astronomy ezine blue 4 mcdonald
DESCRIPTION
Culminating product of the Astronomy unit in grade 8 science.TRANSCRIPT
WHY DO NEBULAS COME IN DIFFERENT COLORS AND SHAPES
Nebulae or Nebula known to many people is a beautiful array of coloured dust orbiting around some core in space that “we humans” have not yet found. There are actually different types of Nebulae in space and they come in a variety of colours. Here are some of the big types of nebulae, Supernova Remnants, Planetary Nebula, Dark Nebula and Protoplanetary Nebula.
By Adrian
Wall Info Photos +
DIFFERENT TYPES OF NEBULA
Planetary Nebula are really beautiful nebula, they are recognized as ringed nebula.
Planetary nebula originates from a dying sun, usually when the sun is coming to the end of its life its starts to release ionized gasses. These ionized gasses group up into a ring and
surround the dying sun and they start to light up from the suns increasing heat and that’s how planetary nebula get their awesome colours.
Reflection Nebula can be recognized as a cloud of dust orbiting around some core. They are simply clouds of dust reflecting the light of nearby suns/stars. The energy from the stars is
not enough to ionize the gas of the nebulae but its light is sufficient to make the dust shine. The resulting colour of the Reflection Nebulae is usually blue but there are a lot more colours in the sky. “In Astronomy, reflection nebula is clouds of dust which are simply
reflecting the light of a nearby stars or stars. The energy from the nearby star, or stars, is insufficient to ionize the gas of the nebula to create an emission nebula, but is enough to
give sufficient scattering to make the dust visible.” Says the Wikipedia.
Supernova Remnants are one of the most beautiful and most destructive nebulas. “A supernova remnant is the structure resulting from the explosion of a star in a supernova. The supernova remnant
is bounded by an expanding shock wave, and consists of ejected material expanding from the explosion and the interstellar material it sweeps up and shocks along the way” says the Wikipedia. A way a sun may explode is if a massive sun may run out of fuel, ceasing to generate fusion energy in its core and the entire sun will destabilize. When the explosion happens it is extremely violent. The Ionized gasses after the explosion will group up into one gigantic group and start to shine colours. This is how your
common supernova remnants look like, a gigantic group of dust with a lot of colours.
“A dark nebula is a type of interstellar cloud that is so dense that it obscures the light from the background of Emission or Reflection nebula.” Says the Wikipedia, the dust that is in the dark nebula is
so dense that the light that is being blocked shows the dust as a shadow that why it’s a dark nebula, these nebulas are usually a dark grey colour and in the background colours. If the dark nebula is
blocking a reflection nebula the background of the dark nebula is blue or red. These dark nebulas contain a lot of hydrogen.
Nebulas are epic wonderful things that have been created and new nebulas are being created every moment.
Credit: FORS TeamCrab Nebula
Image credit: NASA, J. P. Harrington (U. Maryland) and K. J. Borkowski (NCSU) Cat Eye Nebula
CREDIT: Gary Stevens SOURCE Witch Head Nebula
Credit and Copyright: Jean-Charles Cuillandre (CFHT), Hawaiian Starlight, CFHT Horse Nebula
NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA
Eagle Nebula
BRANSON’S DREAM FLIGHT
4/10/11
Though several other companies are starting to progress in this, Virgin is in the lead. They already have tickets being sold inside their website where you can overview the training, space shuttles and safety measures
Though Virgin has made the most progress, and have stated that they will start taking off next year, they have made no move to begin. They seem to be over-confident, and not very safe with their goals. Sir Richard Branson has already made designs for space hotels and such other things. He is hopeful that anyone can soon go into space as he has stated in the Virgin Galactic website. Anyone with enough money and a dream that is. The designs for the space hotel include Velcro suits that stick to the walls and day-trips to the moon! Big hopes, big dreams, they come with problems. Is Virgin Galactic not think properly when having such lax health regulations? Could this be a serious problem? There have been rumors of body problems with space tourists such as not being able to rid their bodies of waste.
Space Tourism is also very, very expensive. There have been 7 space tourist so far, the first being Dennis Tito who payed 20 million dollars for an eight day trip on the Russian space shuttle. A year later, South African Mark Shuttleworth, payed the same amount to the same company for an 11 day trip. Anousheh Ansari payed undisclosed amounts for a 12 day tip. The highest payer was Guy Laliberté, who payed 35 million for an 12 day trip. Though Guy payed the highest Charles Simonyi travel twice, once for 15 days and a second time, two years later for 14 days.
Space Tourism is also very, very expensive. There have been 7 space tourist so far, the first being Dennis Tito who payed 20 million dollars for an eight day trip on the Russian space shuttle. A year later, South African Mark Shuttleworth, payed the same amount to the same company for an 11 day trip. Anousheh Ansari payed undisclosed amounts for a 12 day tip. The highest payer was Guy Laliberté, who payed 35 million for an 12 day trip. Though Guy payed the highest Charles Simonyi travel twice, once for 15 days and a second time, two years later for 14 days. Branson has already have two space shuttles built and tested, SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo. Despite their lack of interesting names, they seem like beautiful machines. Beautiful, but not something I would feel safe to travel to space in. Of course to win our trust they have put “employees” inside and taken pictures. This somehow does not comfort me at all, for the plane wasn’t even moving. To put an end to this, we are hit with this fact. No matter how much money we put into this, No matter how hard you dream, you can’t go into space as a tourist. Well, only if you have big bucks, and a strong stomach. Sir Branson maybe close, but so far, he better be happy with sub-orbital flight....
