WARM UP
• Did you look at the stars?
• Who/what is Andromeda?
• What do you see in this picture?
THE CONSTELLATIONS AND
GREEK MYTHOLOGY
DAY 2
WHAT IS ASTRONOMY?
• It is the branch of science that deals with the celestial objects, space and the physical universe
as a whole
• What does that even mean?!
• It means that the Study of Stars, Planets and Space
2 TYPES OF ASTRONOMERS
• Observational
• Theoretical
OK… SO HOW DO THOSE GREEK
PEOPLE COME INTO PLAY?
THEY LOOKED AT THE SKY TOO
HISTORY OF THE GREEKS & WHY THEY LOOKED AT
THE SKY
• It was practical.
SO THE GODS DID WHAT?
• Became an explaination
EVENTUALLY
• The Greeks moved away from divine power
ANDROMEDA
WARM UP
• How old do you think the universe is?
WARM UP 8/28
• Do you think Aliens exist?
• What about multiple dimensions?
• If money wasn’t an issue….. would you travel into space?
• What do you think NASA does?
LET’S GET STARTED 9/4
• What is the Harvest Moon?
• Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
•
- Carl Sagan
THE BIG BANG
• What do we know about it?
• But what caused it?
EVEN BIGGER PROBLEM
• We speculate that we’re missing between 12/13 billion years of time, but
• Since the Big Bang
STELLAR DISTANCES
• The light-year
• What does it equal?
•
5.878 x 10^12 miles per year
•
5,880,000,000,000
•
186,000 miles per second
•
671 million miles per hour
LENGTHS
• 186,000 miles per second
• 671 million miles per hour
CONVERSION
• Miles to Kilometers
•
300,000 km/s
•
1,080,000 km/h
HANDS ON
• Measuring the distance between the Sun and the planets.
• We will be adding in Ceres.
REMINDER
HARVEST MOON TONIGHT!!!!!
OUR PLACE IN THE
UNIVERSE
COSMIC ADDRESS
• Earth -> planet in the solar system
• Has the Sun & objects that revolve around it
• Sun, star, and all the other stars that we see -> Milky Way Galaxy
• Galaxy -> like an island
• Group of galaxies -> Local Group
• Local Groups w/ more than 12 -> Galaxy Cluster
• Tightly packed Galaxies & Galaxy Clusters -> Super Cluster
• Together everything = Universe
BIG BANG RECAP
• Occurred about 14 billion years ago
• Things were hot, then they cooled
• Expansion
STELLAR LIVES AND GALACTIC RECYCLING
• How did planets form?
• Nuclear fusion
GALACTIC RECYCLING
• Star death- Supernovae
ELEMENTS
• In the beginning there were only 2.
• Conversion
THE PAST…. AGAIN
• When we look at the light from other stars and galaxies that aren’t our own, we’re looking into the past.
•
Light years
•
The distance light travels in one year.
LIGHT FROM ORION
• The Hunter
• 1500 light years from Earth
WHAT WE CAN SEE IN THE UNIVERSE
• Limited by the Observable Universe
•
Remember the Past
•
The Universe is 14 Billion Years old (approximately)
• The light from the farthest stars we can see, sends us light from 12 billion years ago.