Resources

• University Tecmilenio (2017): Ecology and Geography: The Earth a body of the Solar System: Recovered from: https://miscursos.tecmilenio.mx/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/file?cmd=view&content_id=_2447788_1&course_id=_86663_1&framesetWrapped=true

• Dr. Mamta Patel Nagaraja (2017): Universe: Galaxies: Recovered from: https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-are-galaxies

Introduction

Introduction

In this webzine you will can understand and comprehend much better how the Solar System, The Universe and the Galaxy. 

The researchers are not people of other planets, or a person with a super brain, no, researchers, scientists and people that investigate and discover new things its because they make observation of what surrounds them. And in here, we are in this first step of observations and thoughts.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did while doing it.

Other Galaxies

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is typical: it has hundreds of billions of stars, enough gas and dust to make billions more stars, and at least ten times as much dark matter as all the stars and gas put together. And it’s all held together by gravity.

Like more than two-thirds of the known galaxies, the Milky Way has a spiral shape. At the center of the spiral, a lot of energy and, occasionally, vivid flares are being generated. Based on the immense gravity that would be required to explain the movement of stars and the energy expelled, the astronomers conclude that the center of the Milky Way is a supermassive black hole.

Other galaxies have elliptical shapes, and a few have unusual shapes like toothpicks or rings. The Hubble Ultra Deep Field(HUDF) shows this diversity. Hubble observed a tiny patch of sky (one-tenth the diameter of the moon) for one million seconds (11.6 days) and found approximately 10,000 galaxies, of all sizes, shapes, and colors. From the ground, we see very little in this spot, which is in the constellation Fornax.

The Earth

Our Planet is the third from the Sun and has a shape of a tilted ellipse, because when spinning in space is not completely vertical, but it has an inclination on its own axis. That axis is called rotational or polar axis and it is an imaginary line around which the Earth rotates. Even when revolving around the Sun, the Earth always keeps the same axial tilt. It is represented with a straight line crossing the planet by the poles. Then, the Earth has two fundamental movements: rotation and revolution.

In the rotational movement, the Earth moves around the polar axis following a west to east direction, and this causes the Sun to rise on the east (orient) and to set on the west (occident). The exact duration of this spin is called a sidereal day, and lasts exactly 23 hours, 56 minutes and 5 seconds; but for practical reasons, the day is adjusted to 24 hours in what we call a civil day.

The rotational movement on the Earth’s axis is very important, because it determines:

1. The day and the night.
2. The Earth’s poles flattening.
3. The apparent movement of the stars and the Sun from east to west.
4. The deviation of the bodies during free falling; if you let an object fall freely no matter its weight, it does not fall completely vertically, but suffers a slight deviation to the East that is imperceptible when the time is very short.
5. Coriolis Effect; which is the deviation happening to winds and ocean currents to the right on the North hemisphere and to the left on the South hemisphere. Consequently the water swirls in different directions in every hemisphere.
6. The time differences around the globe; the time measuring on Earth is organized in time zones, which are 24 different. They begin from the Greenwich meridian (also called “Z time”).

Then, the Earth’s revolutionary movement follows an elliptical orbit around the Sun. The whole loop is completed in 365 days, 5 hours and 48 minutes, and starts on March 21st. This is called a tropical year or Solar year. Also, for practical reasons, there is a civil year of 365 days and starts on January 1st.

The revolutionary movement determines the seasons of the year; due to the revolutionary movement, the Earth moves closer and farther from the Sun, and then light does not distribute homogeneously on the terrestrial surface. This is the reason of the season changes. According to the seasons, days and nights have different duration; the Sun has a different pathway closer to the south or north.

Nutation.  This refers to the oscillations done by the Earth’s axis while doing the precession movement. That causes that the Earth follows a sinuous path while moving its rotation axis.

Precession. This Earth’s movement is also called wobbling and describes the circular tilting of the Earth’s polar axis, which is the position change of the Earth’s North Pole in relation to the Earth’s revolution ellipse. A precession cycle lasts 25,780 years.