Alana
Do you ever wonder why stars twinkle? It would be the same as the relationship between a coin and the pool. When a coin is being put at the bottom of the pool then we look at it from the top of the pool it twinkles. The reason why stars twinkle is similar to that. Stars are huge, hot balls of burning gas that get hold by gravity. Stars make light in the form of bright light rays. Believe it or not the sun is one of the stars on earth! The sun gives us the most energy. At night, stars are spread out all over the sky; sometimes they do not shine because they are blocked by the atmospheric phenomena. Stars have different sizes. Science experts can determine a star’s mass, age, and chemical composition by studying at its brightness level, motion through space and scale. Due to their huge distance from earth, all stars except for the sun appear as shining points in the sky that twinkle only because of the earth’s atmosphere.
Do you ever wonder why stars twinkle?
CHRISTIAN DARKIN / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Universal Images Group
Star. Photography. Encyclopædia Britannica Image Quest. Web. 4 Oct 2011.
CELESTIAL IMAGE CO/ SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/ Universal Images Grouop
Star. Photography. Encyclopædia Britannica Image Quest. Web. 4 Oct 2011.
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Another word to describe the twinkling of stars is ‘Stellar scintillation’. Twinkling is a word to illustrate the fast changes in direction the star’s brightness or color seen through the earth’s atmosphere. The motion of the wind, bad air and changes of the temperature scales in the atmosphere are the main causes of the bending of the light rays causing twinkling. When we look at stars from earth we see them twinkling because they have to go through the earth’s atmosphere. Stars, except for the sun, appear as tiny dots in the sky. As their light travels through the many layers of the earth’s atmosphere, the light is bent many times in different directions. Whenever a star moves a bit, we will see the twinkling from the earth.
Stars that are closer to earth twinkle less because they only have to go through shorter distance in the atmosphere but stars that are further from earth twinkle more because they are required to experience longer distance in the atmosphere. So the farthest stars seem to be the stars that twinkle the most because of the bending of the light rays.
Planets do not twinkle because they are close to us. If we see stars from outer space then we cannot see them twinkled. We only can see stars twinkle when we look at it from the earth. In conclusion, stars do not actually twinkle. They seem to twinkle but that happens only due to certain natural process in the atmosphere, and most of all, humans live on earth thus we want to continue believing that stars “twinkle”.
Why do shooting stars shoot?
BY: CATHERINE
What are they? What are shooting stars and why do they shoot? According to universetoday.com a shooting star is another name for a meteoroid that burns up as it passes through the Earth’s atmosphere. So, a shooting star isn’t a star at all. These meteoroids are pulled towards the Earth with the Earth’s gravitation pull. Astronomytoday.com tells us that comets and asteroids are two main sources from where dusts and fragments fall. When a meteor falls it has a build‐up of frictional heat when passes through the Earth’s atmosphere which is what causes the streak of light.
Sizes and Sounds Wikipedia.org informed us that any sound generated by a meteor in the upper atmosphere, such as a sonic boom, should not be heard until many seconds after the meteor disappeared. Many meteors appearing seconds or minutes apart are called a meteor shower. If a meteoroid reaches the ground and survives impact, then it is called a meteorite. Astronomytoday.com also tells us that most meteors typically measure 1m across and 20km long, and consist of a cylinder of excited atoms and molecules. They are normally seen between 120 and 80km above Earth's surface. Around 220,000 tons of space dust enters our atmosphere each year. Most of it is made up of the tiny particles, which produce meteors.
Frank Zullo / Photo Researchers / Universal Images Group
Different Types There are different types of meteorites. Some of these meteorites are made of Iron, Stony iron, Chondrite and Achondrite. Only 6% of meteorites are iron meteorites or a blend of rock and metal, the stony‐iron meteorites. About 86% of the meteorites that fall on Earth are chondrites. Even though shooting stars are not stars and they don’t shoot, they are still wished upon many people.
WALTER PACHOLKA / ASTROPICS / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Universal Images Group
After reading the other articles about black holes you may be thinking “well, these things are headaches incarnate!” well you have NO idea. First let me describe how most people including you view space and time, then let me tell you about how wrong that view is.
Imagine a piece of paper, this is a 2 dimensional “plane”, now place two dots on the paper, if you try to connect them you will quickly find that there is only one shortest way, a straight line. This is the same along as many or as few dimensions as you like, except it isn’t.
That piece of paper is only an
approximation of the true shape of things. In reality the paper is dented and warped so much that there may be shorter ways than your original straight line, or there may be many ways, each as short as the other.
Thankfully this warping is usually too
small to notice, except around, you guessed it, black holes. This is because the massive gravity of a black hole bends space around it like a lead bar on a fabric. Gravity, according to Einstein, bends space and time, most objects don’t have enough gravity to have a noticeable effect.
Black holes cause the rules of geometry
to break, in fact inside the event horizon there are no lines that lead away from the singularity, all lines intersect it. This means that once you’re inside the event horizon there is literally no escape. Around some rotating black holes is a field of space that causes objects in it to start spinning. The disks of matter around a black hole also mess with the nearby universe; as mass moves it causes “gravity waves”, moving “ripples” in space that travel at or quicker than the speed of light; The black hole is the headache that keeps on giving.
