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THE GREAT UNIVERSE
By, Owen Abrams
The Great Universe
We already know a lot of the Universe,
but only 4% is known Universe, lets step
into the basic parts of space like the
Milky Way and our Solar System. Then
soon we will start to get to the hard stuff.
The Closest Star
We all know the closest star in the Solar
System, The Sun, The Sun is the most
important job in our Solar System, it
brings us heat and warmth, and it helps
us grow food and trees.
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The Closest Star
The Sun is the star at the center of
the Solar System and is by far the
most important source of energy for
life on Earth. It is a nearly perfect
spherical ball of hot plasma, with
internal convective motion that
generates a magnetic field via a
dynamo process. Its diameter is
about 109 times that of Earth, and it
has a mass about 330,000 times that
of Earth, accounting for about
99.86% of the total mass of the Solar
System.[16] About three quarters of
the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen;
the rest is mostly helium, with much
smaller quantities of heavier
elements, including oxygen, carbon,
neon and iron.
The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star (G2V)
based on spectral class and it is informally
referred to as a yellow dwarf. It formed
approximately 4.6 billion years ago from the
gravitational collapse of matter within a region of
a large molecular cloud. Most of this matter
gathered in the center, whereas the rest flattened
into an orbiting disk that became the Solar
System. The central mass became increasingly
hot and dense, eventually initiating nuclear fusion
in its core. It is thought that almost all stars form
by this process.
The Smallest Planet
Mercury is the smallest planet in the
Solar System. It is the closest planet to
the sun. It makes one trip around the
Sun once every 87.969 days. Mercury is
bright when it is visible from Earth,
ranging from −2.0 to 5.5 in apparent
magnitude. It cannot be easily seen as it
is usually too close to the Sun. Because
Mercury is normally lost in the glare of
the Sun (except during a solar eclipse),
Mercury can only be seen in the
morning or evening twilight.
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The Smallest Planet
Compared to what is known about the
other planets in the Solar System, little
is known about Mercury. Telescopes on
the Earth show only a small, bright
crescent. The first of two spacecraft to
visit the planet was Mariner 10, which
mapped only about 45% of the planet’s
surface from 1974 to 1975. The second
is the MESSENGER spacecraft, which
finished mapping the planet in March
2013.
Mercury looks a lot like Earth's Moon. It has many
craters with areas of smooth plains, no moons
around it and no atmosphere as we know it.
However, Mercury does have an extremely thin
atmosphere, known as an exosphere. [10] Unlike
Earth's moon, Mercury has a large iron core,
which gives off a magnetic field about 1% as
strong as that of the Earth. It is a very dense
planet due to the large size of its core. Surface
temperatures can be anywhere from about 90 to
700 K ,with the subsolar point being the hottest
and the bottoms of craters near the poles being
the coldest.
The Lava Planet
Venus is the second planet from the
Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days.
It has the longest rotation period (245
days) of any planet in the Solar System,
and, unusually, rotates in the opposite
direction to most other planets. It has no
natural satellite. It is named after the
Roman goddess of love and beauty.
After the Moon, it is the brightest natural
object in the night sky, reaching an
apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright
enough to cast shadows. Because
Venus is an inferior planet from Earth, it
never appears to venture far from the
Sun: its elongation reaches a maximum
of 47.8°.
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The Lava Planet
Venus is one of the four terrestrial
planets in the Solar System, meaning
that, like Earth, it is a rocky body. In size
and mass, it is similar to Earth, and is
often described as Earth's "sister" or
"twin". The diameter of Venus is
12,092 km (only 650 km less than
Earth's) and its mass is 81.5% of
Earth's. Conditions on the Venusian
surface differ radically from those on
Earth because of its dense carbon
dioxide atmosphere. The mass of the
atmosphere of Venus is 96.5% carbon
dioxide, with most of the remaining 3.5%
being nitrogen.
The Venusian surface was a subject of
speculation until some of its secrets were
revealed by planetary science in the 20th century.
Venera landers in 1975 and 1982 returned images
of a surface covered in sediment and relatively
angular rocks. The surface was mapped in detail
by Magellan in 1990–91. The ground shows
evidence of extensive volcanism, and the sulfur in
the atmosphere may indicate there have been
some recent eruptions.
