Light and Telescopes - Los Angeles Mission College · 2015-10-12 · “We find them smaller and fainter, in constantly increasing numbers, and ... • moons, dwarf planets, asteroids,

Astronomy 1 — Elementary Astronomy LA Mission College

Spring F2015

Light and Telescopes

Astronomy 1 - Elementary Astronomy LA Mission College Levine F2015

Quotes & Cartoon of the Day

“We find them smaller and fainter, in constantly increasing numbers, and we know that we are reaching into space, farther and farther, until, with the faintest nebulae that can be detected with the greatest telescopes, we arrive at the frontier of the known universe.”

Edwin Powell Hubble

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/edwin_powell_hubble.html


Announcements

• HW Kepler, Gravity Light posted

• Due 10/15

• CoC Star Party Friday

Star Party

Join us for a

Friday,

OCT 16

7 – 9:30 p.m.Carl A Rasmussen AmphitheaterCollege of the Canyons Canyon Country Campus17200 Sierra Highway, Santa Clarita, CA 91351

COLLEGE OF THE CANYONS • Canyon Country Campus

STAR FORMATION: Light Beyond The VisiblePresented by Dr. Luisa RebullResearch Scientist, SSC and IRSA, IPAC, CaltechFeaturing: • Hands-on interactive demonstrations and activities

• COC student clubs and academic departments highlighting innovative approaches to understanding the science that governs the universe

• Gaze at the stars through a variety of telescopes

Food and beverages will be available for purchaseFor more information visit

www.canyons.edu/ccc • COL

LEGE OF THE CANYONS •

CANYON COUNTRY

Tallest TowerBuilding CompetitionSign-up online!

www.canyons.edu/Offices/CCC/Pages/StarParty.aspx


Last Class

• LT EM Spectrum

• Telescopes & Observatories

• Light and the Atmosphere

• Multi-wavelength Astronomy


This Class

• Midterm debrief

• Multi-wavelength Astronomy

• Intro to the Solar System


Spring F2015

Multiwavelength Astronomy


Astronomers observe across the Electro-magnetic spectrum

• Gamma rays

• X-rays

• the ultraviolet (UV)

• visible light

• the infrared (IR)

• submillimeter & radio

WHAT WE LEARN ABOUT AT DIFFERENT WAVELENGTHS


Infrared: More than Your Eyes Can See


Xray & Gamma Ray Astronomy

• Hot objects & violent events

• matter heated to millions of degrees

• cosmic explosions, high speed collisions, material moving at extremely high speeds.

• Black Holes

• Supernovae

• White dwarfs & pulsars

• Hottest part of Sun’s atmosphere

• observatories must be in space

Compton Gamma Ray Observatory

Image Credit: NASA


Infrared Astronomy

• Old, cold & dusty objects

• space based observatories or high-flying aircraft.

• A few narrow bands from Earth

• heat radiation from cool objects

• penetrate thick interstellar dust

• star-forming regions

• central areas of our galaxy

• Cool stars

• cold interstellar clouds

• star-forming galaxies

• planets

Spitzer Space TelescopeNASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC)


Radio ( & Microwave) Astronomy

• Very cold objects, traces atomic and molecular hydrogen

• Radiation left over from the Big Bang

• supernovae

• quasars

• interstellar gas and molecules

Very Large Array (VLA)

Image courtesy of NRAO/AUI


Spring F2015

The Solar System


Key Properties of the Solar System

• Disk shape (mostly)

• Orbits lie nearly in a plane

• Dominant common direction of rotation & revolution



• 2 types of planets

• Terrestrial/Rocky • Dense, inner SS

• Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars



• 2 types of planets

• Jovian/Gas Giant

• Low density, outer SS

• planetary rings, many satellites

• Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune



• Lots of small bodies

• “debris”

• moons, dwarf planets, asteroids, comets, meteoroids, kuiper belt objects

Asteroid 243 Ida & DactylAugust 28, 1993

Image Credit: NASA



• Lots of empty space

• Common age ~4.6 billion years


Lots of Empty Space

Asteroid belt in movies


Lots of Empty Space

Asteroid belt “real life”

1 km asteroid~1 in

next nearest asteroid to scale is 15 miles away


Neil DeGrasse Tyson on Killer Asteroids

SOLAR SYSTEM SCALE & STRUCTURE


Contents & Scale of the Solar System

• Unit of distance for SS is Astronomical Unit or AU

• 1 AU is distance Earth-Sun

• 1 AU = about 150 million kilometers, or 93 million miles

• Overview of Contents

• The Sun

• Inner SS & Terrestrial planets & Asteroid Belt (0-~5 AU)

• Outer SS & Jovian Planets (~5-30 AU)

• Kuiper Belt (30-50 AU)

• Heliopause (~230 AU)

• Voyager spacecraft!!!!!!