Black holes’ effect on reality BY: Charles
This is your brain on black holes
Image credit: youngzones.org
Animals in SpaceBY: CLIONA
Why did they send animals into space? Animals are the reason that humans can go to space. They sent animals into space so they could prepare humans to go into space. They were not sure if humans could survive the long periods of weight loss. Animals were our test run and some survived and some died. The history of animals in space Most of the animals sent into space were monkeys, dogs and mice. The nasa.gov informs us the first animals sent into space on purpose were fruit flies. The first living thing accidently sent into space was probably bacteria. The first monkey sent into space was Albert a rhesus monkey but sadly the monkey died of impact. The first dog sent into space was Laika she was also the first animal to orbit the earth. Wikipedia.org tells us that Laika is suspected to of died from overheating. According to nasa.gov French scientist sent the first cat in to space on October 18 1963 the cat was named Felix and survived and came back to earth by parachute. They also sent other animals in to space like tiny swordtail fish, snails, prehistoric-looking oyster toad fish and cricket eggs and larvae. Animals in space now Animals’ going into space is less common now that we know that humans can go into space. They were the reason humans go into space today. If they hadn’t gone into space we wouldn’t have discovered all that we did.
[Tass News Agency photo via Russian Space
Tom McHugh / Photo Researchers / Universal Images Group
time many were re-corded as radio sources with no visible object. The first proper meas-urements were achieved in 1962 when a 200 inch telescope got the first proper visual of a quasar. In the 1980’s Quasars were classified as a un-known kind of galaxy.
Quasars are supposed to be accretion disks full of light which spiral around objects larger than itself such as a black hole, a new star or a white dwarf. When you look at quasars you are looking 10 – 15 billion years in the pass. This is because it is 10 -15 billion light years away, isn’t that amazing? According to kids astronomy they are the furthest distance ob-ject in the universe that we can see. There are more than 200,000 qua-sars to be known in our
universe, according to Wikipedia in the early universe they were sup-posed to be much more common. This was be-cause there was much more gas like substances. Quasars were first dis-covered in 1950 by radio telescopes. During this
Accretion disks happen when material which is usually gas is being trans-ferred form one object to another. This all happens around one larger object. Because the gas can not
directly fall on the larger object when being trans-ferred it spirals around it causing a accretion disk. Gravity of the planet causes this to happen Ac-cording to Wikipedia.
A quasar with 200 billion times amount of mass than the sun.
What are Quasars?
Accretion Disks
J A K A R T A
I N T E R N A T I O N A L QUASARS! B Y : D A R C Y
S P E C I A L P O I N T S O F I N T E R E S T :
• History of
Quasars
• Amount of
light in qua-sars
• Accretion
disks
• Early uni-
verse.
• Brightess
objects in Universe
An accretion disk in action!
Black Holes: Do They Lead to Different Galaxies? Picture Below From Galaxy‐Guide.
Black Holes: The Truth Black Holes Do Not Lead to other Galaxies, Dimensions, Etc. If you were to actually enter a
Black hole you would be torn to atoms and those would be torn to smaller atoms. Nothing
can escape a black hole,not even light. They have an infinite density, so anything that goes
in isn’t coming out. As of the 29thof September (according to NASA), a black hole was
discovered in our own Milky Way! It is known as a “Super‐massive Black Hole” and it is the
youngest we know about. Wormholes, on the other hand, do lead to different galaxies.
The only way we could travel through these though is if we could travel at the speed of
light. These consist of a white hole and a black hole and the chance of us getting through
one of these, even at light speed, is slim to none. Black holes have a very big gravitational
pull, but compared to white holes are nothing. A normal Schwarzschild Worm Hole has a
gravitational 1 hundred million times more than our sun. Worm Holes are rare also, but
black holes are not. Some galaxies actually consist of only stars and black holes!
Black Holes: The Truth
By: Dylan Tags; Black Holes, Worm Holes, White
Hole , Gravity, Pull, Galaxy, Earth, NASA.
What Are Black Holes?
Black Holes are actually the opposite of empty or holes. They have an infinite density and nothing can escape the gravitational pull of a black hole,not even light. When something is sucked in, it is torn to atoms, and those atoms are torn into in to smaller atoms and so forth. They do not lead to anywhere an when something goes in, it doesn’t come out.
What are White Holes?
According to the White Hole Wiki, A white hole, in general relativity is a hypothetical region of space time which cannot be entered from the outside, but from which matter and light may escape. In this sense it is the reverse of a black hole, avoid the singularity, and travel into a rotating white hole which allows the traveler to escape into another universe.).