The Moon

THE MOON THE ONLY NATURAL SATELITE THAT ORBITS THE EARTH

Apart from that it gives us small flashes of light during the night and the beautiful landscapes that gives us in the photographs the moon is a satellite that influences the earth

FACTS ABOUT THE MOON

• The dark side of the moon is a myth.
In reality both sides of the Moon see the same amount of sunlight however only one face of the Moon is ever seen from Earth. This is because the Moon rotates around on its own axis in exactly the same time it takes to orbit the Earth, meaning the same side is always facing the Earth. The side facing away from Earth has only been seen by the human eye from spacecraft.
• The rise and fall of the tides on Earth is caused by the Moon.
There are two bulges in the Earth due to the gravitational pull that the Moon exerts; one on the side facing the Moon, and the other on the opposite side that faces away from the Moon, The bulges move around the oceans as the Earth rotates, causing high and low tides around the globe.
• The Moon is drifting away from the Earth.
The Moon is moving approximately 3.8 cm away from our planet every year. It is estimated that it will continue to do so for around 50 billion years. By the time that happens, the Moon will be taking around 47 days to orbit the Earth instead of the current 27.3 days.
• A person would weigh much less on the Moon.
The Moon has much weaker gravity than Earth, due to its smaller mass, so you would weigh about one sixth (16.5%) of your weight on Earth. This is why the lunar astronauts could leap and bound so high in the air.
• The Moon has only been walked on by 12 people; all American males.
The first man to set foot on the Moon in 1969 was Neil Armstrong on the Apollo 11 mission, while the last man to walk on the Moon in 1972 was Gene Cernan on the Apollo 17 mission. Since then the Moon has only be visited by unmanned vehicles.
• The Moon has no atmosphere.
This means that the surface of the Moon is unprotected from cosmic rays, meteorites and solar winds, and has huge temperature variations. The lack of atmosphere means no sound can be heard on the Moon, and the sky always appears black.
• The Moon has quakes.
These are caused by the gravitational pull of the Earth. Lunar astronauts used seismographs on their visits to the Moon, and found that small moonquakes occurred several kilometres beneath the surface, causing ruptures and cracks. Scientists think the Moon has a molten core, just like Earth.
• The first spacecraft to reach the Moon was Luna 1 in 1959.
This was a Soviet craft, which was launched from the USSR. It passed within 5995 km of the surface of the Moon before going into orbit around the Sun.
• The Moon is the fifth largest natural satellite in the Solar System.
At 3,475 km in diameter, the Moon is much smaller than the major moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Earth is about 80 times the volume than the Moon, but both are about the same age. A prevailing theory is that the Moon was once part of the Earth, and was formed from a chunk that broke away due to a huge object colliding with Earth when it was relatively young.
• The Moon will be visited by man in the near future.
NASA plans to return astronauts to the moon to set up a permanent space station. Mankind may once again walk on the moon in 2019, if all goes according to plan.
• During the 1950’s the USA considered detonating a nuclear bomb on the Moon.
The secret project was during the height cold war was known as “A Study of Lunar Research Flights” or “Project A119” and meant as a show of strength at a time they were lagging behind in the space race.

The Solar System

It is known as Solar System the “group of bodies: planets, satellites, asteroids, meteorites and comets that orbit around the Sun”. There are different theories explaining the origin of the Solar System, including the nebular, the catastrophic, and the gas and dust cloud.

https://youtu.be/ZHAqT4hXnMw

Components.

• Planets. Dull bodies that are capable of reflecting light and revolve around the Sun in elliptical orbits. Their name comes from the Greek “planēt-”, that literally means “wanderer".

• Asteroids. Refers to rocky bodies, of different shapes and sizes that orbit around the Sun, especially in the inner Solar System. The biggest of the known asteroids, Ceres, is sometimes called a dwarf Planet as Pluto or Eris. Asteroids are also known as planetoids.

