Assignment:

1. Universe and Solar System

Our solar system consists of an

average star we call the Sun, the planets
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.. It includes:
the satellites of the planets; numerous
comets, asteroids, and meteoroids; and the
interplanetary medium.

Geocentric - Earth Centered Heliocentric - Sun centered

The Greek astronomer Ptolemy used
measurements of the sky to create his
geocentric model. This had the earth at
the center and all the planets and the sun
orbiting around it.
A comet is an icy small Solar System body
that, when passing close to the Sun, heats up
and begins to out gas, displaying a visible
atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a
tail. The tail of the comet always points
away from the sun.
A meteor is a bright streak of light in the
sky (a "shooting star" or a "falling star")
produced by the entry of a small meteoroid
into the Earth's atmosphere.
GALAXY
A galaxy is a collection of stars, dust, and
gas bound together by gravity.
There are 3 types of galaxies:
1. Spiral galaxy - Have a bulge at the center
and spiral arms. The arms are composed of
dust, gas and new stars.
2. Elliptical galaxy - Usually have bright
centers and very little dust and gas and they
are more stretched out. They contain mostly
old stars.
3. Irregular galaxy - They don't get into
any other class, their shapes are irregular.
We live in the Milky Way Galaxy on
Orion's Arm.
This theory was first proposed by Nicolaus
Copernicus. Copernicus was a Polish
astronomer. He first published
the heliocentric system in his book: De
revolutionibus orbium coelestium , "On the
revolutions of the heavenly bodies," which
appeared in 1543.
A meteorite is a fragment of rock or iron
from outer space, usually a meteoroid or
asteroid, which survives passage through the
atmosphere as a meteor to impact the
surface of the Earth.
A meteoroid is a small body moving in the
solar system that would become a meteor if
it entered the earth's atmosphere.
UNIVERSE
The Universe is all of time and space and its
contents. The Universe includes planets,
stars, galaxies, the contents of intergalactic
space, the smallest subatomic particles, and
all matter and energy. The universe started
off as a single point "point of singularity".
The universe is a vast expanse of space
which contains all of everything
in existence. The universe contains all of
the galaxies, stars, and planets. The exact
size of the universe is unknown. Scientists
believe the universe is still expanding
outward.
The Solar System is made up of the Sun and
all of the smaller objects that move around
it. Apart from the Sun, the largest members
of the Solar System are the eight major
planets. Nearest the Sun are four fairly
small, rocky planets - Mercury, Venus,
Earth and Mars.
Beyond Mars is the asteroid belt – a region
populated by millions of rocky objects.
These are left-overs from the formation of
the planets, 4.5 billion years ago.
On the far side of the asteroid belt are the
four gas giants - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and
Neptune. These planets are much bigger
than Earth, but very lightweight for their
size. They are mostly made of hydrogen and
helium.
Until recently, the furthest known planet
was an icy world called Pluto. However,
Pluto is dwarfed by Earth’s Moon and many
astronomers think it is too small to be called
a true planet.
An object named Eris, which is at least as
big as Pluto, was discovered very far from
the Sun in 2005. More than 1,000 icy worlds
such as Eris have been discovered beyond
Pluto in recent years. These are called
Kuiper Belt Objects. In 2006, the
International Astronomical Union decided
that Pluto and Eris must be classed as
“dwarf planets”.
Even further out are the comets of the Oort
Cloud. These are so far away that they are
invisible in even the largest telescopes.
Every so often one of these comets is
disturbed and heads towards the Sun. It then
becomes visible in the night sky.
The Solar System is the
gravitationally bound planetary system of
the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either
directly or indirectly. Of the objects that
orbit the Sun directly, the largest are
the eight planets, with the remainder being
smaller objects, such as the five dwarf
planets and small Solar System bodies. Of
the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly—
the moons—two are larger than the smallest
planet, Mercury.
The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years
ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant
interstellar molecular cloud. The vast
majority of the system's mass is in the Sun,
with the majority of the remaining mass
contained in Jupiter. The four smaller inner
planets, Mercury, Venus, Earthand Mars,
are terrestrial planets, being primarily
composed of rock and metal. The four outer
planets are giant planets, being substantially
more massive than the terrestrials. The two
largest, Jupiter and Saturn, are gas giants,
being composed mainly
of hydrogen and helium; the two outermost
planets, Uranus and Neptune, are ice giants,
being composed mostly of substances with
relatively high melting points compared
with hydrogen and helium, called volatiles,
such as water, ammonia and methane. All
eight planets have almost circular orbits that
lie within a nearly flat disc called
the ecliptic.
The Solar System also contains smaller
objects.[e] The asteroid belt, which lies
between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter,
mostly contains objects composed, like the
terrestrial planets, of rock and metal.
Beyond Neptune's orbit lie the Kuiper
belt and scattered disc, which are
populations of trans-Neptunian
objects composed mostly of ices, and
beyond them a newly discovered population
of sednoids. Within these populations are
several dozen to possibly tens of thousands
of objects large enough that they have been
rounded by their own gravity.[10] Such
objects are categorized as dwarf planets.