Download Celestial Bodies

Celestial Bodies
Grade 9 Science
Earth
Our home
Sometimes
we see it in a
different
way…
Like at night!
The Moon
This is still the moon…can you guess what is hiding
behind it?
A Moon Halo
These happen quite
often. Look for
them when there
are lots of high, but
thin clouds in the
sky
Can you see another
celestial body in the
picture?
The Other Planets
Mercury
Small, hot
and very
close to the
Sun
Looks much
like our Moon
It is quite easy to see Mercury. Notice the path
it follows
Venus
‘Sister’ to the
Earth.
Venus is also visible
from Earth.
Mars
The Red
Planet…except
it doesn’t
really look red
The Mcmurdo pan on Mars. It doesn’t look
too much different from parts of Earth
Here you can see the path that
Mars follows as viewed from
Earth
Jupiter
The Failed
Star with
the Great
Red Spot
The rings of
Jupiter.
Barely visible as they
reflect little light
Venus
Although much
larger, Jupiter is
less visible than
Venus
Jupiter
Saturn
The ringed
planet
Uranus…
…also has
rings.
It’s also
tilted
(compared
to the
other
planets), it
flies
through
space on its
side.
Neptune
The
Great
Dark
Spot
The Dwarf Planets
Ceres
Found
between Mars
and Jupiter
Pluto
Found past
Neptune
Eris
The largest Dwarf
Planet and even
further from the
Sun than Pluto
Other bodies in our Solar
System
Asteroids
Asteroids come in all
shapes and sizes. Most
are found in the Asteroid
Belt, between Mars and
Jupiter
They can be as small
as a pebble and as
large as 1000 km
across
Most are made of silicate (stone), but some are
made of iron or nickel.
Meteors
(or Shooting
Stars)
Each streak is a piece of rock or dust burning up as it enters
our atmosphere. The rock is a meteoroid. They are travelling
between 10 and 70 kilometres per second.
Some are larger though. If it’s too large and hits…
…we have a meteorite
But if they’re even bigger…
This can happen!
This crater in Arizona is 1200 m wide, 200 m deep and was
made by a meteorite about 40 m wide.
Comets
Big Dirty
Snowballs
Comets actually have two tails. The dust tail
(yellow) and the ion tail (blue)
The Sun
The Sun provides our
world with the
warmth and light
needed to survive.
Our Sun is an average
sized, middle age (4.5
billion years old) star
Features of the Sun
Sun spots
They may appear
dark, but they are
actually brighter
than a full moon
They can also cause…
Solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections
This is a CME.
The Sun throws
out particles. If
they hit the
Earth they can
cause blackouts,
fry satellites and
kill astronauts in
space.
And if we put it all together we have…
The Solar System
This is a picture (a model) of the solar system. It is NOT to
scale.
These are the true scales.
The rocky planets.
The Gas Giants
Everything
Stars
Most of these
points of light
are stars. Each
star may have a
solar system just
like ours.
Types of stars.
Red Giants
Large red stars (up to
10 times larger than
our Sun).
Red super-giants can
be even larger.
White Dwarfs
Small, dim
stars.
They are about
the size of
Earth and
about half the
mass of the
Sun
Neutron stars
Very small (about 1020 km across).
About 1.5 times
heavier than the Sun
The rotate very
quickly – up to 700
times a second.
Binary stars
Two stars (one
usually much
smaller than the
other) orbit one
another
This is Sirius,
the brightest
‘star’ in our
night sky
Usually the smaller star
in a binary system pulls
mass from the larger star
because its gravitational
pull is much larger
Super
nova
They’re
big…
…very big!
So big and bright we can see them
on Earth
This is a scene from the Bayeux tapestry. A supernova
has been drawn in the upper right corner. The Chinese
also recorded seeing it around the same time.
Some supernova produce
Nebula – the birthplace of stars
Nebulae can
produce
amazing
colours and
shapes
This is the
Horsehead
nebula.
The Cone nebula
The Veil
nebula
Galaxies
There are 3 main types of
Galaxies
Spiral
Elliptical
Irregular
Our Galaxy, the Milky Way, is a Barred
Spiral Galaxy
However this is
only a theory of
what it looks like.
We have never
left the Milky
Way in order to
see what it really
looks like.
We live about
here.
We can only see part of our galaxy…
More Spiral Galaxies
20 to 100 billion stars
50 to 100 000 light years across
More Elliptical Galaxies
Irregular Galaxies
Here you
can see
two
galaxies
nearing
one
another
and how
one pulls
matter
away from
the other.
Galaxies form clusters
From the Earth we see all these stars
and galaxies and see patterns, which
we call
Constellations
Orion the
Hunter
And if you put EVERYTHING
together,you have…
The Universe