• Satellites. They are small rocky bodies that move around bigger objects, especially planets. The bigger satellites of the Solar System are in that order Ganymede (Jupiter III), Titan (Saturn VI), Callisto (Jupiter IV), Io (Jupiter I), Moon (Earth I), Europa (Jupiter II), Triton (Neptune I) and Titania (Uranus III).

• Meteoroids / meteorites / meteors. Meteoroids are little chunks of rock or debris in space. They are solid bodies that origin from the destruction of comets or asteroids, and that cross the space with big velocity. They become meteors -- or shooting stars -- when they fall through a planet's atmosphere leaving a bright trail as they are heated to incandescence by the friction of the atmosphere. Pieces that survive the journey and hit the ground are called meteorites.

• Comets. The word comet means “hairy body” and they are low density bodies, basically cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock and dust roughly the size of a small town. Comets move around the Sun in very long, elliptical orbits.

• Sun. It is a yellow star that even located 150 million kilometers away from Earth; it still is its source of energy. Without the sun's intense energy and heat, there would be no life on Earth. The Equator of the Sun is 4,370,005.6 km, which is 109.2 times greater than the Earth’s; and its surface is at 5,500 °C. If the sun were as tall as a typical front door, Earth would be about the size of a coin.

Observations and Thoughts

When you watch through you bedroom's window, What do you see?

Do you see many rivers or do you see a desert, or The Great Coral Reef, or maybe the Great wall?

If your answers in both questions were no, it's ok, almost nobody can watch through their window and see a Castle in Romania. But, almost everybody can see the stars, the moon and the sun from our windows.

And personally, I think that it's something funny if you think, because makes us reflect about what we mean to the universe, nothing. Why do I say this? Because we can see the stars, the Moon and the Sun; but, from the Sun we can't see our house, or from Jupiter we can't even see the countries. We mean nothing to the Universe, we are just a planet full of some things, that have the adecuated things to make life possible and comfortable.

Also something that I want to talk about it's of the pollution in the planet. As you will see, from our bedroom's windows we can barely seen the natural satellites that exist in our Solar System the "Milky Way" and that's because we are contaminating a lot, (sorry for this but...) from hell and back; we've never had in the whole histroy this dramatical changes created by something else than nature. It's horribly amazing, the way we are finishing our planet, our home. Let's be socially responsible with the our actions, because if we don't, we will barely see till the sun gets a lil' bit, just a lil' bit bigger.

This is what I saw from my bedroom's window on the night

The Earth seen from Jupiter

This is what I saw from my bedroom's window

The Earth seen from the Sun

The Sun

One million Earths could fit inside the Sun.

If a hollow Sun was filled up with spherical Earths then around 960,000 would fit inside. On the other hand if these Earths were squished inside with no wasted space then around 1,300,000 would fit inside. The Sun’s surface area is 11,990 times that of the Earth’s.The Sun contains 99.86% of the mass in the Solar System. 

The mass of the Sun is approximately 330,000 times greater than that of Earth. It is almost three quarters Hydrogen, whilst most of the remaining mass is Helium.The Sun is an almost perfect sphere.

There is only a 10 kilometre difference in its polar diameter compared to its equatorial diameter. Considering the vast expanse of the Sun, this means it is the closest thing to a perfect sphere that has been observed in nature.The temperature inside the Sun can reach 15 million degrees Celsius. 

At the Sun’s core, energy is generated by nuclear fusion, as Hydrogen converts to Helium. Because hot objects generally expand, the Sun would explode like a giant bomb if it weren’t for its enormous gravitational force. The temperature on the surface of the Sun is closer to 5,600 degrees Celsius.Eventually, the Sun will consume the Earth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89GJWHYNScE

When all the Hydrogen has been burned, the Sun will continue for about 130 million more years, burning Helium, during which time it will expand to the point that it will engulf Mercury and Venus and the Earth. At this stage it will have become a red giantThe Sun will one day be about the size of Earth. 

