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Foucault’s Pendulum
This diagram shows typical paths for the Moon during the year
(and the resulting look of the waxing crescent Moon). Notice that
during winter, the Moon sets north of west. During the summer,
the Moon sets south of west.
Hubble Telescope
Doppler Effect
Referred to as
the “Red-shift”
Electromagnetic
Energy, or Light
from a galaxy
speeding
away from our
solar system
is stretched
into a longer
wavelength
(red spectrum)
Mercury closest planet to the sun, it takes 59 days to make one rotation
but only 88 days to orbit the Sun. That means that there are fewer than 2
days in a year!
Venus is the brightest planet in our sky. It is called Earth’s sister
planet because it is a similar size. Venus is hotter than Mercury due to
trapped heat in it’s dense C02 atmosphere. Venus’s day is longer than
it’s year!
Earth is unique in that it is the only planet with an abundant quantity
of water in all three states of matter – solid, liquid and gas. The
“Goldilocks Planet” – everything just right!
Mars is the Red Planet covered in a thin C02 atmosphere. Most
explored of all the planets beyond Earth. Mars is the home of "Olympus
Mons", the largest volcano found in the solar system. It stands about
27 kilometers high (18 miles) with a crater 81 kilometers wide.
Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system, but it spins very
quickly on its axis. First of the Jovian or Gas Giants. Gas Giants have
solid cores.
Saturn is the second biggest planet, but it’s also the lightest
planet. If there was a bathtub big enough to hold Saturn, it
would float in the water!
Uranus’ axis is at a 97 degree angle, meaning that it orbits lying on its
side!
Neptune was discovered in 1846 (over 150 years ago).
Since that time it has still yet to make a complete orbit
around the sun, because one Neptune year lasts 165
Earth years!
Pluto we miss you! Now called a Dwarf Planet. Pluto’s orbit
sometimes brings it closer to the Sun than Neptune. It jumped
ahead of Neptune on September 5, 1989 and remained there until
February, 1999 when it went back to being the farthest due to it’s
very eccentric orbit.
Examples of Ellipse Eccentricity
Eccentricity =
distance between foci
length of major axis
Top 10 Astronomy Misconceptions
Polaris is the brightest star
Polaris is located due North and will always be there
You can see nearly all the stars there are
The stars aren't there in the daytime
The Sun and Moon are stationary with respect to the
stars
A constellation is a group of stars all near each other
in space
The brightest constellations are Zodiac signs
The shape of a constellation has physical or
metaphysical significance
The patterns of the constellations are unchanging
Meteors are falling stars