Black holes are one of the most interesting mysterious matter in the universe. A black hole is a space with tons of gravitational force. In fact the speed of light isn’t fast enough to escape it, that’s why a black hole is black. It is very unlikely to reach the solar system. There are a few types and sizes to classify the black holes. The farthest force is the er-goshpere. It is a layer that looks like an oval. It drags mat-ter towards the center of the black hole”, according to Caroll Sean writer of space time and geometry. The closest to the center is an even horizon. It’s a circle shape that is a “point of no return” based on NASA. The heart of the black hole is the singularity. No life can sur-vive in the singularity. A singu-larity is created when the plan-ets super nova has no volume
and infinite density. We live in the solar system. Our sun couldn’t possibly turn into a black hole because it is too small! The sun would have to be ten to fifteen times it’s size now. If our sun turned into a black hole, it would need to be
in 3km of its radius. A black hole has three main stages of gravitational force.” When a planet dies it creates a supernova. A supernova is
when a planet self destruct because of gravity. Since there is no other force to counter act the gravitational pull the super nova will eventually reach an infinite density and no vol-ume. That’s when a black hole is born. The infinite density is what cre-ates the singularity. Black holes comes in different types and sizes. There is only four types of black holes; Schwarzchild, rotating, charged and virtual. Schwarzchild are non electric and non rotating black hole. A rotating black hole rotates. A charged black hole is when there is an electric charged black hole. The virtual Black hole is a black hole that exist temporarily. According to the Hubble Site, there is a theory with 3 sizes of black holes based on their mass. The smallest of them are from massive stars called “stellar black holes”. “Super massive black holes existing in the center of galax-ies”. “The most unproved” is the miniature black hole. “The size of the even horizon is only the size of an atomic particle.”
Black Holes
The Mysterious Black Holes
This an image from NASA. It’s a start of a black Hole (quasar) in a distant galaxy. You can see the singularity, even horizon and the er-gosphere also some planets being sucked in from the force of the gravitational pull
This is a picture from the Britannica image– NASA. This is a picture if a start of a supernova.
By Kelly
We all know the distance from Sun to the Earth. The answer is149 million kilometers. But how did we measure? There is no ruler that can measure such a long distance.
The first person who measured the distance between sun to the earth was Eratosthenes. He was born in He calculated the distance between sun to the Earth by using triangular surveying.
Eratosthenes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes
The first step in measuring the distance between the Earth and the Sun is to measure the distance between Earth and Venus in terms of the distance between Earth and the Sun. To first approximation, the orbits of Earth and Venus are perfect circles around the Sun.
Take a look at the diagram below (not to scale). From the representation of the orbit of Venus, it is clear that there are two places where the Sun‐Venus‐Earth angle is 90 degrees. At these points, the line joining Earth and Venus will be a tangent to the orbit of Venus. These two points indicate the greatest elongation of Venus and is the farthest that Venus will get away from the Sun in the sky.
By making observations of Venus in the sky, one can determine the point of greatest elongation. One can also measure the angle between the Sun and Venus in the sky at the point of greatest elongation. In the dia‐gram, this angle will be the Sun‐Earth‐Venus angle marked as "e" in the right angled triangle. Now, using the trigonometry, one can determine the distance be‐tween Earth and Venus in terms of the Earth‐Sun dis‐tance: distance between Earth and Venus = a * cosine (e)(ratio of the adjacent side to the hypotenuse of a right‐angled triangle)
The distance to Venus can be measured by radar measurements, where a radio wave is transmitted from Earth and is received when it bounces off Venus and comes back to Earth. By measuring the time taken for the pulse to come back, the distance can be calculated as radar travel at the speed of light. When the distance to Venus is known, the distance from Sun to the Earth can be calculated as 149 million kilometers.
How to measure the distance
from Sun to the Earth. Kyoko
curious.astro.cornell.edu
Pluto – The Ex-Ninth Planet By Madeleine
A History of Pluto
In January of 1930, some astronomers discovered something odd... Uranus and Neptune were on more of an oval orbit than a circular one. They believed that some other force must be acting upon them, thus creating an odd orbit. According to Dr. Tony Phillips and Amelia Phillips, Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered another celestial being further out than Uranus and Neptune on January 26, 1930. Upon further investigation however, scientists discovered that this new planet’s mass was too small to have an effect on another planet’s orbit. Therefore Neptune and Uranus’ orbits must be regular.
This new planet needed a name. Many people submitted various names, but none of them were an eleven-year-old girl named Venetia Burney. And none of them suggested the name Pluto, the name for the Roman god of the Underworld.
Venetia Burney (now Mrs. Venetia Phair) lived in Oxford with her grandfather, Falconer Madan. On May 1, 1930, Mr. Madan sat at the breakfast table with Venetia and mentioned something that he saw in the newspaper; something about a newly discovered planet needing a name. Venetia, loving Roman mythology at the time, decided to suggest the name Pluto. Mr. Phair said he’d submit it to an astronomer. In later days to come, the name Pluto was accepted.
In 2006, a meeting of less than 4% of members of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) was gathered in Prague. They were to vote on a new definition for ‘planet’. Formerly, the definition said that any celestial being that was round due to its own gravity and orbited the sun was a planet. This would have let Pluto and even an asteroid nicknamed ‘Xina’ be a planet. But the vote’s consensus ended up being for the definition stating that a planet was an object that orbits the sun, is round due to its own gravity, and dominates its neighborhood. Compared to other planets, Pluto had not cleared it’s orbital path, making it now one of at least 40 other dwarf planets. The debate still went on, though. In fact, there’s a site (plutopetition.com) where people can vote on whether they think Pluto should still be a planet or not. When they get one million people who say that Pluto is indeed a planet, they will submit the petition to the IAU, asking for reconsideration. In an interview with Venetia Phair in 2006, conducted by Paul Rincon, she says “At my age, I've been largely indifferent to [the debate]; though I suppose I would prefer it to remain a planet.”
