ASTROPHYSICS

OPTION D
NAME THE PLANETS IN ORDER
WHY IS PLUTO NO LONGER A PLANET?
ASTEROID BELT, KUIPER BELT, OORT CLOUD, PLACE IN
THE MILKY WAY

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=libKVRa01L8
 COMETS
• Irregular large rock-like pieces of frozen gases, rock and
dust that orbit the Sun
• Very elliptical orbits
• The sun vaporizes gases near the Sun forming the comet
tail pointing away from the Sun (ionized)
 SATELLITES

• An object that orbits a planet

• Natural satellites are called?

• Our moon:
• 5th largest in Solar System
• Orbits at 340 000 km from Earth
 ASTEROIDS

• Rocky objects orbiting the Sun

• Millions in the asteroid belt
• If less than 300 km, irregularly shaped
(gravity too weak to compress into
spheres)
• Some largest enough to be considered
‘minor planets’ e.g. Ceres, diameter
106 m
WHAT’S BEYOND THE
OORT CLOUD?
 STARS

• Initially form when gravity causes the gas

in a nebula to condense
• GPE converts to KE
• T raises – ‘protostar’
• T and P large enough for fusion – star
‘ignites’
• Radiation pressure opposes inward
gravitational forces – hydrostatic
equilibrium
• Billions of years as a main sequence star,
evolving depending on its initial mass
• Regions of intergalactic cloud of dust and gas
• Stellar nurseries, two different origins:
• Matter era, 380 000 years after the Big Bang, when dust and gas clouds first
formed (nuclei captured electrons)
• From matter ejected from a supernova explosion
• Can form from the final red giant stage of a low mass star e.g. the Sun

NEBULAE
GROUPS OF STARS

• Binary stars: two stars rotating about a common

centre of mass

• Their interactions allow us to measure things that we

have no other way of investigating e.g. their mass
 GROUPS OF STARS

• Stellar cluster: a group of stars positioned closely enough to be held

together by gravity
• From a few dozen stars to several million
• All formed at the same time from the same nebula
• E.g. the Pleiades – a cluster of around 500 stars that can be seen with
the naked eye

Open cluster – up to several hundred stars younger than

10 billion years, may still contain some gas and dust, lie
within a single plane in the Milky Way
Globular cluster – contain many more stars and are older
than 11 billion years, so very little gas and dust. Spherically
shaped, there are 150 known in our galactic halo
 CONSTELLATIONS Orion in 3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD-5ZOipE48

• A pattern formed by stars that are in the same

general direction when viewed from the Earth
• More significant historically but do help to
locate areas of the sky
• They will appear differently in 10 thousand
years time
• Not held together by gravity
ANDROMEDA

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
udAL48P5NJU
GALAXIES

• A creation of stars, gas and dust held together by

gravity
• Billions of stars – in the Milky Way, 3 x 1011 (and same
number of planets?)

• Some exist in isolation, others in galaxy clusters, from

dozens to thousands
• Regular clusters – concentrated core, spherical in shape
• Irregular clusters – no apparent shape, lower
concentration of galaxies
• Superclusters – network of sheets and filaments – 90%
of galaxies

• In between clusters – void

 GALAXY CLASSES

• Most common - spiral

• Disc shape with spiral arms spreading out from a central galactic bulge that
contains the greatest density of stars
• Spiral arms contain many young blue stars and a great deal of dust and gas
• Supermassive black hole?

• Elliptical galaxies – ovoid or spherical – contain much less gas and dust than
spiral galaxies
• Thought to have been formed from collisions between spiral galaxies

• Irregular galaxies – shapeless, may have been stretched by the presence of

other massive galaxies
SUMMARY DIAGRAM MUST INCLUDE:

• Solar system – planets, asteroids, comets, satellites

• Stars – binary, stellar clusters (open and globular), constellations
• Nebulae
• Galaxies – clusters and classes