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Science Starter
# Street
Planet
City
Orbit
State
Star?
Country
…?
Continent
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Hemisphere
…
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Review from last class

The Universe’s Origin
 Big Bang Theory
 Steady State Theory

The Universe’s End
 Big Crunch
 Expansion Forever
 http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/09/19
/how-much-longer-can-earth-support-life/
Standard 1.1 Structure of the Universe
Objective
• SWBAT Distinguish the hierarchical
relationships between planets and other
astronomical bodies relative to solar
system, galaxy, and universe, including
distance, size, and composition.
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Agenda
Science Starter
 Into to the Universe size & Scale
 Practice time!

Remember our Lesson Goal!
1. What makes up the universe?

By the end of this lesson, you should be
able to describe the structure of the
universe, including the scale of distance
in the universe.
Standard 1.1 Structure of the Universe
How Big Is Big?
How are distances in the universe
measured?
• Distances between most objects in the
universe are so large that astronomers
measure distances using the speed of
light.
A light-year is the distance that light
travels through space in one year.
Size and Scale of the Universe
Image courtesy of The Cosmic Perspective by Bennett, Donahue, Schneider, & Voit; Addison Wesley, 2002

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IVq
MXPFYwI
• Comprised
primarily of rock
• Earth is one of
eight planets that
orbit the sun
• 12,700 km in
diameter
• It would take 17
days to
circumnavigate
the globe driving
a car at 100
km/hr (62 mph)
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/GSFC
• The star that
Earth orbits
• Uses nuclear
fusion in its
core to
generate
heat and light
to allow itself
to resist the
crushing
weight of its
own mass
Image Credit: SOHO/NASA/ESA
• The Sun’s
diameter is
109 times
greater than
that of Earth
• Over 1 million
Earths would
fit inside
Image Credit: SOHO/NASA/ESA
• It would take
11,780 Earths
lined up side
to side to
bridge the gap
between Earth
and Sun
Size and Scale of the Universe
Image credit: NASA
Image credit: NASA
Consists of:
•1 large object
•Sun
•several medium-sized
objects
• 8 planets, some dwarf
planets, and moons
•lots of debris
•asteroids, meteoroids,
comets, dust
Size and Scale of the Universe
Image credit: NASA
Image credit: NASA
• A planet is a spherical body that orbits the sun.
The sun is our central star.
• Moons are smaller bodies that orbit most
planets.
• A star is a large celestial body that is
composed of gas and emits light.
• Asteroids: Rocky and metallic objects too small
to be considered planets.
• Meteorites are bits of the solar system that
have fallen to the Earth.
• Comets: small bodies made out of dust and
ices
Size and Scale of the Universe
• The region of the
Galaxy within
about 20 lightyears of the Sun
(40 light-years
diameter)
• A light-year is the
distance that light
travels in one year
(~10 trillion
kilometers or
63,000 AU)
Image credit: Andrew Colvin
A galaxy is a large
collection of stars,
gas, and dust held
together by gravity.
• The Milky Way
Galaxy is a giant
disk of stars
100,000 light-years
across and 1,000
light-years thick
• It takes about 250
million years for the
Sun to complete
one orbit
Image credit: R. Hurt (SSC), JPL-Caltech, NASA
• There are over 200
billion stars in the
Milky Way
Size and Scale of the Universe
• About 6.5
million lightyears in
diameter
• Contains 3
large spiral
galaxies -Milky Way,
Andromeda(M3
1), and
Triangulum(M3
3)
Image Credit: Andrew Colvin
Size and Scale of the Universe
• The Local
Supercluster is
about 130
million lightyears across
• It’s a huge
cluster of
thousands upon
thousands of
galaxies
Image credit: Andrew Colvin
• Containing well
over a thousand
galaxies
The Supercluster Earth
Belong To:
Size and Scale of the Universe
• Probably at least 100
billion galaxies in the
Universe
• The Observable
Universe is currently
about 91 billion
light-years across
The universe can be defined
as space and all the matter
and energy in it.
• There could be (and
likely is) much more
beyond that, but we
cannot see it from
Standard 1.1 Structure of the Universe
What is the structure of the
universe?
• Astronomers have begun to think of
the universe as having a structure
similar to soap bubbles.
• Clusters and superclusters are located
along the thin bubble walls.
• The interior of the bubbles are voids. It
takes light hundreds of millions of
years to cross the largest voids.
Using the table below, construct your own diagram of the universe
Realm
Earth
Actual Size
Scale Model
(diameter in km)
12,700
(1.27E+4)
salt grain
(0.1 mm)
1.39 million
(1.39E+6)
gum ball
(1.09 cm)
Solar System
30 billion
(3.0E+10)
football stadium
(234 meters)
Solar
Neighborhood
378 trillion
(3.78E+14)
~ size of Moon
(3,480 km)
946 quadrillion
(9.46E+17)
5.4 Suns
(7.5 million km)
Local Group
(of galaxies)
62 quintillion
(6.15E+19)
orbit of Mars
Local
Supercluster
1.2 sextillion
(1.2E+21)
orbit of Neptune
860.9 sextillion
(8.6E+23)
Oort Cloud-radius
(48,000 AU or
0.76 ly)
Sun
Galaxy
Universe
-diameter
(~3 AU)
-diameter
(~60 AU)
Be sure to include
things like asteroids,
other planets, etc
Using what you
know, write two
paragraphs explaining
Earth’s location in the
universe.