ASTR NOMY

Early
Thoughts in
Astronomy
NOMY
ASTR
ASTRONOMY
Distribution of the Galaxies
This map, covering about 10 percent of
the sky, shows the distribution of some
2 million galaxies. Galaxies tend to
clump together—black represents
areas of empty space and blue
represents the galaxies. Galaxies seem
to dot the surfaces of giant
interconnected bubbles surrounding
immense voids of empty space.
ASTRONOMY
Definition
Astronomy, study of the universe and
the celestial bodies, gas, and dust within it.
Astronomy includes observations and
theories about the solar system, the stars,
the galaxies, and the general structure of
space.
Also includes cosmology, the study of
the universe and its past and future.
People who study astronomy are called
astronomers, and they use a wide variety
of methods to perform their research.
ASTRONOMY

Ancient Origins

Ancient astronomers had

only their eyes with which to
view the sky, but they had a
very practical reason for
studying the skies.
Thousands of years ago,
changes in the heavens were
the only available clocks and
calendars. The stars could
also be used for navigation.
ASTRONOMY Ancient Origins

The Egyptians of 3,000 years

ago adopted a calendar with a
year that was 365 days long, very
near the modern value of 365.242
days.
The Egyptians also used the
rising of the star Sirius in the pre-
dawn sky to mark the time when
the Nile River could be expected
to flood.

The Chinese determined the

approximate length of the year at
about the same time as the
Egyptians.
ASTRONOMY Ancient Origins

The Maya of Central America

kept a continuous record of days
from day zero, which occurred on
our equivalent of August 13, 3114
BC. They also kept track of years,
eclipses, and the motions of the
visible planets. Their year
consisted of 18 months, each 20
days long, plus one 5-day month
to total 365 days. Occasional
adjustments were made to allow
for the extra quarter of a day.
ASTRONOMY Greek Astronomy

The writings of Aristotle

summarize the knowledge of that
era. He attributed the phases of the
Moon—that is, the changes in its
apparent shape—to the fact that we
see different portions of its sunlit
surface during the month. He also
knew that the Sun is farther away
from the Earth than the Moon
because the Moon occasionally
passes between the Sun and Earth
and blocks the Sun’s light (a solar
eclipse).

Phases of Moon
ASTRONOMY Greek Astronomy

The Greek astronomer and

mathematician Eratosthenes
measured the size of the
spherical Earth in about 200
BC. He noticed that on the
first day of summer in Syene,
Egypt, the Sun was directly
overhead at noon.

Phases of Moon
ASTRONOMY Greek Astronomy

Aristarchus of Sámos, a
Greek believed that motions
in the sky could be explained
by the hypothesis that Earth
turns around on its axis once
every 24 hours and, along
with the other planets,
revolves around the Sun.
ASTRONOMY Greek Astronomy

Perhaps the greatest of the

ancient astronomers was
Hipparchus, who lived around
150 BC and did most of his work
at an observatory he built in
Rhodes. There he recorded
accurate positions of about 850
bright stars and classified them
according to their brightness.
The brightest stars he said were
of the first magnitude, a term
astronomers still use today.
ASTRONOMY Greek Astronomy

The last of the great ancient

astronomers was Ptolemy, who
worked in Alexandria in about the
year AD 140. Ptolemy’s greatest
contribution was a geometrical
model of the solar system that
made it possible to predict the
positions of the planets at any date
and time.

Phases of Moon
ASTRONOMY

Ptolemaic System

In the 2nd century AD,

Claudius Ptolemy proposed
a model of the universe
with the earth at the
center. The model depicts
the earth as stationary
with the planets, moon,
and sun moving around it
in small, circular orbits
called epicycles.

