THE NIGHT SKY famous Constellations

 The term NIGHT SKY, usually associated with  Zodiac Constellation

astronomy from Earth, refers to the nighttime Greek word ( zoidiakos) meaning “circle of
appearance of celestial objects like stars, animals”
constellation, planets, and all beyond the vast
 Ursa minor also known as the little dipper
galaxies.
 Ursa major also known as the big dipper
STARS  Orion’s belt also known as the Three Kings
or Three Sisters
 A star is an astronomical object consisting of a  Largest constellation – hydra
luminous spheroid of plasma held together by
 Aquarius – the water bearer
its own gravity.
January 20 – February 18
 Why do stars twinkle?
The 10th largest CONSTELLATION
As the stars light travels through the many
layers of the earth’s atmosphere, the light of  Cancer – the crab
the star is bent (refracted) many times. This June 22 – July 22
random refraction results in the star winking The 31st largest CONSTELLATION
out (what we interpret as twinkling). The  Aries – the ram
scientific name of this phenomena is stellar March 21 – April 19
SCINTILLATION The 39th largest constellation
 Characteristics of stars  Gemini – the twins
Size – 20 km to 1 trillion km in diameter May 21 – June 21
mass – amount of its matter
The 30th largest constellation
Color – stars can be red, blue, white, orange or
 Leo – the lion
yellow
Temperature – blue is the hottest
July 23 – august 22
Red is the coolest The 12th largest constellation
Yellow (our sun)  Pisces – the fish
 four kind of stars; February 19 – march 10
Super giants The 14th largest constellation
Red giants  Libra – the scales
Dwarf stars September 23 – October 23
White dwarf The 29th largest constellation
 Fun Facts:
 Sagittarius – the archer
The nearest star to Earth is the Sun.
November 22 – December 21
CONSTELLATIONS The 15th largest constellation
 Scorpius – the scorpion
 A constellation is a group of stars that October 24 – November 21
appears to form a pattern or picture like The 33rd largest constellation
Orion the Great Hunter, Leo the Lion, or  Virgo – the virgin
Taurus the Bull. August 23 – September 22
 There are 88 official constellations The 2nd largest constellation
 Taurus – the bull
April 20 – may 20
 The 17th largest constellation
 Capricorn – the goat
December 22 – January 19
The 40th largest constellation
GALAXIES
 A cluster of stars, gas, and dust that are
held together by gravity
 Three types of galaxies
Irregular
Some galaxies do not have definable,
regular shapes and are known as irregular
galaxies.
They contain young stars, dusts, and gas.
Elliptical
These galaxies contain billions of stars, but
have little gas and dust between the stars.
These galaxies look like flattened balls.
Contains old stars
Spiral
Spiral galaxies consist of a flat, rotating disk
with stars, gas, and dust and a central
concentration of stars, known as the bulge.
Contains mostly middle aged stars
The Sun
 It is a star because it is made of light and heat.
 Is the only star in the solar system.
 - It is a source of light and heat.
 The sun’s diameter is 864,938 miles (1,391,980
km
 This is almost 10 times larger than the planet
Jupiter and about 109 times as big as the Earth.
 The sun’s gravity is 28 times stronger than that
of Earth
Inner Layer
Core
 The center of sun and extremely hot.
 The hottest part of the sun and of the solar
system.
 The core’s temperature is 10 million to 20
million degrees Celsius.
Radiation Zone
 The region between the solar core at 0.2 of the
sun’s radius and the outer convection zone at
0.71 of sun’s radius.
Convection Zone
 The outer-most layer of interior.
 It extends from a depth of 200,000 km up to the
visible surface of the sun.
 Energy is transported by convection in this
region.
The Outer Layers
Chromosphere
 Above the photosphere
 Thick layer of boiling and spinning gases
 Viewed as a red rim around sun.
 The temperature is about 27,800 degrees
Celsius.
Transition Region
 The Transition region is a very narrow (60
mile/100 kilometer) layer between the
chromosphere and the the Corona where the
 temperature rises abruptly from about 8000 to THE SOLAR SYSTEM (PLANETS)
500,000 K.  Planets are round object that orbit the sun.

