might have found a
meteorite.
Meteorites have several properties that help distinguish them from other rocks:

 Density: Meteorites are usually quite heavy for their size, since they contain metallic iron and
dense minerals.
 Magnetic: Since most meteorites contain metallic iron, a magnet will often stick to them. For
“stony” meteorites, a magnet might not stick, but if you hang the magnet by a string, it will be
attracted.
 Unusual shape: iron-nickel meteorites are rarely rounded. Instead, they have an irregular
shape with unusual pits like finger prints in their surface called “regmaglypts.”
 Fusion crust: stony meteorites typically have a thin crust on their surface where it melted as it
passed through the atmosphere.

Meteorites do NOT have the following:

 DIVINE WORD COLLEGE OF BANGUED
Bangued, Abra
School of Arts, Sciences and Education
Bachelor of Elementary Education/Bachelor of Secondary Education

 Light-colored crystals: Quartz is a common, light-colored crystal in Earth’s crust, but it is not
found on other bodies in the solar system.
 Bubbles: volcanic rocks or metallic slag on Earth often have bubbles or vesicles in them, but
meteorites do not.
 Streak: if you scratch a meteorite on an unglazed ceramic surface, it should not leave a streak.
A dense rock that leaves a black or red streak probably contains the iron minerals magnetite or
hematite, respectively, neither of which are typically found in meteorites.

Source: https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/i-think-i-found-a-meteorite-how-can-i-tell-sure?qt-
news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products