Astronomy

Reported by Mr. Geronimo N. Santiago

 Objective
Objective

•To comprehend the importance of

astronomy
•To identify the field studied in Astronomy
•To apprehend and classify the different
duties of astromers
What is Astronomy?
- Astronomy is the study of the sun, moon, stars,
planets, comets, gas, galaxies, gas, dust and
other non-Earthly bodies and phenomena
- The scientific study of the contents of entire
Universe, stars, planets, comets, asteroids,
galaxies, and space and time as well as its
history.
- Humanity's oldest science
 History of Astronomy
1. Prehistoric Astronomy
Priests, priestesses, and other "elites" studied the movement of
celestial bodies to determine rituals, celebrations, and planting
cycles. (e.g. Mayan, Ancient Chinese, Babylonians)
2. Ancient Greek
Eudoxus and philosopher Aristotle in the 4th century BCE. They
said the Sun, Moon, and planets hung on a set of nesting,
concentric spheres surrounding Earth that remained the
predominant scientific view of the universe for another six
hundred years.
 History of Astronomy
3. Ptolemaic Revolution (Geocentric model )
 Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy), a Roman astronomer working in Egypt,
added a curious invention of his own to the geocentric model of nesting
crystalline balls. He said that the planets moved in perfect circles made of
"something", attached to those perfect spheres. All that stuff rotated around
Earth.
4. Heliocentric Copernican Model
Nicolaus Copernicus, theorized that the Sun was at the center of the universe
and Earth and other planets revolved around it.
5. Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment.
The rise of Galilean Planetary Motion
What are the field studying in
Astronomy?
Astrophysics
All physics required to understand
astronomical phenomena (includes
elements of nearly all fields of
physics)

Cosmology
The universe: its origin, structure, and
evolution on the largest possible scale
Cosmogony
The origin of the universe (and
sometimes the solar system), is a
subfield of cosmology

Astrochemistry
All chemistry required to understand
astronomical phenomena (primarily
the chemistry of the interstellar
medium and protostellar accretion
disks)
Space Science
The physics of the interplanetary
medium

Planetary Science
The physics of planets, their
formation, structure and evolution
Astrology
The theoretical relation-ships
between the planetary
positions at the time of a
person's birth, that person's
personality, and events in
that person's life. A
pseudoscience, has no
scientific basis.
Who study astronomy?
Astronomers are scientists who study the
Universe and the objects within it. There are so
many interesting things to learn about within the
Universe that astronomers often become
specialists who focus on galaxies, stars, planets,
star-forming regions, the Sun, the search for life,
or the origin and evolution of the Universe as a
whole.
Astronomers might ask themselves questions like:
1.Is the Universe expanding, shrinking, or unchanging?
2.Does the Universe have a beginning? An end?
3.How much matter is there in the Universe?
4.What are stars and how are they born and how do they die?
5.How are planets formed?
6.How are galaxies formed?
7.What are comets and what is their composition?
8.Are there other planets besides the ones in our solar system,
and if so, do any of them harbor life?
 Modern astronomers tend to fall
into two fields
A. Observational astronomers focus on direct study of stars, planets,
galaxies, and so forth.

B. Theoretical astronomers create model and analyze how systems

may have evolved. Unlike most other fields of science, astronomers
are unable to observe a system entirely from birth to death; the
lifetime of worlds, stars, and galaxies span millions to billions of
years. Instead, astronomers must rely on snapshots of bodies in
various stages of evolution to determine how they formed, evolved
and died
 Astronomy is
broken down into a
number of subfields,
allowing scientists to
specialize in
particular objects
and phenomena:
Planetary astronomers
Planetary astronomers (planetary
scientists) focus on the growth, evolution,
and death of planets. While most study the
worlds inside the solar system, some use the
growing body of evidence about planets
around other stars to hypothesize what they
might be like
Stellar astronomers
Stellar astronomers turn their eyes to the
stars, including the black holes, nebulae,
white dwarfs and supernova that survive
stellar deaths. The focus of stellar astronomy
is on the physical and chemical processes
that occur in the universe.
Solar astronomers
Solar astronomers spend their time analyzing a
single star — our sun. According to NASA, "The
quantity and quality of light from the sun varies on
time scales from milli-seconds to billions of years."
Understanding those changes can help scientists
recognize how Earth is affected. The sun also helps
us to understand how other stars work, as it is the
only star close enough to reveal details about its
surface.
Galactic astronomers
Galactic astronomers study our galaxy, the
Milky Way, while extragalactic astronomers peer
outside of it to determine how these collections of
stars form, change, and die.
Cosmologists
Cosmologists focus on the universe in its entirety, from its
violent birth in the Big Bang to its present evolution, all the
way to its eventual death. Astronomy is often (not always)
about very concrete, observable things, whereas cosmology
typically involves large-scale properties of the universe and
esoteric, invisible and sometimes purely theoretical things
like string theory, dark matter and dark energy, and the
notion of multiple universes. Astronomical observers rely
on different wavelengths of the electromagnetic
spectrum (from radio waves to visible light and on up to X-
rays and gamma-rays) to study the wide span of objects in
the universe.
Astrometry
Astrometry, the most ancient branch of astronomy,
is the measure of the sun, moon and planets. The
precise calculations of these motions allows
astronomers in other fields to model the birth and
evolution of planets and stars, and to predict events
such as eclipses meteor showers, and the
appearance of comets. According to the Planetary
Society, "Astrometry is the oldest method used to
detect extrasolar planets," though it remains a
difficult process.
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