Phases of Moon
ASTRONOMY Greek Astronomy

Astronomy took a dramatic turn in

the 16th century as a result of the
contributions of the Polish
astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.
He analyzed critically the
Ptolemaic theory of an Earth-
centered universe and showed that
the planetary motions can be
explained much more simply by
assuming that all the planets,
including Earth, orbit the Sun. His
ideas were not widely accepted until
more than 100 years later.
Phases of Moon
ASTRONOMY

Copernican Model
Proposed that the Sun was
at the center of the universe
instead of the Earth. This
heliocentric (Sun-centered)
model challenged
assumptions held since the
2nd century when
astronomer Ptolemy
proposed a geocentric (Earth-
centered) model of the
universe that was used by
astronomers and religious
thinkers for many centuries.
Phases of Moon
ASTRONOMY Greek Astronomy

The Italian astronomer

Galileo ushered in a new era
of science, one in which
observations and experiments
play the key role in testing
models and hypotheses.
Most historians believe that
Dutch spectacle-maker Hans
Lippershey invented the first
telescope in the year 1608,
but Galileo built one of his
own in 1609, shortly after
news of this invention reached
him.
ASTRONOMY Greek Astronomy

Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe

observed the Sun, Moon, and planets
from his island observatory near
Copenhagen, Denmark . Based on the
data compiled by Brahe, his German
assistant, Johannes Kepler, showed
that the planets revolve around the
Sun, not in circular orbits with
uniform motion, but in elliptical orbits
at varying speeds. He also discovered
that their relative distances from the
Sun can be calculated from the
observed periods of revolution.
Phases of Moon
ASTRONOMY Greek Astronomy

The English physicist Sir Isaac

Newton was the genius who
developed the mathematical
equations that describe the
motions of the planets. He had
to invent new forms of
mathematics, including calculus,
to help him solve this problem.
What Newton showed was that
the most natural state of motion
is a straight line. Since planets
move along curved (elliptical)
paths, some force must be acting
on them. Newton called this
Phases of Moon force gravity.
 Members of the
Solar System
NOMY
ASTR
THE SUN

 It is the closest star

to the earth at about
93,000.000 miles
away.
 It is about 865,000
miles in diameter.
Picture
The sun's gravity is
almost 28 times that
of the earth.
THE PLANETS

The planets are

Mercury, Venus, Earth,
Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,
Uranus and Neptune.
Picture The planets orbiting
nearer the sun than the
earth are called inferior
planets; those whose
orbits are larger are
called superior planets.
Mercury:

It is around 36 million miles

(58 million km) from the
sun and takes 88 days for
Mercury to orbit the Sun.
 Its rotation on its axis is
equal to 59 earth days.
Picture It has a diameter of about
3,000 miles or 4,800
kilometers.
Venus

 It is about .67 million

miles or 107 million
kilometers from the
sun
Venus' year equals
about 225 days and is
the amount of time it
Picture takes Venus to orbit
around the sun. It
comes closer to the
earth than any other
planet.
Earth

 The distance from the

earth to the sun is
around 93 million miles.
The earth's diameter is
around 7,926 miles or
12,760 kilometers and
the polar diameter 7,900
miles or 12,720
kilometers.
Mars It has a diameter of 4,200
miles or 6,800 kilometers,
just over half the diameter
of the earth, and its mass
is only 11% of the earth's
mass.
 Mars is about 141 million
miles 228 million
kilometers from the sun. It
Picture
orbits the sun in 687 days,
which makes its year twice
as long as ours or two of
our years. A Mars day or
time of rotation on its axis
is just about the same as
an earth day in length -
about 24 hours.
Jupiter
Its orbit is about 484
million miles or 778
million kilometers from
the sun. It orbits the sun
every 12 years.
Jupiter has a diameter of
88,800 miles or 143,000
Picture kilometers, Its mass is 318
times that of the earth
and about 2 1/2 times the
mass of all other planets
combined.
Saturn

 Its distance from

the sun is around
886 million miles or
1.43 billion
kilometers , almost
twice that of Jupiter.
Picture It takes Saturn about
29 1/2 years to orbit
or revolve around
the sun.
Uranus:

 It is around 1.78 billion

miles or 2.87 billion
kilometers and orbits the
sun every 84 years.
Uranus has a diameter of
around 32,000 miles or
47,000 kilometers, four
Picture times that of the earth,
and a mass or weight is
about 15 times that of the
earth. In addition it has a
thick atmosphere of
hydrogen, helium, and
methane.
Neptune

It is about about 3 billion

miles or 4.5 billion
kilometers from the sun.
It orbits the sun about
165 years. During short
periods, the orbit of Pluto
Picture tilts in such a way that
Neptune is sometimes
further from the sun than
Pluto which formerly was
considered as a planet.
 CRITERIA FOR PLANET Subtitle

