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Exploring Space!
Everything you did and did not
want to know about how humans
have explored space!
Way way back
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Astronomers have
been studying space
since way way back
(the ancient Greeks
and Romans)
In 1543 Copernicus
proposed the idea
that the earth orbits
the sun.
The earth was NOT
the center of the
universe!
Telescopes
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Adapted by Galileo
Galilei in 1609
Telescopes gather
light and often
magnify it to visual
proportions
Telescopes can
gather visual light,
or radio waves, or
infrared radiation
Yerkes telescope in Wisconsin,
The largest refracting telescope
in the world
More telescopes!
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Some telescopes are
in orbit around Earth.
The Hubble
Telescope is in orbit
and provides some of
the clearest images of
distant objects
Picture of distant galaxies from
the Hubble space telescope
Space travel
Sputnik 1 – 1st Satellite
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The idea of going into
space or sending
people into space
started in the 1950s
1957 – The Soviet
Union launched the
first satellite to orbit
earth
1958 – The Soviet
Union sent the first
human into space
Race to the Moon!
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The United States
Won!
NASA (the National
Aeronautics and
Space
Administration)
created the Apollo
program to try to
reach the moon
July 11, 1969 the
crew from Apollo 11
walked on the
surface of the moon
Researching the moon
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NASA achieved 5
more moon landing
between 1969 and
1972
The Apollo program
helped scientists
learn about the
moon’s surface and
interior
The International Space Station!
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Space station – a satellite in which people can live and
work for long periods
Russia, US and 15 other nations began building the
Intertational Space Station in 1998.
The first crew was in 2000
As big as 2 football fields
Crew makes observations of earth and perform
experiments especially about gravity
The Space Shuttle
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How NASA launches the
ISS crew into space
First Space Shuttle,
Columbia was launched
in 1981
Can be used over and
over again
Have been launched
more than 100 times
since 1981
http://www.aee.odu.edu/shuttlerepository/shuttlerepair.html
Unmanned Spacecraft
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We cannot send humans to other planets
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The trip is too long, too expensive and too the
conditions are too harsh on many other planets
Carry instruments that test the compositions and
characteristics of planets
Flybys
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A spacecraft passes
one or more planets
without orbiting them
Voyager 2 was sent in
the 1980s and flew by
Jupiter, Saturn,
Uranus and Neptune
Picture the Voyager 2
took of Saturn
Orbiters
Orbiter of Mars
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Target a specific
planet to study and
orbit that planet over
a long period of time
Data is collected and
sent back to earth as
radio waves
Help create detailed
maps of planets
Lunar orbiter
Landers
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A craft designed to
land on a planet’s
surface
Have been to the
Moon, Venus, and
Mars
Probes
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The Galileo
probe which
dropped
into the
Atmosphere
of Jupiter
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A spacecraft that
usually drops into a
planet’s atmosphere,
but only work for a
short time before they
are destroyed by
conditions on a planet
Useful for studying
the deep atmosphere
of the giant planets
like Jupiter
Quiz: Was this Spacecraft a probe,
a lander, an orbiter, or a flyby?
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1. Luna 1 in 1959 flew by the moon
2. In 1966 Luna 9 made a soft landing on the
moon’s surface
3. The Galileo spacecraft in 1995 began to orbit
Jupiter but released a ______ which studied
Jupiter’s atmosphere for 1 hour before it was
destroyed.
4. Magellan in 1989 made a map of the surface
of Venus by revolving around the planet
5. The Viking 2 was sent in 1975 to Mars to
roam the surface and search for life
Brief Timeline of Space
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1609 Galileo invents the telescope
1924 An astronomer named Edwin Hubble confirms the
existence of other galaxies
1957 First artificial satellite Sputnik was launched by the Soviet
Union
1958 The National Aeronatics and Space Administration
(NASA) is established to oversee the exploration of space
1969 First man, Neil Armstrong walks on the moon
1977 The Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are launched to Jupiter,
Saturn and beyond, they are now 10 billion km away and still
sending back pictures to earth
1981 The first space shuttle, Columbia, was launched by NASA
1992 Astronomers discover the first planet outside our solar
system
2000 The first 3 man crew was sent to the International Space
Station