The Great Pluto Debate
Photo Credit: NASA / Photo Researchers / Universal Images Group
LoremIpsumDolor Issue#,Date
Haveyoueverwonderedwhatablackholeis?Wellblackholesaretheremnantsofoldstars.Theyaresostrongthatnotevenlightcouldescapethem.Moststarsendupaswhitedwarfstarsorneutralstars.Becomingablackholeisthelaststageofastar’slife.Whenhugestarscollapseinonthemselvesitbecomesasupernova.
AccordingtoNationalGeographic,moststarsthatbecomeblackholesare3‐4timesbiggerthenoursun.Theywouldliketobelievethatblackholesappearatthecenterofgalaxies,justlikehowoursunisinthemiddleofours.Blackholesaresmallinsize,theyaremillion,‐solar‐massholes.Sinceblackholesaresosmall,anddarkthattheycan’tbedirectlyobserved.
Didyouknowthatifaplanetorcometrevolvesaroundablackholeandittouchestheeventhorizonitwillalwaysgetsuckedin?Theonlywaysomethingcouldescapeablackholewouldbeifitwasfasterthenlight.Thishappensbecausethegravityisveryhighduetothefactofthehighdensityoftheblackhole.
AccordingtoTedBunnthesunshouldn’tbecomeablackstarbecausethesunistoosmallanddoesn’tweighenough.Thoughitwon’tbecomeablackhole,inabout5millionyearsorsothesunshouldbecomearedstar.Thiswouldmakelifeonearthveryuncomfortable.Thiswouldcausetheoceanstoboilandtheatmospheretoescape.ThesunwouldgrowsobigitwouldengulfMercuryandVenus.
TedBunnalsothinksthatthesunwillnotturnintoablackholebecauseitistosmallandtolight.Hesaysthatthemostthesunwillturnintoisaredstar,butthiswillonlyhappeninabout5millionyears.ThesunwouldengulfMercuryandVenus.Themostharmitwoulddoisboilingouroceans,evaporatetheatmosphere,andmakelifeonearthveryhard.
Ifthesunbecameablackhole,theearthwouldbecomeverycoldanddark.Theotherplanetswouldstillorbittheblackholeandnotgetsuckedin.Thereasontheydon’tgetsuckedinisbecausetheonlywaytogetsuckedintoablackholeis
ifyouarenearitshorizon.Luckyforusthesunseventhorizonwouldonlybe3kilometers.TedBunnalsothinksthatevenifitdidbecomeablackholethesunsgravitywouldn’tbethatstrongbecauseitsgravityisonlyasstrongasitsmass.
BlackHoles
By:Mary
Bibliography
"Black Holes, Black
Holes Information, Facts,
News, Photos -- National
Geographic." Science and
Space Facts, Science and
Space, Human Body, Health,
Earth, Human Disease -
National Geographic. Web. 03
Oct. 2011.
<http://science.nationalgeograp
hic.com/science/space/universe/
black-holes-article/>.
Supernovae are stars that
expand greatly and explode,
they literally mean “really
big new star:”In the past there were three supernovae
in the milky way. You can
still see expanding gas
clouds- remains of the three
supernovae. Thankfully,
According to Dr. Schuyler
D. Van Dyk the brightest
supernova was in a nearby
galaxy called the Large Ma-
gellanic Cloud. According to
Andrea Thompson “Supernovae can briefly
outshine entire galaxies and
can radiate more energy than
our sun will in its entire life-
time.” In the Milky Way or
galaxies of a similar size a
supernova can occur once every 50 years. Another way
you could say it is a star
explodes each second some-
where in the universe. Ac-
cording to Space.com
“Supernovas vibrate like
giant speakers and emit an
audible hum before explod-
ing.” They found this when
last year scientist saw a su-
pernova explode for the first time. A supernova can ex-
plode in two types. Type I
and Type II. These Types
have many sub-types in
them.
A Type I supernova ex-
plodes like this:
A Type I supernova like this
lacks oxygen in its light spectra. There are three
types 1a, 1b and 1c. Type 1a
supernovae originate from
white draft stars as there gas
absorbs the white dwarf star.
Then, it sets off a nuclear
reaction which makes the
star into a supernova explo-
sion. Type 1b and 1c also
goes under the process of its
tributed the “heavy” ele-
ments-made in their interiors
-into space.” The current star
have increased this release
of “heavy” elements such as
carbon, oxygen, iron etc. Its
suprising to think that super-
novas-violent explosions-
are the reason we exist.
According to the National
Martime Museum, theories
are that the Big Bang were
caused by supernovae. This
is how they predicted how it
happened: “Since, the first
stars were composed of hy-
drogen, helium and very
small amount of lithium and
beryllium and almost noth-
ing else. Some of the star
became supernovae and dis-
“Eventually the implosion
will bounce and expel the
stellar material into space,
what’s left is an ultra-dense object called a neutron star”
says Space.com. A Type II
supernova has sub-
categories, that are classified
due to their light curves. For
example, light of a Type II-
L supernova’s light steadily
declines after the explosion,
while Type II-P supernova’s
light stays steady for a time
before fading away. “Both of these types have a hint of
hydrogen in their spectra”
says Space.com. “Stars
much larger than the sun (20
-30 solar masses) might not
explode as a supernova, in-
stead they collapse to form
black holes” says
Space.com.