 It must be an object which independently orbits the

Sun
 It must have enough mass so that gravity pulls it into a August 2006 Update by
roughly speroidal shape KLM: this month the
 It must be large enough to "dominate" its orbit (ie. its International Astronomical
mass must be much larger than anything else which Union (IAU) voted to
crosses its orbit update the definition of
what makes a planet.
According to their
decision a planet must
satisfy the following three
criteria:
 THE PLANETS
AND
OTHER DEBRIS
SPACES
NOMY
ASTR
Pluto

. Pluto, formerly the

smallest of the nine
"traditional"
planets, was
demoted to dwarf
Picture planet status
Dwarf Planets

This picture shows the sizes of

the original three dwarf
planets (Pluto, Ceres, and Eris)
as compared to Earth. It also
shows Pluto's large moon
Picture Charon (and its two small
moons Nix and Hydra) and
Eris's moon Dysnomia to scale.
None of the distances between
objects in this image are to
scale.
Click on image for full size
Images courtesy of NASA, ESA,
JPL, and A. Feild (STScI)
CERES

This picture of the asteroid

Ceres was made by the
Hubble Space Telescope in
December 2003 and January
2004. Ceres was declared a
"dwarf planet", along with
Picture Pluto and Eris, in 2006.
Image courtesy of NASA,
ESA, J. Parker (Southwest
Research Institute), P.
Thomas (Cornell University),
L. McFadden (University of
Maryland, College Park), and
M. Mutchler and Z. Levay
(STScI).
Eris

This picture shows the

dwarf planetEris and its
moon Dysnomia (just to the
right of center).
Image courtesy W. M. Keck
Observatory.
Picture
Makemake

It was discovered on
March 31, 2005, by a
team led by Michael
Brown, and announced
on July 29, 2005.
Makemake was
Picture
recognized as a dwarf
planet by the
International
Astronomical Union
(IAU) in July 2008.
Haumea,

It was discovered in 2004 by

a team headed by Mike
Brown of Caltech at the
Palomar Observatory in the
United States and, in 2005,
by a team headed by J. L.
Picture Ortiz at the Sierra Nevada
Observatory in Spain, though
the latter claim has been
contested and neither is
official. On September 17,
2008,
OTHER DEBRIS SPACE

Besides the planets

and their satellites,
there are other
members of the solar
system, They are
asteroids, meteoroids,
Picture
meteors and
meteorites and
comets.
Asteroids

Asteroids are small

planetary bodies that
revolve around the
sun. They are
sometimes called
Picture
minor planets or
planetoids
Meteoroids, Meteors and Meteorites

Meteoroids – are small pieces

of metallic or stony matter.
They have different speed and
orbits around the sun.
Meteors – break up and burn
Picture completely before they reach
the ground. Those that crash
into the earth are known as
meteorites.
Comets

Comets – a comet is
a frozen chunk of
gas, dust, and ice.
As it approaches
the sun, it begins to
resemble a star
with a long, shining
tail.
 Parts of a comet:
Nucleus – it is made up of
frozen gasses, ice and dust.
It usually measures less
than 16 kilometers in
diameter.
Picture Coma – is an elongated
coma. It is formed as the
comet approaches the sun.
A comet’s tail may be as
long as 160 million
kilometers. The tail always
point away the sun. As the
comet approaches the sun,
its tail follows the head.
Kinds of the comets Subtitle

Kinds of Comets:
Short – period comets – they
have orbits that take less
than 200 years. They stay
near the sun.
Long – period comets – they
Picture have orbits that may carry
them away from the sun.
Their orbits are 10,000 A. U.
their orbital period can last
for a thousand years.
ASTR NOMY

STARS
Stars What is a star?

The objects that

heat and light the
planets in a
system.
Picture
A star is a ball of
plasma held
together by its
own gravity.
Stars Characteristics of a Star

DISTANCE

Measured in light-years.

The distance which a ray of

light would travel in one
Picture year.

