EARTH

o Earth is one of the planets which orbit around the sun

o Moon orbits earth as satellite
Motion of the Earth:
o Earth spins on its axis
o A complete revolution occurs in 24hours which makes
our day and night
o When the Earth is facing the sun, its day
o When the Earth is facing away from the sun, its night.
o Travels at a speed of 30km/s
 RISING AND SETTING THE SEASONS
OF THE SUN o Two factors are responsible
o 1. Motion of the Earth around the sun
The Earth’s rotation on its axis causes
2. The tilt of the Earth’s axis to the plane of its path
sun to have journey from east to west
o around the sun
In the northern hemisphere in summer
sun rises north of east and sets north
o When the northern hemisphere of the Earth is
of west. Opposite happens in winter tilted towards the sun so that the hours of
daylight are greater than those of darkness
that is spring and summer
 MOTION OF THE MOON
o It orbits the Earth as a satellite
o It revolves on its own axis in a month
so always same side is facing the
Earth so that darkside of the moon is
not seen
o Moon has no light of its own
o Moon can be seen by reflected
sunlight
o It has a gravitational field due to its
mass
 THE SOLAR SYSTEM
 Consists of sun, the 8 planets, dwarf
planets, satellites, asteroids and
comets
 The 8 planets are:
1. Mercury (closest to sun)
2. Venus
3. Earth
4. Mars
5. Jupiter
6. Saturn
7. Uranus
8. Neptune (farthest away from sun)
Solar system was formed 4.6 billion years
ago.
There are 181 moons in the solar system
 DWARF PLANETS
SATTELITES
Any celestial body within the solar
o Two types system that is larger than a
1. Natural e.g. Moon satellite but smaller than a planet
2. Artificial e.g. ISS and orbits the sun e.g. Pluto,
(International Space Station) ASTEROIDS AND Ceres, Eris etc
COMETS
o Both orbits the sun
o Asteroids are rocky objects
mostly found in asteroid the
belt which is between Jupiter
and Mars
o Comets are made of ice and
dust and can also be said as
snowballs.
 STARS
o The sun is our closest star
o The unit for the distances
between stars are called light-
years (1 light year = 9.5 x
10^12km or 9.5 x 10^15m
o Stars vary in age, size, mass,
surface temperature, color and
brightness
o Color and brightness both
depend on surface temperature
which in turn increases with the
mass of the star
o Stars that are white or blue (6000
– 25,000 degrees) are hotter and
brighter than those that are red
or yellow (3000-6000 degrees)
GALAXIES
o A galaxy is a large collection of stars
o There are billions of stars in a galaxy
o Consists of clouds of gas, mostly hydrogen
and dust
o They move any space, mostly rotating as
spiral discs with a central bulge
o The milky way is a spiral galaxy where our
solar system is present
o We are near the outer edge of the galaxy
o The diameter of a typical galaxy is 30,000
light-years with a distance to its neighbors
of around 3 million light-years
o Travels in groups
o The nearest spiral in our local cluster is the
Andromeda galaxy (around 2.5m
light=years away but visible to naked eye)
SUN AS A STAR
 The Sun is medium sized star which
consists mainly of hydrogen and
helium
The radiant energy it emits is mostly in
the infrared, visible and UV regions of
the electromagnetic spectrum
This radiation is emitted from glowing
hydrogen which is heated by the
energy released in nuclear reaction
within sun
The sun is powered by nuclear fusion
 Stars are powered by nuclear reactions
Stable stars such as our sun are hot and dense
enough in their core for nuclear fusion of
hydrogen into helium to occur
The high temperature in the core required to
sustain the nuclear reactions is maintained by the
large amount of energy released in the fusion
process
Some of the energy generated in the core is
transferred to the outer layers of the star
These are cooler and less dense than the core,
but are still hot enough for the hydrogen gas to
glow and emit electromagnetic radiation into
space
ORIGIN OF STARS
When interstellar clouds of dust and
gas containing hydrogen collapses
under the force of gravity a protostar
is formed