The Special Planet
Estimates on how much longer Earth will be
able to continue to support life range from
500 million years , to as long as 2.3 billion
years (Ga). Earth's long-term future is
closely tied to that of the Sun. As a result of
the steady accumulation of helium at the
Sun's core, the Sun's total luminosity will
slowly increase. The luminosity of the Sun
will grow by 10% over the next
7016347133600000000♠1.1 Ga and by
40% over the next
7017110451600000000♠3.5 Ga. Climate
models indicate that the rise in radiation
reaching Earth is likely to have dire
consequences, including the loss of the
oceans.
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The Special Planet
Earth is one very special planet because
it is the only planet with water and just
the right length from the sun. If Earth
was an inch closer to the Sun we would
be burning hot, if the Earth was an inch
further from the sun we would be
freezing cold.
Earth is our home planet. Scientists think Earth
formed billions of years ago. Four planets in the
solar system are bigger than Earth. Three planets
are smaller. It is the third-closest planet to the
sun. Only Mercury and Venus are closer.
The Red Planet
Travelers of the Future, Beware! Mars
is no place for the faint-hearted. Arid,
rocky, cold and apparently lifeless, the
Red Planet offers few hospitalities. Fans
of extreme sports can rejoice, however,
for the Red Planet will challenge even
the hardiest souls among us. Home to
the largest volcano in the solar system,
the deepest canyon and crazy weather
and temperature patterns, Mars looms
as the ultimate lonely planet destination.
The Red Planet
There is a chance that Mars has frozen
water and extra terrestrial (aliens) life.
Some rovers have taken lots of
awesome pictures of Mars. There is a
chance that soon we will be living their.
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Death Valley, California, where Beebe crater and "Mars Hill"
have geologic features similar to those on Mars
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Mono Lake, California, which is a 700,000-year-old
evaporative lake that compares to Gusset Crater, a basin on
Mars where water once was likely
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Channeled Scabland in Washington, where catastrophic
floods swept through the land much like what happened
long ago in the Ares Valise flood plain where Mars
Pathfinder landed
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Permafrost in Siberia, Alaska and Antarctica, where
subsurface water-ice and small life forms exist
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Volcanoes in Hawaii, which are like those on Mars, though
much smaller
The Largest Planet
Jupiter is the fifth planet from our Sun. It
is named for the king of ancient Roman
gods. It is the biggest planet in our solar
system. More than 1,300 Earths could fit
inside.
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The Largest Planet
Jupiter's stripes and swirls are cold,
windy clouds of ammonia and water.
Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a giant storm
bigger than Earth. This storm has lasted
hundreds of years. Jupiter's atmosphere
is poisonous. It is mostly hydrogen and
helium. There is dangerous radiation,
too. It gets very hot and very cold. Talk
about bad weather.
Jupiter, not a nice place to visit. It is a giant ball of
gas. There is nowhere to land. Any spacecraft - or
person - passing through the colorful clouds gets
crushed and melted. Remember how your head
feels squeezed when you dive into the deep end
of a pool? That is pressure. On Jupiter, the
pressure is so strong it squishes gas into liquid.
Jupiter's atmosphere can crush a metal spaceship
like a paper cup.
The Pretty Planet
Saturn is the sixth planet from our Sun.
It is called the 'jewel of the solar system'
because of its beautiful rings. It is the
second largest planet in our solar
system.
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The Pretty Planet
Saturn is a lot like Jupiter. It is made up
mostly of gas, including hydrogen,
helium and methane. It doesn't have a
solid surface.
Saturn has clouds stripes and storms like Jupiter,
but they are harder to see. The clouds we see are
mostly yellow and white. One scientist compared
them to a lemon meringue pie. A person -- or
spacecraft -- dropping through the icy clouds
would be crushed.
The Tilted Planet
Uranus is the seventh planet from our
Sun. It is the third largest planet in our
solar system
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You feel pressure in your ears when you dive to the
bottom of a swimming pool. The same thing happens
on Uranus, but it's much stronger. A person or
spacecraft diving through Uranus' clouds would be
crushed.
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Seasons on Uranus last more than 20 years because
the planet is tilted on its side. Scientists think it may
have been whacked by a planet-sized object a long
time ago.
