Our solar system was born when, in a spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy, a giant rotating cloud of dust and gasses began to collapse. Gravity compressed the dust and gasses and the cloud got increasingly hotter and began to spin faster. During the following one hundred million years, the gasses compressed until the center was so hot that nuclear fusion occurred giving off tremendous energy, combining charged atoms of hydrogen to form helium. This process gave birth to a star, our Sun (Our Solar System, n.d.). Scientists have a good deal of data documenting the solar system’s history for about the last 3.9 billion years, but it was actually formed approximately 4.6 million years ago. The first 700 million years are somewhat of a mystery because earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and erosion have obliterated evidence from that time. During that first 700 million years, the planets coalesced and water and other elements necessary for life were delivered to the inner planets (Cowen, 2009). Our solar system is a diverse and exceedingly interesting speck in the universe.
Earth’s solar system is in the Milky Way Galaxy and is part of a system of eight planets orbiting the Sun, the star which is the center of our solar system. The Sun is constantly burning gas, which heats and lights Earth and the other planets (Solar System Information, n.d.). The planets in our solar system vary widely in size, composition, distance from the Sun, and atmosphere. Of the Milky Way Galaxy’s 100 to 200 billion stars, only about 6,000 of them can be seen with the naked eye from Earth and one of them is the Sun. “Planets” means “wanderers” and were called that because they appeared to travel across the sky. Other objects in the solar syst...
... middle of paper ...
... Atmospheric Administration website: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/gases.html
The greenhouse effect. (n.d.). Retrieved December 14, 2011, from University Corporation for Atmospheric Research website: http://www.ucar.edu/learn/1_3_1.htm
Gedzelman, S. (2002). Colors of the sky. Weatherwise, 55(1), 20. Retrieved December 6, 2011, from EbscoHost.Blue sky. (n.d.). Retrieved December 5, 2011, from University of Wisconsin website:
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/wxwise/bluesky.html
Astronomical theory of climate change. (n.d.). Retrieved December 9, 2011, from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html
Seasons of the year. (n.d.). Retrieved December 9, 2011, from National Aeronautics and Space Administration website: http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Sseasons.htm
Our sun is the central pivot point to which or entire planet and solar system is built around. With out it all life on our planet would cease to exist. Within this paper we will explore how our Sun and solar system formed and came to resemble what we see today.
Feldstein, Y. I. (2013, November 20) "Some problems concerning the morphology of auroras and magnetic disturbances at high latitudes.” retrieved from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(astronomy)
Dyson, Marianne J. Space and Astronomy: Decade by Decade. New York: Facts on File, 2007. 14+. Print.
All planets orbit within 3 of the plane of the ecliptic. In addition, all planets also orbit in a prograde orbit which means they all orbit in the same direction. There is a total of four terrestrial planets and 5 Jovian planets. A terrestrial planet is a rocky planet that is composed of rocks or metals. For example, Mercury, Venus earth, and Mars are examples of terrestrial planets because they are small rocky and contain an atmosphere. Earth and Mars, for instance, has a thin atmosphere whereas Venus has a hot thick atmosphere. Jovian planets are the giant planets such as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto all have big gasses and many moons. Jupiter, for instance, is a big gas ball mad up of the elements Hydrogen and Helium. All five planets also have rings which mean the planet has a disc orbiting around the
The main theme of “Lives of the Planets,” is the origin and composition of each planet and the universe surrounding them. This book takes the reader on a journey through the solar system, and discusses each planet in great detail. “Lives of the Planets,” was
Because Venus is completely covered with clouds, and reflects most of the sun's radiation back out into space. Without the greenhouse effect, Venus would be cooler than the Earth even though it is closer to the sun.
Villanueva, J. C. (2010, March 30). What is a nebula? Universe Today. Retrieved from http://www.universetoday.com/61103/what-is-a-nebula/
Our home is a tranquil solar system, a 4.5 billion year old configuration that orbits rapidly around the galactic center at 200,000 kilometers per hour, circling it every 250,000,000 years. At its center is our sun, orbited by eight planets, trillions of asteroids, comets, and dwarf planets.
The Earth was a planet that was believed to be the center of the Universe until Copernicus proposed that the planets orbited the sun, and Galileo had found data that supported the theory of a heliocentric universe. It wasn’t until Isaac Newton that the planetary motion mystery was solved with mathematical certainty, and it was official that the planets orbited the Sun. Since then, there have been many scientific breakthroughs on where our planets sit in the celestial scheme of things.
Space experts are still not totally beyond any doubt how different universes have or are framed, and took the numerous shapes that we see today. Despite the fact that they do have a few thoughts regarding the sources and advancement of these cosmic systems. There is a verbal confrontation between two particular speculations clarifying the development of systems. The first is that soon after the enormous detonation around 14 billion years prior, giving way gas and tidy mists may have lead to the development of systems. The second hypothesis, which has picked up quality as of late, says the youthful universe contained some little "irregularities" of matter, which bunched together to frame cosmic systems or that connections between worlds, particularly crashes between systems, assume a vital part in their advancement. Hubble Space Telescope has shot numerous such irregularities, which may be the forerunners to cutting edge systems. As indicated by this hypothesis, the greater part of the early extensive worlds were spirals. Be that as it may, after some time, numerous spirals converged to frame
The Milky Way is the home of our Solar System along with at least 200 billion other stars and planets. It contains thousands of clusters and nebulas. It is the home of nearly all the objects of Messier’s catalog that aren’t their own galaxies.
A galaxy, also called a nebula, consists of billions of stars, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter which are all bound to form a massive cloud in which we live in. Although it cannot be very well explained, dark matter makes up at least 90% of a galaxy’s mass. Galaxies also contain billions upon billions of stars and their diameter can range from 1,500 to 300,000 light years. That’s huge! The Milky Way, the galaxy in which we live in, is one of about 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe. Our Sun is one of the billions of stars in our galaxy, and our eight planets revolve around this star in only a tiny part of our galaxy. “The Earth’s solar system is believed to exist very close to the Galaxy’s galactic plane, due to the fact that the Milky Way essentially divides the night sky into two virtually equal hemispheres” ("All About the Milky"). It definitely makes people second guess the fact of there being life on other planets.
Our solar system has eight planets, their moons and satellites, and they are all orbiting the Sun. The eight planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Pluto used to be the ninth planet but IAU changed the definition of planet and Pluto did not meet the standards so it is now a Dwarf planet.
Meehl, Gerald A. "Solar and Greenhouse Gas Forcing and Climate Response in the TwentiethCentury." 2012. Web 13 May 2015
One thing us as humans have never been able to fully understand is astronomy. Always having an unexplained mystery, astronomy also has served as a way to keep time and predict the future. The word “astronomy” is defined as the study of heavenly bodies, meaning anything in the sky such as stars, galaxies, comets, planets, nebulae, and so on. Many people, if not everyone, is amazed by the night sky on a clear, moonless night.