Journey to the Stars: Discover the Wonders of Space!

1. Take a Trip to Space! CI 350 Tonya McGrady

2. Things found in the sky: • Sun • Moon • Stars • Constellations • Planets • Meteors • Comets

3. Facts about the Planets:

4. Interesting facts about the sun: • The Sun is about 150 million km from the earth. • Approximately one million Earths can fit inside the Sun. • There are dark blotches on the Sun's surface called Sunspots. These are cooler areas of the Sun. • The Sun spins around once every 27.4 days. • All substances made by the Sun are invisible. • The hottest place in the world is Dallol in Ethiopia (East Africa). It's average annual temperature is 94 degrees Fahrenheit (34.4 C)!

5. Parts of the Sun

6. Brief overview of the planets: • The solar system consists of the Sun; the nine planets, more than 130 satellites of the planets, a large number of small bodies (the comets and asteroids), and the interplanetary medium. (There are probably also many more planetary satellites that have not yet been discovered.)

7. Traditionally, the solar system has been divided into planets (the big bodies orbiting the Sun), their satellites (a.k.a. moons, variously sized objects orbiting the planets), asteroids (small dense objects orbiting the Sun) and comets (small icy objects with highly eccentric orbits) There are several moons larger than Pluto and two larger than Mercury. There are many small moons that are probably started out as asteroids and were only later captured by a planet. Comets sometimes fizzle out and become indistinguishable from asteroids. The Kuiper Belt objects and others like Chiron don't fit this scheme well and some even want to consider Pluto as part of this class. The Earth/Moon and Pluto/Charon systems are sometimes considered "double planets". Different Classifications:

8. A star is born! • The space between the stars is filled with dusty gas. Thick dust clouds can even be seen with the naked eye within the Milky Way blocking the light of distant stars and providing much of the Milky Way's structure. Interstellar matter is compressed by the Galaxy's winding spiral arms. The clouds can be further compressed through collisions or by blast waves from exploding high-mass stars. Lumps of matter therefore form within the interstellar clouds. If their gravity is great enough, they can condense into one or more stars. The contraction of forming stars raises the internal temperature, finally to the point of ignition of hydrogen fusion. Gravity would like to make the star as small as possible, but the fusion reactions stabilize it and keep it from contracting any further. The whole life story of a star from here on out is told by the battle between gravity and nuclear fusion, first one, then the other getting the upper hand.

9. The Moon is the only natural satellite of Earth: • The Moon, of course, has been known since prehistoric times. It is the second brightest object in the sky after the Sun. • As the Moon orbits around the Earth once per month, the angle between the Earth, the Moon and the Sun changes; we see this as the cycle of the Moon's phases. • The time between successive new moons is 29.5 days (709 hours), slightly different from the Moon's orbital period (measured against the stars) since the Earth moves a significant distance in its orbit around the Sun in that time