• Oort Cloud (hypothetical) (50,000-100,000 AU)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud


Anatomy of the Solar System 0-5 AU

• The Sun

• Inner SS

• Mercury

• Venus

• Earth/Moon

• Mars

• Asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter

http://www.cosmosportal.org


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_%28planet%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars

http://www.cosmosportal.org


Anatomy of the Solar System

• The Sun

• Inner SS

• Outer SS (5-30 AU)

• Jupiter

• Saturn

• Uranus

• Neptune


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptune



• The Sun

• Inner SS

• Outer SS

• Kuiper Belt/Kuiper-belt objects (KBOs)

• 30-50 AU

• Pluto & other dwarf planets




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto



• Heliopause • Termination shock can be considered edge of SS

• Voyager spacecraft now interstellar!

• Launched in 1977

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliosphere


Video Voyager Goes Interstellar

http://www.space.com/22752-voyager-1-goes-interstellar-solar-system-boundary-passed-video.html#ooid=l5OGF5cDp4DTaZp2mYwJDkkYCM-

UV7I4

http://www.space.com/22752-voyager-1-goes-interstellar-solar-system-boundary-passed-video.html#ooid=l5OGF5cDp4DTaZp2mYwJDkkYCM-UV7I4



• Oort Cloud (hypothetical)

http://abyss.uoregon.edu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud

LET’S PRACTICE


Rank the following in order of increasing radius: I. The Sun II. Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun III. Earth’s orbit around the Sun IV. The Heliopause

A. I, II, III, IV

B. IV, II, III, I

C. I, III, II, IV

D. I, IV, III, II


Most of the space in the solar system is filled by

A. the Sun

B. the terrestrial planets

C. the Jovian planets

D. empty space

WARM-UP QUESTION


The Sun has a diameter of approximately 1.4 million kilometers. Roughly how many Earths would fit across the diameter of the Sun?

A. 10

B. 100

C. 1000

D. 10,000

E. 1 million

LT SUN SIZE


The Sun has a diameter of approximately 1.4 million kilometers. Roughly how many Earths would fit across the diameter of the Sun?

A. 10

B. 100

C. 1000

D. 10,000

E. 1 million

Let’s Practice


The image at right shows a picture of the Sun. The dark spots located on this image are sunspots. How does the size of Earth compare to the size of the sunspot that is identified on the right side of the image of Sun?

A. Earth and the sunspot are about the same size.

B. The sunspot is much, much larger than Earth.

C. The sunspot is much, much smaller than Earth.

Sun Size – Instructor’s Guide 129

© 2013 Pearson Higher Education, Inc. Instructor’s Guide for Lecture-Tutorials for Introductory Astronomy

Third Edition

diameter by that of the Moon. Here is an opportunity to talk about proportional reasoning skills.

9) [ 220 orbital diameters ]

Since 110 Sun diameters would fit between Earth and the Sun and 2 orbital diameters of the Moon would fit across the Sun, then 220 Moon orbital diameters would fit between the Sun and Earth.

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS 1) The image at right shows a picture of the Sun. The dark spots located on this image are

sunspots. How does the size of Earth compare to the size of the sunspot that is identified on the right side of the image of Sun?

a) Earth and the sunspot are about the

same size. b) The sunspot is much, much larger than

Earth. c) The sunspot is much, much smaller than

Earth.

2) Which statement do you think best represents the size comparison between the diameter of the Sun and the distance between the Moon and Earth? The Sun’s diameter is a) smaller than the distance between the Moon and Earth. b) approximately equal to the distance between the Moon and Earth. c) larger than the distance between the Moon and Earth.

3) If you were constructing a scale model of the solar system that used a Sun that was the size of a basketball (approximately 12 inches in diameter), which of the following lengths would most closely approximate the scaled distance between Earth and the Sun? a) 3 feet (length of an outstretched arm) b) 10 feet (height of a basketball goal) c) 100 feet (height of an 10 story building) d) 300 feet (length of a football field)


Which statement do you think best represents the size comparison between the diameter of the Sun and the distance between the Moon and Earth? The Sun’s diameter is

A. smaller than the distance between the Moon and Earth.

B. approximately equal to the distance between the Moon and Earth.

C. larger than the distance between the Moon and Earth.


If you were to construct a scale model of the solar system that used a 2 cm cherry to represent the Moon, how large of a ball would you need to represent the Sun?

A. 4cm

B. 30cm

C. 110 cm

D. 440 cm

E. 880 cm

WRAP-UP


Topic for Next Class

• Sun, Earth & Moon


Reading Assignment

• Astro: 5&7

• Astropedia: 5 & 11


Homework

• Kepler, Gravity & Light due 10/15

Documents

Light and Telescopes - Los Angeles Mission College · 2015-10-12 · “We find them smaller and fainter, in constantly increasing numbers, and ... • moons, dwarf planets, asteroids,