After its red giant phase, the Sun will collapse, retaining its enormous mass, but containing the approximate volume of our planet. When this happens, it will be called a white dwarf.Light from the Sun takes eight minutes to reach Earth. 

With a mean average distance of 150 million kilometres from Earth and with light travelling at 300,000 kilometres per second, dividing one by the other gives us an approximate time of 500 seconds, or eight minutes and 20 seconds. Although this energy reaches Earth in a few minutes, it will already have taken millions of years to travel from the Sun’s core to its surface.The Sun travels at 220 kilometres per second. 

The Sun is 24,000-26,000 light years from the galactic centre and it takes the Sun 225-250 million years to complete an orbit of the centre of the Milky Way.

Myths of the Creation of the Universe

During millenia, the eclipses have been myth source that sometimes can be violent for numerous towns. Science explains that the Sun grows dark because the Moon happens in front of him or of inverse way, but before that, people imagined all type of reasons so it happened in the sky.
https://youtu.be/1nlomCQVkZI

They are often histories of all type, can be bloody and of fear, after all, what is going to scare more than the Sun disappearing in the middle of the day?

One of most violent is an Indian legend, where a demon called Rahu tried to rob the nectar of immortality of the Gods, but the Sun and recognized it to the Moon. Rahu began to drink the nectar when Vishnu sent a disc to him that cut him the neck

The nectar still in the mouth of Rahu, but the rest of the body disappeared. The immortal head persecutes to the Sun and the Moon by skies and when them bites it reaches them, but as it does not have body, when swallows to the Moon or the Sun they appeare again

But there also are more romantics myths, like A German myth says that the Moon, that is a cold and vague man, ignores the passions of the Sun, who is female, during almost all the day, with the exception of some encounter during the eclipse, but they return to discuss and the Sun shine again. Also in western Africa, the solar eclipse also has been seen as a furtive and occasional appointment, but with the masculine Sun and the feminine Moon, that extinguish the lights by modesty.

And others more kind of funny like a cake being devoured slowly, the myths related to foods abound. The Nordics had a wolf that bit the Sun. In other parts it has been a dog, a dragoon, a bird and a serpent of hell. Often the beast return the Sun because he is too hot.

But the battles have also its place: an eclipse stopped in dry a battle between the Lydians and the medos do more than 2 thousand 500 years, in agreement with writings of the Greek historian Heródoto, where the soldiers of both parts so were terrified that they stopped fighting and they did the peace with the daughter of the Lydian king marrying with the son of the king medo

Constellations

The constellations are groups of stars that have imaginary levels been linkedtogether to depict mythologic characters, animals and objects from mankind's past. In 1922 the International  Astronomical Union recognized 88 constellations. Which 48 were recorded by the Greek astronomers Ptolemy and the others by Gerardus Mercatur, Pieter Keyser and Frederick de Hautmann, Johannes Hevelius and Nicolas Louis de Lacaille.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKXBtWHExwQ

How to find them?
Constellations
Gemini "Twins"
Ursa Minor "smaller bear"

This constellations are the basic or that every person needs to know.
With this app called "night sky" you can explore by yourself the sky and search the constellations.

Aquarius
 Latin: water carrier
Aavila
 Latin eagle: the eagle was the thunderbolt carrier for Zeus
Aries
 Latin "Ram" Ram whose fleece became the golden fleece
Canis Major "Great dog"
 The famed Greek dog lae laps
Cassiopedia
 The name of a queen in Greek mythology who was often boasted about her beauty
Cygnus "Swan"

 The twins Casdor and Pollux
Leo "Lion"
 Is the monstruous lion that was killed by Hercules
Lyra "Lyre"
 Associated with the myth of Orpheus the great musician
Orion
 The mythological Greek hunter
Pisces "Fish"
 Represent Aphrodite and her son Eros
Taurus "Bull"
 Large and prominenet fixture in the winter sky
Ursa Major "larger bear"

Containing polaris the north star