After the explosion the su-
pernova’s removed material continues to get bigger in a
shell around where it began.
In a Type II supernova, the
central neutron star will re-
main, but the ejected mate-
rial will continue to expand
for many, many years until it
clashes with the gas and dust
clouds that surrounds it.
There, the material will mix
with the gas, and will even-tually make a new genera-
tion of stars says the Na-
tional Martime Museum.
cores collapsing, but they
have lost most of their outer
hydrogen envelopes. A Type
II supernova explodes like this:
For a star to explode as a
Type II it has to be 8-15
solar masses (1 solar
mass=the size of the sun).
Eventually, this star will run
out of helium fuel in its
core, but this star will have
enough mass and pressure to
fuse carbon. Then, slowly
heavier elements build up at
the center, and it becomes layered like onions and it
will become lighter outside
the star. Then, the core
heats and becomes denser.
By Namya Supernovae!
http://quest.eb.com/media/
image.htm?
hid-
Job=&searchKeyword=supernova&
pageNum-
ber=11&resultsPerPage=15&subje
http://quest.eb.com/
media/image.htm?
hid-
Job=&searchKeyword=su
pernova&pageNumber=1
5&resultsPerPage=15&su
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&mediaId=132_1295688
“WE EXIST
BECAUSE OF
SUPERNOVAS”
LIFE ON PLANETS
SPACE INC.
zone which varies on the magnitude of the star that the planets orbit. The sys-tem is named Gliese 581, which houses multiple
planets. The fourth planet from the star is named G; people believe this planet could be a second earth for humanity. It orbits in the habitable zone of the solar system and could house liquid water, and if it does, there is a large chance of life. Credits to http://www.universetoday.com/74679/could-chance-for-life-on-gliese-581g-actually-be-100/
Life on earth. There are no answers. Only theories. Some say that life was cre-ated when a large comet, full of ice, seeds, bacteria, and rock crashed into earth. They say that the frozen bacteria thawed out during the atmospheric entry, and started to form in the ocean of water that the comet landed in. The bacteria started to evolve, and in millions of years turn into sea animals. From there, they crawl out of the water and into a new pre-historic forest full of lush greenery and oxygen. New to this type of biome, the organism adapts and evolves again. Reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and even the germs on our hands, probably came from that comet. Now, that's just one of many theories, but it could happen. Maybe on some other planet somewhere in the galaxy. It takes a lot of things to account for the habitability of life. Like the amount of light and the intensity hitting the planet, too much and the surface will burn, too little and it will freeze. Or maybe the amount of gases and wa-ter. If there is too little at-mosphere, life cannot form
since it will freeze or burn and the water will just freeze up. If the atmos-phere is too thick, the sur-face could turn into a Ve-
nus like planet, with acidic weather and boiling tem-peratures caused by the ash and chemicals spewed from volcanic activity on the planet. That wouldn’t be a hospitable place for bacteria and organisms to live and prosper. Then again, that’s just what we think. Earth is about 150 million miles away from the sun, even if earth is that far away, it still gets hot during the summer and cold dur-ing winter, we are a very lucky planet. Recently, scientists have discovered a solar system that contains a planet in the habitable zone of its solar system, a
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Caption describing picture or graphic.
Why can’t we have more Moons and no Moon?
We all know that the moon is orbiting around our planet Earth and it creates tides and it comes out in the night, but what would happen if we had two moons!
Many, many years ago, “that the moon was formed during the early days of the solar system when another planet collided with Earth, ejecting fragments of rocky material that condensed into Earth's only satellite” said a scientist named Robin Canup. The moon then got pulled by Earth’s gravity and since then has orbited around it.
Planets that get further from the Sun have many more moons such as Jupiter which has 63 or Saturn which has 61 even Mars has 2. But what would happen if we have more moons? Well most of the “Moons” orbiting Saturn or Jupiter are asteroids that got pulled by the planets mass gravity and have revolved around the planets since then.
Well if we had more moons it would mean that there would be more tides depending on the position of the moon, distance from Earth. If there would be two different moons going opposite direction from each other and the second moon would be just a little more further from the first moon, then we would have more tides in two different places.
Even though it would be really cool to have multiple moons, it would also affect the tides on Earth.
Multiple Moons Imagine life without a Moon! The moon is important than just coming out in the night and going once its morning. Certain lives depend on the moon! Well first of all life without a moon would have impacts on the seasons. The moon stabilizes the Earth’s axis and because of that we have seasons such as summer, autumn, spring and winter. Without the moon we would have different changes such we could have snow during July or extreme heat during August!
The moon also has cause movement of tides which have created certain special environments for a lot of creatures and without tides those creatures won’t exist.
Our calendar would be very different, since the months were originally lunar cycles, and that was then cut into weeks The moon is quite more important than coming in the night and leaving at day it supports lives.
Omar
(All photos are credits
Encyclopedia Britannica
Image Quest)
.
No Moon?
just un-heard of; NASA says the universe con-sists of around 240 Bil-lion Galaxies. Who’s to say that not at least one of them DON’T HAVE life.
there could be 100 bil-lion Earth like planets in the Milky Way its self (the Milky Way is the universe our solar sys-tem is in). There could be an earth like planet for every sun like star says Allan Boss, an as-tronomer who works with the Carnegie insti-tute. With that possibil-ity in mind who says there can’t be life in other planets, if the planets getting a good amount of heat and enough of water like substance it could hold a type of life. I’m not saying it would be hu-man life but it can hold bacteria or organisms.
