User:Liveitup2dmx

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

NGC 4414, a typical spiral galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices, is about 56,000 light years in diameter and approximately 60 million light years distant. -Galaxy
NGC 4414, a typical spiral galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices, is about 56,000 light years in diameter and approximately 60 million light years distant. -Galaxy


JEFF STERN & JOE MORELLI

APRIL THIRD 2006

PERIOD THREE AND FOUR, MR. VORWALD



Contents

[edit] Galaxy

A spiral galaxy
A spiral galaxy
An eliptical galaxy
An eliptical galaxy
An irregular galaxy
An irregular galaxy

1. A galaxy is one of billions of systems, each including stars, nebulae, clusters of stars, gas and dust, that make up the universe

  • A galaxy’s average size is 100,000 light years wide in diameter and 3,000 light years thick.
  • The Milky way is the galaxy we are in. There are three classes of galaxies are elliptical, spiral, and irregular.
  • Spirals are flat disks with older stars. Elliptical galaxy’s are flat as a thin disk. They are found in the heart of galaxy clusters and are 20 times the width of the Milky Way. Irregular have no real shape and have no arrangement of stars and gas.

[edit] Big Bang Theory

2. The universe formed according to the Big Bang Theory by the universe forming from a dense and hot state about 13.7 billion years ago when everything was a very hot temperature.

  • The red shift theory is that the galaxy is going away from you. The light it puts out appears to become longer in wavelength. All galaxies (beyond our local group of galaxies) show red shift, which indicates that the Universe as a whole is expanding.
  • CMB is the radiation (energy) which remains from the original Big Bang explosion which formed the universe.

[edit] Stars

3. A star is a body of material in the sky containing hot gases that create energy from nuclear reactions at very high temperatures in the star's interior.

  • Stars are made of plasma which is an ionized gas that is electrically conductive.
    • RED GIANT:: A large non-main star of classification K or M. It is named because of the reddish appearance of the other giant stars.
    • MAIN SEQUENCE:: The curve where the majority of stars in the diagram to the right.
    • WHITE DWARF STARS:: A white dwarf is an astronomical object which is produced when a star dies. White dwarfs are common and are of 6% of all stars. Eventually, over billions of years, white dwarfs cool to temperatures at which they are no longer visible. However, since the universe is only 13.7 billion years old, even the oldest white dwarf stars still radiate temperatures

[edit] Inner vs. Outer Planets

Terrestrial planets are the group of rocky planets in the Solar System closest in chemical composition and character to the Earth: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Some consider Pluto a terrestrial planet. Jovian Planets are the gas giants out past the asteroid belt, namely Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Jovian Planets are very large and made of gas compared to the terrestrial planets that are smaller and solid.

  1. Terrestrial planets are relatively small compared to Jovian planets. The smallest Jovian has a diameter 4 times the length of Earth’s. Jupiter’s is 11 times the diameter.
  2. Jovian planets are a lot farther then the sun and have a longer length of orbit
  3. Since Jovian planets are larger than terrestrial they take a longer time to rotate completely around
  4. Atmospheres of Jovian planets range in many different gases of Hydrogen, Helium, Methane, Ammonia, and some water. Terrestrial planets have atmospheres of thin Helium, Hydrogen, Carbon dioxide, nitrogen, sulfuric acid, and traces of other elements. Earth is the only planet so far found with air and WATER.
  5. Satellites (Moons Orbiting): Mercury-0 Venus-0 Earth-1 Mars-2 Jupiter-63 Saturn-31 Uranus-27 Neptune-13 Pluto-1. Jovian planets generally have more satellites than terrestrial.
  6. The Jovian planets only have rings. Jupiter has 4, Saturn has around 1,000, Uranus has 11 rings, and Neptune has 4.


[edit] Saturn

Image:PIA01465 modest.jpg
Scientists for the first time have made images of the surface of Saturn's giant, haze-shrouded moon, Titan. They mapped light and dark features over the surface of the satellite during nearly a complete 16-day rotation. One prominent bright area they discovered is a surface feature 2,500 miles across, about the size of the continent of Australia.

On July 1, 2004, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft performed the Saturn Orbit Insertion maneuver and entered orbit around Saturn. Before the SOI, Cassini had already studied the system extensively. The orbiter completed two Titan flybys before releasing the Huygens probe on December 25, 2004.

As of 2005, Cassini is conducting multiple flybys of Titan and icy satellites. On March 10, 2006, NASA reported that Casini had discovered liquid water that erupted in geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus.

This mission will end in 2008 when the spacecraft has completed 74 orbits around the planet.

[edit] What is a planet?

An object orbiting a star that is not a brown dwarf but bigger than an asteroid. This is somewhat ambiguous. In our solar system it is really an historical definition which boils down to "a planet is a member of the set {Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto}". All the known planets orbiting other stars are large gas planets so no ambiguity yet arises there. But when we begin to discover terrestrial planets and then smaller objects it will become necessary to make some further arbitrary definition. --www.astro.uio.no

Artist's rendering of the Kuiper Belt and hypothetical more distant Oort cloud.
Artist's rendering of the Kuiper Belt and hypothetical more distant Oort cloud.
  • Sedna should be considered a planet even though it's beyond Pluto because it classified as what a planet is.

[edit] Comets, steroids, and Meteoroites

  • Comets: A relatively small extraterrestrial body consisting of a frozen mass that travels around the sun in a highly elliptical orbit.
  • Asteroid: Thousands of small rocky objects that oribt around the Sun. They are between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The largest asteroid is one called Ceres and it's about as wide as the state of Texas.
  • Meteorites: Extraterrestrial origin that survives passage through the atmosphere and hits the ground.
Our teacher Gary vorwald. This is our lab!! Jeff Stern & Joe Morelli - April 3rd 2006 - Mr. Vorwald
Our teacher Gary vorwald. This is our lab!! Jeff Stern & Joe Morelli - April 3rd 2006 - Mr. Vorwald

[edit] Sources

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../l/i/v/User%7ELiveitup2dmx_cf1f.html"