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    Lecture 1: Introduction Planet and Moons

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    Chau Nguyen
    There are currently 8 known planets in our solar system that orbit the Sun, along with over 179 moons of planets. A planet is defined as an object that orbits the Sun, is round in shape due to gravity, and has cleared other objects from its orbital neighborhood. Moons orbit other celestial bodies, while planets orbit only the Sun. Dwarf planets like Pluto do not meet all criteria to be considered full planets. The definition of a planet has been debated as more objects beyond Pluto's orbit have been discovered. Our Sun is a common star that generates heat and light through nuclear fusion. The Milky Way galaxy contains about 100 billion stars and is located in a local group of galaxies that includes the Andromeda Galaxy.

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    Lecture 1: Introduction Planet and Moons

    Uploaded by

    Chau Nguyen
    25 views3 pages
    There are currently 8 known planets in our solar system that orbit the Sun, along with over 179 moons of planets. A planet is defined as an object that orbits the Sun, is round in shape due to gravity, and has cleared other objects from its orbital neighborhood. Moons orbit other celestial bodies, while planets orbit only the Sun. Dwarf planets like Pluto do not meet all criteria to be considered full planets. The definition of a planet has been debated as more objects beyond Pluto's orbit have been discovered. Our Sun is a common star that generates heat and light through nuclear fusion. The Milky Way galaxy contains about 100 billion stars and is located in a local group of galaxies that includes the Andromeda Galaxy.

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    There are currently 8 known planets in our solar system that orbit the Sun, along with over 179 moons of planets. A planet is defined as an object that orbits the Sun, is round in shape due to gravity, and has cleared other objects from its orbital neighborhood. Moons orbit other celestial bodies, while planets orbit only the Sun. Dwarf planets like Pluto do not meet all criteria to be considered full planets. The definition of a planet has been debated as more objects beyond Pluto's orbit have been discovered. Our Sun is a common star that generates heat and light through nuclear fusion. The Milky Way galaxy contains about 100 billion stars and is located in a local group of galaxies that includes the Andromeda Galaxy.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    25 views3 pages

    Lecture 1: Introduction Planet and Moons

    Uploaded by

    Chau Nguyen
    There are currently 8 known planets in our solar system that orbit the Sun, along with over 179 moons of planets. A planet is defined as an object that orbits the Sun, is round in shape due to gravity, and has cleared other objects from its orbital neighborhood. Moons orbit other celestial bodies, while planets orbit only the Sun. Dwarf planets like Pluto do not meet all criteria to be considered full planets. The definition of a planet has been debated as more objects beyond Pluto's orbit have been discovered. Our Sun is a common star that generates heat and light through nuclear fusion. The Milky Way galaxy contains about 100 billion stars and is located in a local group of galaxies that includes the Andromeda Galaxy.

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    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
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    Lecture 1: Introduction

    Planet and moons


    ● 8 planets in our solar system
    ● 179 moons (of planets) at current count- evolved constantly
    ● Planet: definition
    - Orbits the sun
    - Has enough mass to be ‘round’
    - Has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit
    ● Moon or satellite: celestial body orbiting another body
    ● Planets that were not orbiting the sun are moons
    ● Dwarf planets: Pluto is the prototype

    Story of pluto
    ● Early 1990’s astronomers started to find new objects outside Pluto’s orbit
    ● Some objects are larger than Pluto- essentially there is a continuum of objects
    ● Issue: increase in number of planets or kick Pluto out of the club
    ● Real issue: what is a planet? Planet not well defined

    Solar system

    The Sun: a ‘common star’


    ● A ball of hot hydrogen gas, that generates heat and light by nuclear fusion

    The milky way


    ● A spiral galaxy- about a 100 billion stars, orbiting a supermassive black hole. We are
    locates out in the suburbs
    ● Can’t take picture of galaxy, we are in it, really really big

    Local group of galaxies


    ● Now more than 54 galaxies
    ● Milky way, Andromeda (M31) and M32
    ● Dwarf galaxies in the local group are yet to be found every year
    ● Gravitationally bound together
    ● Most dwarf galaxies are satellites of two main galaxies

    Virgo cluster
    ● Thousands of galaxies gravitationally bound together with lots of dark matter
    ● There are superclusters of clusters
    ● Dark matter, don’t know, exists due to the mass, gravitates
    ● We can take a deep image of a small part of the universe with the Hubble Space
    Telescope

    Distance - and big numbers


    ● Astronomical unit: average distance between earth and sun
    ● 150 million kms = 150,000,000 kms = 1.5 x 108 kms (scientific notation)
    ● Light year: distance light travels in a year
    ● 1 light-year = (speed of light) x (1 year)

    ● Parsec: distance unit professional astronomers use (~ 3 light years)

    Looking back in time


    ● Speed of light is finite- pretty fast = 3 x 10^8m/ sec
    ● This speed only matters when we look out into space
    ● When we look at distant objects we are looking back in time
    ● Further away we look, the further back we look in time
    ● Universe is 13.7 billion years old

    Glossary
    ● Planet, moon
    ● Star
    ● Galaxy, milky way
    ● Local group
    ● Scientific notation
    ● Astronomical unit (AU)
    ● Light- year

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