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History of astronomy essay
History of astronomy essay
History of astronomy essay
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Stars are luminous spheres that have been around longer than humans. In fact, it has been said that, “We are a way for the universe to know itself. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star stuff.” [1] Just like any other animate object, stars also go through a life cycle. They grow up, live their life, and slowly but surely die out. Stars can live for billions and even trillions of years. The life span of a star depends on how fast or how slow they use up and burn their nuclear fuel. The size of the star also determines the longevity.
Thousands of years ago, ancient people looked up at the night sky and spotted unfamiliar objects in the sky, known as stars. Some people saw the stars as a tool to navigate at night and to keep up with the seasons. Others were completely clueless about what the stars were and why there were up in the sky. This eventually led to curiosity and the beginning of astronomy. The very first astronomers grouped stars into constellations, which basically is connecting the stars to make an imaginary outline of people, object, or animals. This allowed the astronomers to keep track of the movement of the planets and the sun, which allowed them to create the very first accurate calendar to know when it was the right time to harvest and plant.
Stars are born within galaxies and are formed by gas and the collapse of dust clouds, called a nebula. The star’s main goal in life is to reach equilibrium which means that there is not a net overall change in the star. In a stable star, the gas pressure pushing out from the center is equal with the gravity pulling atoms inward to the center – when these...
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...ectron-proton pair into a neutron. The neutrons, however, can often stop the collapse and remain as a neutron star. Neutron stars are fascinating objects because they are the densest objects known. They are only about 10 miles in diameter, yet they are more massive than the Sun. One sugar cube of neutron star material weighs about 100 million tons, which is about as much as a mountain.
The life cycle of a star is lengthy and it’s an endless cycle. Once a star dies, a dozen more are born. Stars may seem unimportant and useless, but if it weren’t for stars, there would be no Sun. No sun means that there would be no source of light, which means plants wouldn’t be able to be grown and that would mean that animals who eat grass or any other kind of plant wouldn’t be able to eat and that would mess up the food chain for every living thing, including humans.
Stars are born and reborn from an explosion of a previous star. The particles and helium are brought together the same way the last star was born. Throughout the life of a star, it manages to avoid collapsing. The gravitational pull from the core of the star has to equal the gravitational pull of the gasses, which form a type of orbit. When this equality is broken, the star can go into several different stages. Some stars that are at least thirty times larger than our sun can form black holes and other kinds of stars.
The Sun is a huge, bright sphere that is mostly made up of gas that is about 5 billion years old. The Sun is the closest to the Earth, it is 145 million km distant (this distance is called an Astronomical Unit). The next closest star is 300,000 times further away. There are probably millions of similar stars in the Milky Way galaxy (and even more galaxies in the Universe), but the Sun is the most important to us because it supports life on Earth.
Our Sun continuously converts hydrogen into helium and with this process it provides the essentials for life processes. In doing this it controls “our climate, provides light, raises tides, and drives the food chain” (Schaefer 34). Our Sun also has influenced many beliefs now and in the past. History has documented Sun worshipping religions while many current societies use solar calendars (Schaefer 34).
“I knew that even if I were second or third rate, it was astronomy that mattered.” This quote is from Edwin Hubble, the man who discovered the cosmos. Hubble was a young ambitious yet presumptuous scientist who changed mankind’s perception of the universe forever.
Have you ever heard the phrase “We are stardust”? Chances are you have, but what exactly does that mean? As an Astronomy major and someone whose always been fascinated by the wonders of space, including the wonder of supernovas. I want to pass some of the information I have learned to you today by telling you the different types of supernova and what happens during a supernova.