Different scientists are approaching this mat-ter with a different pair of eyes. They say that there could probably be 100.000 of life in the Milky Way says: //articles.cnn.com. That is probably true seeing there over 500 planets in the Milky Way its self. Says: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110707134312AA6mJ1a.
Based on the amount of Galaxies in the uni-verse it’s funny to think that we (the human race) are the only liv-ing being in the whole entire universe. That’s
Life could exist on Jupiter’s moon Europa; it has the potential to hold life there. A number of scientists be-lieve there might be life on Earths neighboring planet Mars, it’s a bit more dense and colder and scien-tists recently discovered water on Mars is too cold so it becomes Ice on Mars. Mars does not have a mag-netic field so whatever could or is living there is exposed to harmful space radiation. We are not exposed to space radiation because earth has a magnetic field that pushes away the space radiation. Said http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/home/K4_LifeonMars.html.Life does exist on other planets and in other galaxies but they’re organisms and bacteria. No sign of any other sign of life, a lot of people be-lieve in something called Aliens, but that fact has not been proven. So far there is no other life form, other than humans are Bacteria, Organisms, Fungi and such.
So in conclusion there is life on other planets, but that life is only organism’s bacteria and fungi no pres-ence of extra terrestrials or humans like things. Even though many planets and Galaxies are fit to provide and support human life there is no sign of any yet.
Does life exist outside of planet earth?
By: Rohaan Abrahm
5, October 2011
In the fifth century Greek scientists said there could be life outside of earth. That theory was based off pure imagination. This theory wasn’t just thought of by the new generation of scien-tists, scientists in the past have also won-dered if there could be life in the space other than earth.
Deeper into our solar system there could be life. NASA (National Aeronautic Space Agency) says there could be 100 billion Earth like planets in the Milky Way its self (the Milky Way is the
for oxygen to travel without reacting with other chemicals. It’s entirely pos-sible that both events could have oc-curred at similar times, allowing the
Somewhere between 3.5 and 2.7 billion years ago, Earth didn’t have much oxygen, but it did have a lot of carbon diox-ide. A new species of blue-green extremophile bacteria known as cyanobacteria evolved into being, and the conditions for it were perfect. You see, it was supposedly the first species of aerobic life. Before then, all life was an-aerobic, meaning it didn’t need to breathe air. So, the cyano-bacteria began to breathe in water and exhale oxygen, slowly oxygenating the atmos-phere. Some of it escaped into the atmosphere, while some was trapped in rock.
This was a significant source of earth’s early oxygen. It started an era commonly known as “The Boring Billion”, a period in time where there still wasn’t enough oxygen for beings to further evolve, which led to the cambrian period. That is a completely different story though.
That being said, there are mul-tiple other theories. Jim Kast-ing, a professor at Pennsyl-vania State University, pro-posed that Volcanoes released hydrogen, which diffused with pre-existing gases and escaped into space, leaving more space
An active volcano
Ancestral Bacteria, Volcanoes, and the sun
cyanobacteria to release oxygen more efficiently. There isn’t much in the way of conclusive evidence for either side of the argument, but they’re both sound in theory. Another, even more recent idea pro-posed in Science magazine, is that ultra-
violet rays split apart methane particles in the upper atmosphere, allowing hy-drogen to escape our atmosphere. The same principle of oxygen having more free space applies here as well.
An even bigger mystery is why the ap-pearance of multi-celled organisms occurred so (relatively) quickly. There are some wild guesses, but no one knows for sure, and that’s another story.
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By Sam
Origins of Oxygen
Fun Factoids
• Cyanobacteria be-long to an animal class called “extremophile”, which means they prosper in what would seem like unbearable condi-tions
• At the time that the “boring billion” ended, our atmos-phere was still only about 3 or 4 per-cent oxygen. It is now around 20 percent
A cyanobacteria colony
Neutron stars are super
dense. According to Dr.
Dave Goldberg, neutron
stars are about 2 or 3 times
the mass of our sun but it
can fit comfortably inside
the borders of Philadelphia.
When we take a teaspoon
of a neutron star, it will
have a mass of 800 million
tones. White dwarfs can
cool down to make a black
dwarf. According to NASA,
white dwarfs are the sec-
ond densest matter in the
universe, being 200,000
times denser than earth. It
can stay a white dwarf or,
there is a thin layer of hy-
drogen and it continues to
burn and grow into a red
giant. Red giants fuse he-
lium to form oxygen and
carbon. Large stars (8 or
more solar units), when
they explode, create black
holes. The core collapses
against itself creating a
black hole. The gravity is so
strong not even light can
escape. When stars explode
they create a supernova.
Supernova type 1 is when a
star accumulates matter
from another star until a
nuclear reaction occurs.
Supernova type 2 is when
the core of the star col-
lapses against itself creating
a black hole.
Our sun has been shining
brightly for about 5 billion
years and it will be esti-
mated to shine for another
5 billion years. Eventually
the sun will have to ex-
plode. But it won’t. The sun
is too small to create a su-
pernova now. It will eventu-
ally turn into a red giant
and the temperatures on
earth will be uninhabitable.