As the mass of the protostar

increases, its core temperature rises
G.P.E is transferred to K.E as the
protostar contracts under internal
gravitational forces
 When the core is hot enough,
nuclear fusion can start
Hydrogen is converted into helium
and a star is born
If a young star has a very large mass
it forms a blue or white star
If it has a smaller mass it forms a
yellow or red dwarf (common)
 When the core is hot enough,
nuclear fusion can start
Hydrogen is converted into helium
and a star is born
If a young star has a very large mass
it forms a blue or white star
If it has a smaller mass it forms a
yellow or red dwarf (common)
 Our sun is a stable star
The very strong forces of gravity pulling it
inwards are balanced by the opposing
forces trying to make it expand due to its
extremely high temperature
This thermal pressure arises from the K.E
of the nuclei in the core
When forces are balanced the star is in a
stable state which may last for up to 10
billion years
During which time, most of the hydrogen
in the core is converted to helium.
 When the star starts to run out of hydrogen as a
fuel for nuclear reactions, it becomes unstable
There is less energy being produced by nuclear
fusion to sustain the outward thermal pressure and
the core collapses inward under gravity.
G.P.E is transferred to K.E so that the core becomes
hotter
There is a fast burn-up of the remaining hydrogen
envelope and a huge expansion and subsequent
cooling of the surface gases; the star becomes a red
giant or red supergiant if it has a lot of mass
As the core heats up its temperature becomes high
enough for the nuclear fusion of helium in into
carbon to occur
The further stages depend on the stars mass
 LOW MASS STARS

For stars with a mass upto about 8 times that of our sun
When all helium is used
up, the core of the red
giant collapses under
its own gravity, and Planetary nebula have
enough energy is a short lifetime of
released to cause the about 10,000 years
outer layers to be Marks the transition of
expelled the red giant into a
The small core white dwarf
becomes a white dwarf
at the center of a
glowing shell ionized
gas known as planetary
nebula
The white dwarf has a
lifetime of about a
billion years and
eventually cools into a
cold black dwarf
consisting mainly
carbon
 HIGH MASS STARS
Use up their hydrogen
more quickly
Their stable stage is
shorter and may last
for only about 100
million years
The core then collapses
into a red supergiant
and nuclear fusion of
helium into carbon
occurs

For stars with a mass greater than about 8 times that of our sun
 In the explosion there is
a huge increase in the
When all the helium stars brightness and
have been used up, the the temperature
core collapses further becomes high enough
under gravity and for fusion of nuclei into
becomes it becomes many elements heavier
hot enough for nuclear than iron to occur
fusion of carbon to into Material, including
oxygen, nitrogen, iron these heavy elements,
to occur is thrown into space as
Nuclear fusion then a nebula, and becomes
stops and the energy of available for the
the star is released in a formation of new stars
supernova explosion and their associated
planetary systems
 The center of the
supernova collapses to
a very dense neutron
star, which spins rapidly
and acts as a pulsar,
sending out pulses of
radio waves
 In a black hole matter is
packed so densely that the
mass of earth would only
occupy the volume of 1cm^3
Neither matter nor radiation
can escape from a black
If the red giant is very
hole
massive, the remnant We cannot see it directly
at the center of the If nearby material such as
supernova has such a gas from a neighboring star,
large density that its falls towards a black hole
intense X-ray radiation may
gravitational field
be emitted which alerts us
stops anything to its presence
escaping from its Objects believed to be
surface, even light massive black holes have
been identified at the center
of many spiral galaxies
 THE
DOPPLER’S EFFECT: EXPANDING
THE The Doppler effect for UNIVERSE:
UNIVERSE: electromagnetic waves such as light is
of wide spread use of astronomy to Two discoveries about
The Milky way is one of measure the speed at which stars and galaxies
the millions of galaxies galaxies are approaching or receding 1. Light emitted from
that make up the universe from us resulting in blueshift or red glowing hydrogen in
The diameter of the Milky shift stars in distant
way galaxy is around 100k It occurs with sound waves and galaxies is shifted to
light-years and it contains explains the rise and fall of pitch of a the red end of the
800 billion or more stars siren as the vehicle approaches and spectrum (longer
passes us wavelength)
The same effect is shown by light 2. The further away a
When the light source is receding the galaxy is from us the
light is redder greater is this red shift
 THE BIG BANG THEORY:
The Big Bang is how astronomers explain the way the
universe began
It is the idea that the universe began with the explosion
of a single particle at a definite point in time, then
expanded and stretched to grow as large as it is right
now and is still stretching
THE END