A star begins as nothing more than a very light distribution of interstellar gases and dust particles over a distance of a few dozen lightyears. Although there is extremely low pressure existing between stars, this distribution of gas exists instead of a true vacuum. If the density of gas becomes larger than .1 particles per cubic centimeter, the interstellar gas grows unstable. Any small deviation in density, and because it is impossible to have a perfectly even distribution in these clouds this is something that will naturally occur, and the area begins to contract. This happens because between about .1 and 1 particles per cubic centimeter, pressure gains an inverse relationship with density. This causes internal pressure to decrease with increasing density, which because of the higher external pressure, causes the density to continue to increase. This causes the gas in the interstellar medium to spontaneously collect into denser clouds. The denser clouds will contain molecular hydrogen (H2) and interstellar dust particles including carbon compounds, silicates, and small impure ice crystals. Also, within these clouds, there are 2 types of zones. There are H I zones, which contain neutral hydrogen and often have a temperature around 100 Kelvin (K), and there are H II zones, which contain ionized hydrogen and have a temperature around 10,000 K. The ionized hydrogen absorbs ultraviolet light from it’s environment and retransmits it as visible and infrared light. These clouds, visible to the human eye, have been named nebulae. The density in these nebulae is usually about 10 atoms per cubic centimeter. In brighter nebulae, there exists densities of up to several thousand atoms per cubic centimete...
The intrusiveness of space is what brought the orient and Greece to study astronomy. In hot climates, people would spend the nights outside, observing the changes of positions of the stars and moon every night. They observed the appearance and disappearance of constellations in conjunction with the season that they were in. In some aspects, the neighbors of Greece had different views on astronomy. Some, like the Egyptians had detailed calendars created by observing the night sky to depict the flooding of the Nile.
Human’s have unquenchable thirst for understanding everything. The sky is no different. Humans interest in sky can be broken down into many main categories mainly astronomy and astrology. Astronomy covers the study of the sun, moon, stars. While astrology may be pseudo-science, it’s based on the sky, and was once the most searched terms on Google.com. Astrology is the study and interpretation of the relationship between the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets and the life of an individual essentially. Astrology has a long history.
Astronomy and religions rooted in the stars are present in every culture. Astronomy evolved from a heavily religious context of astrology and divination to modern astronomy, and became what it is today because of a necessity of using it for long term timekeeping, record keeping, city planning and agriculture. The use of astronomy as a basis of time allows for a degree of predictability that was not previously present in other forms of timekeeping. Astronomy is the use of mathematics to understand and predict the movement of the moon and stars. While astrology and divination takes those same elements from astronomy and adds a spiritual element.
Some people may not understand why it is important to study our Solar System because they are
Without the mapping and worship of the stars much of our understanding of the world outside Earth would be limited. To begin with, astrology is the worship
Human fascination with the stars is as ancient as Babylonians and has been suggested to be older than Stonehenge. From “be fruitful and multiply” to “live long and prosper,” the instinct to protect and propagate the species has manifested in religion, art, and the imaginations of countless individuals. As human understanding of space treks out of the fantastical and into the scientific, the realities of traveling through and living in space are becoming clearer. Exploring, investigating, and living in space pose an expansive series of problems. However, the solutions to the problems faced by mankind's desire to reach beyond the horizon, through the night sky, and into the stars are solutions that will help in all areas of life on Earth.
If the nebula is dense enough, certain regions of it will begin to gravitationally collapse after being disturbed. As it collapses the particles begin to move more rapidly, which on a molecular level is actually heat, and photons are emitted that drive off the remaining dust and gas. Once the cloud has collapsed enough to cause the core temperature to reach ten-million degrees Celsius, nuclear fusion starts in its core and this ball of gas and dust is now a star. It begins its life as a main sequence star and little does it know its entire life has already been predetermined.
Over the course of all of mankind’s history, humans have looked to the stars. Many ancient civilizations have based religions around the phenomena of the skies. Over the last 80 years, humans have successfully launched rockets and satellites into orbit, landed men on the Moon, landed a probe on Mars, and crafted the most technologically advanced piece of equipment in space, the International Space Station. Man has always desired to be with the stars; perhaps it’s as a result of man’s desire to explore their surrounding, push the boundaries of their knowledge by learning about foreign ideas, or perhaps just to see what’s out there.
Supernovas are extremely powerful explosions of radiation. A supernova can give off as much energy as a Sun can within its whole life. A star will release most of its material when it undergoes this type of explosion. The explosion of a supernova can also help in creating new stars.