About 6,000,000,000,000
(6 trillion) miles 186,000
miles per second
Stars Characteristics of a Star

MAGNITUDE (brightness)
-A measure of
brightness of celestial
objects.
*Smaller values
represent
Picture brighter objects
than larger
values
Apparent magnitude
How bright a
star appears to
be from Earth
Absolute magnitude
(luminosity)
How bright a
star actually is.
Stars Characteristics of a Star

TEMPERATURE AND
COLOR
The color of a star
indicates the T of the star.

Stars are classified by T

Picture
Decreasing T (bright
to dim)
O, B, A, F, G, K, M

[Oh Be A Fine Girl,

Kiss Me ]
Stars Life Cycle of Stars

-Begin their lives as clouds of

dust and gas called nebulae.
-Gravity may cause the
nebula to contract.
-Matter in the gas cloud will
begin to condense into a
dense region called a
Picture protostar.
-The protostar continues to
condense, it heats up. -
Eventually, it reaches a
critical mass and nuclear
fusion begins.
-Begins the main sequence
phase of the star.
-Most of its life is in this
phase.
Stars Life Cycle of Stars

Life span of a star

depends on its size.
Very large, massive
stars burn their fuel
much faster than
smaller stars
Picture Their main
sequence may last
only a few hundred
thousand years
Smaller stars will live
on for billions of
years because they
burn their fuel much
more slowly
Eventually, the star's fuel
will begin to run out.
Stars Life Cycle of Stars

It will expand into what is

known as a red giant
Massive stars will become
red supergiants
This phase will last until the
star exhausts its remaining
Picture fuel
At this point the star will
collapse
Stars Life Cycle of Stars

Most average stars will blow

away their outer
atmospheres to form a
planetary nebula
Their cores will remain
behind and burn as a white
Picture dwarf until they cool down
What will be left is a dark
ball of matter known as a
black dwarf
Stars Life Cycle of Stars

If the star is massive enough,

the collapse will trigger a
violent explosion known as a
supernova
If the remaining mass of the
star is about 1.4 times that
Picture of our Sun, the core is
unable to support itself and
it will collapse further to
become a neutron star
Stars Life Cycle of Stars

The matter inside the star

will be compressed so tightly
that its atoms are
compacted into a dense shell
of neutrons. If the remaining
mass of the star is more than
Picture about three times that of the
Sun, it will collapse so
completely that it will
literally disappear from the
universe. What is left behind
is an intense region of
gravity called a black hole
Stars Classification of Stars

Main Sequence Stars

A major grouping of stars

that forms a narrow band
from the upper left to the
lower right when plotted
Picture according to luminosity and
surface temperature on the
Hertzsprung-Russell
diagram .
Class Temperature Color

O 20,000- 60,000 K Blue

B 10,000 – 30,000 K Blue-white

A 7,500 – 10,000 K White

F 6,000 – 7,500 K Yellow-white

G 5,000 – 6,000 K Yellow

K 3,500 – 5,000 K Orange

M 2,000 – 3,500 K Red

Stars Stars and Constellations

Constellation

A group of stars forming a

pattern that is traditionally
named after its apparent
form or identified with a
Picture mythological figure.
Stars Stars and Constellations

Cassiopeia lies on the other

side of the pole from Ursa
Major, almost directly
opposite the Big Dipper. One
can sees the seven stars with
naked eyes. Sometimes
Picture people visualize it as part of
a Crown of the Egyptian
queen Cassiopeia, other
people see it as an inclined
chair or throne.
Stars Stars and Constellations

NEXT TO CASSIOPEIA is
her husband the king
Cepheus, known for some
of the well-studied
variable stars. Cepheus
Picture forms a shape resembling
the cap of a clown. Its
wedge corner is very
close to Polaris and is one
of the circumpolar stars.
The brightest star in this
constellation is called
Aldemarin, meaning the
arm. It stays close to his
queen.
Stars Stars and Constellations

The shape of a tea pot, this

is a remarkable shape that
appears in the night sky
close to Milky way.