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Uranus is extremely cold at the cloud tops. But
deeper down there is a layer of 'superheated' water,
ammonia and methane. Scientists think methane
shoots to the surface in huge bubbles and becomes
bright clouds. The methane also absorbs red light
and reflects the blue-green colors we see when we
look at Uranus through a telescope.
The Tilted Planet
Uranus is very cold, windy and, like
most of the other planets, poisonous to
humans. It is a gas planet like Jupiter,
Saturn and Neptune. There is nothing to
land on. The air - atmosphere - gets
thicker and thicker until it is squished
into liquid. That is called pressure.
The Furthest Planet
Most of the time Neptune is the eighth
planet from our Sun. Sometimes Pluto's
odd orbit brings it closer to the Sun. For
the next 230 years or so, all you have to
remember is that Neptune is the eighth
planet. It takes a long time for these
distant planets to travel around the sun.
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Neptune gets its blue color from a layer of
methane gas above the clouds. Methane absorbs
red light so only blue colors show up when we
look at Neptune.
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Scientists think there might be an ocean of super
hot water under Neptune's cold clouds. It does not
boil away because of the incredible pressure.
That pressure makes it impossible for a
spacecraft -- or person -- to drop deep into the
clouds.
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Neptune has six rings and 13 known moons.
Neptune's largest moon, Triton, gets colder than
Pluto. Voyager 2 spotted geysers of nitrogen gas
on Triton.
The Furthest Planet
WHAT'S IT LIKE ON NEPTUNE?
Windy. Neptune may be the windiest
planet in the solar system. Winds tear
through the clouds at more than 1,200
mph (2,000 mph). The winds blew
Neptune's Great Dark Spot-- a storm as
big as Earth-- across the planet at 700
mph (1,100 mph). That spot has since
disappeared. A new one appeared on a
different part of planet
VERY SUPER DUPER ULTRA HARD STUFF
ABOUT THE UNIVERSE
The Neutron Star
When the core of a massive star
undergoes gravitational collapse at the
end of its life, protons and electrons are
literally scrunched together, leaving
behind one of nature's most wondrous
creations: a neutron star. Neutron stars
cram roughly 1.3 to 2.5 solar masses
into a city-sized sphere perhaps 20
kilometers (12 miles) across. Matter is
packed so tightly that a sugar-cubesized amount of material would weigh
more than 1 billion tons, about the same
as Mount Everest!
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The Neutron Star
"With neutron stars, we're seeing a
combination of strong gravity, powerful
magnetic and electric fields, and high
velocities. They are laboratories for
extreme physics and conditions that we
cannot reproduce here on Earth," says
Large Area Telescope (LAT) science
team member David Thompson of
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md.
Most known neutron stars belong to a subclass
known as pulsars. These relatively young objects
rotate extremely rapidly, with some spinning faster
than a kitchen blender. They beam radio waves in
narrow cones, which periodically sweep across
Earth like lighthouse beacons. But as GLAST
Project Scientist Steve Ritz of NASA Goddard
points out, "With magnetic fields trillions of times
stronger than Earth's, pulsar magnetic fields are
high-energy particle accelerators." The
magnetospheres of some pulsars accelerate
particles to such high energies that they are
relatively bright gamma-ray sources.
The Black Hole
A black hole is a place in space where
gravity pulls so much that even light can
not get out. The gravity is so strong
because matter has been squeezed into
a tiny space. This can happen when a
star is dying.
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The Black Hole
Because no light can get out, people
can't see black holes. They are invisible.
Space telescopes with special tools can
help find black holes. The special tools
can see how stars that are very close to
black holes act differently than other
stars.
How Big Are Black Holes?
Black holes can be big or small. Scientists think
the smallest black holes are as small as just one
atom. These black holes are very tiny but have
the mass of a large mountain. Mass is the amount
of matter, or "stuff," in Another kind of black hole
is called "stellar." Its mass can be up to 20 times
more than the mass of the sun. There may be
many, many stellar mass black holes in Earth's
galaxy. Earth's galaxy is called the Milky Way.an
object.
PICTURES COURTESY TO NASA, THIS
POWERPOINT IS ALL COURTESY OF NASA AND
WIKIPEDIA.
BY, OWEN ABRAMS