Astronomy Final Paper

Bob Jia
Astronomy
Mr. Dougherty
January 11, 2021
Period 2
The Past

Mankind have been studying sky for long time, it can trace back to 10,000 years

ago, astronomers have already found out how to use the sky at that time. In some

culture, they were “elites” and people believed that these “elites” had some kind of

supernatural powers to help them crate linkage with “higher beings”, predict weather,

forecast celestial events, and even decide the fate of things range from a member of the

community to the whole tribe. However, these observations were not exactly scientific.

In some civilizations, people believed that the motions of celestial events can “foretell”

their future. That belief led to the development of astrology, which is more of a

superstition than science (Greene, 2019).

Ancient Greek was one of the first started observing and making theoretical

conclusions about the celestial bodies. At that time people believed that the Earth is the

center of the universe, the most highly developed geocentric model was in traduced by

Ptolemy of Alexandria around second century B.C. It was generally accepted until the

16th century A.D.

In 1515, a Polish priest Nicolaus Copernicus proposed that the Earth is just like

every other planet in the solar system and they all orbit around the Sun. However, he

did not publish his theory until 1543, due to his fear of criticism and Church’s

disapproval. Shortly before his death, the theory gathered few followers. An Italian

scientist Giordano Bruno was burned for teaching Copernicus’ heliocentric view of the

solar system.

But the evidence for heliocentric theory gradually mounted. In 1610 Galileo first

time observed sky with telescope and discovered that moons orbited Jupiter. If
geocentric model was right, then these moons should not exist. He also observed

Venus which proved that the planet orbits the Sun. Around the same time, German

mathematician Johannes Kepler published a series of laws that describes the motion of

the planets orbit around the Sun. In 1687, Isaac Newton explained why the planets orbit

around the Sun, and he gave the force that kept these movements a name: gravity

(Riebeek, 2009).

The Present

There are 8 planets in our solar system, they are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The name Mercury was the from Roman means

messenger of the gods. Mercury orbits the Sun every 88 days and one day on Mercury

is 58.65 Earth days long. The name Venus was the Roman goddess of love. The most

abundant gas in Venus’s atmosphere is CO2, and the Venus spins so slow that even

human can run faster than it. The name Mars was thought to be the Roman god of war.

Mars is about half the size of Earth. Mars have 2 moons, and they look like potato.

Jupiter is so big that all the other planets could fit inside it. One day. On Jupiter is 10

hours long. Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system, but the least dense.

Uranus is 14.5 times bigger than Earth and it was the first planet to be discovered.

Neptune is 17 times more massive than Earth. Sustained winds speed on Neptune are

faster than the speed of sound on Earth (Crash Course, 2015).

The Sun is the largest object in the solar system, it is located at the center of the

solar system, and the Earth orbits 93 million miles away from It. The Sun is the heart of

our solar system it is a yellow dwarf. Its gravity pulls the solar system together. The
connection and interaction between the Sun and Earth drive the seasons, ocean

currents and many other activities.

Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram (H-R Diagram) was developed by Ejnar

Hertzsprung and Henry Russell in early 1900s, it is one of the most important tools

when studying astronomy, the diagram plotted two ways, the temperature of stars

against their luminosity, or the color of stars against their absolute magnitude. With H-R

Diagram astronomers can know a star’s internal structure and evolutionary stage simply

by determining its position in the diagram.

The Future

NASA is planning to launch the James Webb Space Telescope from French

Guiana on October 31, 2021. Originally Webb was targeted to lunch in March 2021 but

got postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic and some technical challenges. Webb is the

world’s most complex space observatory. The Goal of James Webb Space Telescope is

to observe the infrared universe and explore every phase of cosmic history, and the

mission for James Webb Space Telescope is to detect light from the first generation of

galaxies that formed in the early universe after the big bang and study the atmospheres

of the nearby exoplanets for possible signs of habitability (NASA, 2020).

 Works Cited

Astronomy. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/playlist?

list=PL8dPuuaLjXtPAJr1ysd5yGIyiSFuh0mIL

Geocentric model. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/science/geocentric-model

Greene, N. (n.d.). The Story of Astronomy from the Ancient Stargazers to the Renaissance.

Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-astronomy-3071081

Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram: COSMOS. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/h/hertzsprung-russell diagram

Planetary Motion: The History of an Idea That Launched the Scientific Revolution. (n.d.). Retrieved

from https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/OrbitsHistory

Potter, S. (2020, July 16). NASA Announces New James Webb Space Telescope Target Launch

Date. Retrieved from https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-announces-new-james-webb-

space-telescope-target-launch-date/