That is when the sun will
grow to be a red giant. Red
giants can grow to about
the size of Mercury’s or
Venus's orbit or even the
earth’s. According to Dr.
Sten Odenwald, red giants
can outshine the sun by
1000 times.
Stars fuse hydrogen to he-
lium, making the glow we
see. According to Blog-
stronomy, helium is denser
than hydrogen so when the
hydrogen is fused, the he-
lium replaces the hydrogen
and sinks to the core of the
star. It then speeds up the
fusion and helps compress
the star. The larger the
mass of the star the shorter
its life will be because it will
have to burn more hydro-
gen. A solar unit is equiva-
lent to the mass of our sun.
If a star is about 0.5 solar
units to about 1.4 solar
units, it turns into a white
dwarf when it dies. If a star
is about 5 solar units, it
would create a supernova
then a black hole when it
dies. If a star is larger than
1.4 solar units but less than
5 solar units, it would cre-
ate a neuron star.
What happens when a star ‘dies’?
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Death of a Star By: Sean
http://quest.eb.com/
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SS Death of Stars October 5th, 2011
By Si Won
How do Stars Die?
All stars in the universe have hydrogen inside them. As time passes, the stars will fuse the hydrogen in its core more and more, and finally, the star will have no hydrogen left in the core. According to NASA, the “nuclear reaction” will come to an end and since there isn’t enough energy to support it, the star will begin to collapse. That’s when the star gets extremely hot and bright. The hot core in the middle pushes the outer layer of the star towards the outside, so it slowly expands which makes the star become a red giant.
After a Star’s Death?
Just because the star ended its life, it doesn’t mean that it is disappearing forever. “After it dies, what happens next is determined by the mass of the core of the star.” NASA stated.
When stars that have similar mass to our Sun dies, the star will first expand to a Red Giant like mentioned before, and then shrink back down to a White Dwarf. If the mass of the star that is over 8 solar masses dies, there will be a violent explosion called supernova. This explosion is way destructive than a nova explosion because in a nova, just the surface of the star explodes but in a supernova, the whole thing including the core explodes. However, the supernova explosion happens once in a hundred years on average.
Star’s Lifespan
How long does a normal star live? Well, there is no exact answer to that. Every star is different. Although, we know that their lifespan matters on how massive the stars are. The more massive the star is, the quicker it dies. It is because when the star contains more mass, it uses up more fuel quicker. The lifespan of stars varies from thousands of years to billions of years.
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Seasons
Have you ever wondered what would happen if the earth stood still? As in what if it didn’t revolve the sun.
What will happen to the earth?
So what if the earth stopped revolving the sun? Revolving isn’t just a motion that the earth does.
Gravity holds the earth in the orbital path when it revolves the sun. But if the earth stops revolving the sun, the earth will lose it’s gravitational power and drift towards the sun. Because of that, the temperature in the earth would increase. Also without the gravitational power the earth could collide into any planet or even the sun. This would cause most life on earth to be gone.
Eclipses happen when the earth’s shadow reflects on the moon. Things that impact this are the moon’s orbital plane, earth’s position and EARTH’ REVOLUTION.
The moon’s orbital plane is tilted unlike the earth’s. The earth orbits the sun, while the moon orbits the earth. Eclipses happen when the sun, moon and earth are in line. If the earth stopped revolving the sun, the moon would still orbit the earth. But would eclipses ever occur?
Let’s say the earth stops revolving when an eclipse is occurring. Then an eclipse would occur each month! But if the earth stops revolving when there isn’t an eclipse, there would never ever be an eclipse.
The earth’s revolution impacts the seasons. The place where the earth is in its path gives the seasons. Imagine life with no seasons. Even though this isn’t possible, just think about it. It would always stay one temperature or season forever. Imagine the world snowing forever. Imagine it sunny forever. Imagine the leaves falling forever. Imagine flowers blooming forever.
If the earth just suddenly stopped revolving, the season would stay the way it was when it stopped.
Earth, Moon, And Sun. Photography. Encyclopædia Britannica Image Quest.Credits to Micheal Agliolo
Sneha
Earth's Seasons. Photography. Encyclopædia Britannica Image Quest.
Credits to Karsten Schneider.
Eclipses
rings back; at least, we don’t think so. It’s pos-sible that, in quite a few years, we may be far enough from the sun to get the rings back, but by then no humans would be able to live on Earth, because it’s too far away from the sun.
Did you know, according to the Universe Today website, that Earth may have had rings once? Well, it can’t now, because it’s too close to the sun. The solar wind would blow them away and the sun’s atmos-phere would pull in any rings that formed. It’s the
same with Mercury, Venus, and Mars. The reason Jupiter, and some other planets, have rings, may be because one of their moons got sucked in by grav-ity and broke up, creating rings. Luckily for them they are far enough from the sun to have their beautiful rings. Their rings are made up of rocks and ice that can be small as peb-bles or as huge as a car. Those plan-ets’ force of grav-ity is amazingly strong to be able hold all of these pieces. It’s not possible for Earth to get its
Picture Sources
Copyright Science Photo Library
Copyright Photo Researchers
By: Sultana
Why Can’t Earth Have Rings, too? OCTOBER 5, 2011
Artwork of Earth-like planet
Saturn and it’s rings