Corona MERCURY

 Outer part of sun (atmosphere)  Closest planet to the sun

 Looks like a crown of bright light glowing.
 It is composed of extremely thin dust and gases.
 Temperature is about 2,000,000 degrees
Celsius.
 During atotal eclipse, the Corona becomes
visible to earth.
Prominence
• Cloudlike structures.
• Large amount of gases.
• Look like a huge flame coming out of the sun
Sunspot
 Is a dark patch on the sun’s surface
Comparing Star and the Planet
 4 times hotter than boiling water
 One of the rocky planets
 2nd smallest primary planets
VENUS
 2ND planet from the sun
 Also called (EARTH’S TWIN)
 Everyday on Venus is a cloudy day.(clouds are
yellow)
 Closest planet to see in the sky
EARTH
 The only planet we know that has oceans and
life exist.
 One of the rocky planets
 Has 1 moon(the moon orbits the earth,like the
earth orbit the sun).(need picture)

stars MARS

• Made of light gases  RED planet

 Scientists believe that there used to be water
• Emits light and heat
on mars.
• Sphere of hot gases  rocky planet
 has volcano and valleys
Planets
 has two moons(they are both very small)
 Made of rocks
JUPITER
 Does not emit light and heat
 Sphere of hard rock  A huge planet
 at least 63 moons
 is a giant gas planet

SATURN

 Ring are made up of ice

 Has a lot of moon(62moons)
 Farthest planet you can see without a telescope
 Gas planet
 Gas planet (made up of gas and liquid)
 William Herchel discovered(1781)
  Scientist believed,the rings of uranus could be
pieces of broken moon.
 Saul Perlmutter, Adam Riess and Brian Schmidt
NEPTUNE
 Was discovered in 1846 when Uranus was being
studied.
 Known for a strong storm
STEADY STATE THEORY
 Has 14 moons
 Farthest planet from the sun.
THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE
BIG BANG THEORY
 universe had a beginning. BBT claims that the
universe came into being from the sudden
explosion of a primeval matter about 14 billion
years ago.
 Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) argued that the
universe be finitely based on the night sky.
 Albert Einstein (1879-1955) presented his idea
of General Relativity, in which he proposed that
gravity be a geometric property of spacetime in
simpler terms
 Edwin Hubble’s (1889-1953) paper was
presented at the American Astronomical
Society where he showed that some “nebulae”
were very distant galaxies beyond Milky Way.
 Fr. George Lemaitre (1894-1966), Belgian
cosmologist and Catholic priest, published an
unnoticed paper where he provided a solution
to Einstein’s General Relativity equations that
led to an expanding universe. FATHER OF BBT
 Edwin Hubble and Milton Humason (1891-1972)
published their report about the red-shift of
lights coming from distant galaxies.
 George Gamow (1904-1968) supported
Lemaitre’s BBT but added his modification by
arguing for a hot Big Bang in which he proposed
that the universe was very hot at the beginning
and gradually cooled down as it expanded.
 Arno Penzias (1933) and Robert Wilson (1936),
while working at the Bell Lab, discovered the
Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
(CMB), which provides a confirmation for the
Big bang event.
were awarded the Nobel Physics Prize for their
discovery that the universe is not only
expanding but the expansion is speeding up or
accelerating.
 1867, Sir Isaac Newton described a “static,
steady and infinite universe” in his book,
“Principia”.
 also known as Newtonian Universe.
 1948, Thomas Hoyle, English astronomer,
and cosmologist, supported the SST. He
accepted the expansion of the universe but
insisted that new matter be formed
between galaxies thus maintaining the
overall density of the universe on the large
scale. He was supported in this view by two
other scientists namely Thomas Gold and
Hermann Bondi.
 became popular in the 1950’s and 1960’s as
a strong alternative to the BBT but with the
discovery of the Cosmic Microwave
Background Radiation, the SST was largely
abandoned by the scientific community.
 early 90’s, Hoyle, Geoffrey Burbidge and
Jayand Narlikar proposed a modification to
the SST with their Quasi-Steady State
Cosmos model (QSSC) where they proposed
the existence of pockets of creation in the
universe known as minibangs. CYCLIC
UNIVERSE THEORY (Steinhardt and Turok, 2
CYCLIC UNIVERSE THEORY (Steinhardt and
Turok, 2007)

 universe goes through “repeating cycles and

evolution”.
 The proponents claim that their theory
addresses the many modifications made on the
BBT every time adjustments are

FORMATION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

ORIGIN OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

nebular hypothesis

 our solar system began as a huge solar nebula

that was spinning about 4.6 billion years ago.
 This molecular cloud of H gas and interstellar
dust was balanced by two forces- the
contracting force of gravity and the expanding
force of gas pressure.
 The imbalance was probably due to shockwaves
from a supernova explosion and the energy
caused the molecular cloud to collapse
gravitationally and spin faster.
 fit the current internal characteristics of the
Solar System.