Constellation Sagittarius,
Picture also called The Milk Dipper
(lies in the Milky way)
 Phases of
THE MOON
and
ECLIPSE
NOMY
ASTR
Phases of The moon and eclipse

• Only natural satellite

of Earth
• One of more than 96
moons in our Solar
Picture
System
• Second brightest
object in the sky after
the Sun.
The moon revolves
around the earth with a
period of about 29 ½ days
~ one month!
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

Location, location,
location!
Picture
About 384,000 km
(240,000 miles) from
Earth
3,468 km (2,155 miles) in
diameter (about ¼ the
size of Earth)
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

3 major divisions of the

Picture Lunar interior

•Crust - average thickness

of about 70 kilometers
•Mantle
•Core - radius is between
240 and 480 kilometers
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

The Moon’s Surface

No atmosphere
Picture
No liquid water

Extreme temperatures

Daytime = 130C (265°F)

Nighttime = -190C (-310
F)
1/6 Earth’s gravity
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

Picture Lunar Features –

Highlands

Mountains up to 7500 m
(25,000 ft) tall
Rilles (trenchlike valleys)
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

Lunar Features – Craters

Picture
Up to 2500 km (1,553
miles) across
Most formed by
meteorite impact on the
Moon
Some formed by volcanic
action inside the Moon
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

Lunar Features – Maria

Originally thought to be
Picture “seas” by early
astronomers
Darkest parts of lunar
landscape
Filled by lava after crash
of huge meteorites on
lunar surface 3-4 billion
years ago
Mostly basalt rock
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

Movements of the
Moon

Revolution – Moon
orbits the Earth every
Picture 271/3 days
The moon rises in the
east and sets in the west
The moon rises and sets
50 minutes later each
day

Rotation – Moon turns

on its axis every 27 days
Same side of Moon
always faces Earth
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

Far Side of the Moon

First seen by Luna 3
Picture
Russian space probe in
1959
Surface features different
from near side
More craters
Very few maria
Thicker crust
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

Phases of the Moon

The four major moon
phases that repeats itself
every 29.5 days.
New moon
Picture First quarter
Third quarter
Full moon

Four other Moon phases

sometimes used
Waxing Crescent
Waxing Gibbous
Waning Gibbous
Waning Crescent
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

Transition :
New Moon
Waxing Crescent
First Quarter
Picture
Waxing Gibbous
Full Moon
Waning Gibbous
Last Quarter
Waning crescent
New Moon
Phases of The moon and eclipse Eclipse

Eclipse
In astronomy, the
obscuring of one celestial
Picture body by another,
particularly that of the
sun or a planetary
satellite.
The Sun and Moon
occasionally line up so
that we have an eclipse.
These eclipses
happen every year
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

One celestial
body blocking
the view to the
other:
Solar eclipse---
Picture
Moon blocking
Earth’s view to
the Sun…
One celestial
body is in the
shadow of
another:
Lunar eclipse---
Moon is in the
shadow of the
Earth…
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

Solar Eclipse

Picture A solar eclipse occurs

when the moon passes
between the Sun and the
Earth, and the Moon fully
or partially covers the Sun
as viewed from a location
on Earth.
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

Three types: Annular,

Partial, and Total
Total Solar Eclipse
Picture Only when the Moon is
closest to the Earth can it
completely block the Sun.
Only lasts a few minutes
Path of Totality about
10,000 miles long, only
100 miles wide
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

Picture
Annular Solar Eclipse

When the Moon is too

far to completely cover
the Sun.
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

Picture

Partial Solar Eclipse

Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

Lunar Eclipse
Lunar eclipses happens
when the Moon passes
through the shadow of
the Earth
Picture
Lunar eclipses can be
partial, penumbral, or
total.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

used the apparent shape
of the Earth’s shadow to
show that the Earth is a
sphere.
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

The Tides
Tides caused by pull of
Picture Moon’s gravity on Earth
High tide –
Side facing Moon and
side away from Moon
Every 12 hours, 25 ½
minutes
Low tide –
On sides of Earth
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

Picture Spring Tide

Spring tides are
especially strong tides.
They occur when the
Earth, the Sun, and the
Moon are in a line.
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

It pulls the most on the

part of Earth closest,
which raises the
Picture atmosphere, the oceans,
and even the rocks (a
little)
It pulls the least on the
part of Earth that’s
farthest, which allows the
oceans and atmosphere
to be further from the
Moon (and higher)
Phases of The moon and eclipse The moon

Neap tides are especially

weak tides.
Picture They occur when the
gravitational forces of the
Moon and the Sun are
perpendicular to one
another (with respect to
the Earth).
Occur during quarter
moons.