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Exploring Space!. Everything you did and did not want to know about how humans have explored space!. Way way back. Astronomers have been studying space since way way back (the ancient Greeks and Romans) In 1543 Copernicus proposed the idea that the earth orbits the sun.
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Exploring Space! Everything you did and did not want to know about how humans have explored space!
Way way back • Astronomers have been studying space since way way back (the ancient Greeks and Romans) • In 1543 Copernicus proposed the idea that the earth orbits the sun. • The earth was NOT the center of the universe!
Telescopes • Adapted by Galileo Galilei in 1609 • Telescopes gather light and often magnify it to visual proportions • Telescopes can gather visual light, or radio waves, or infrared radiation Yerkes telescope in Wisconsin, The largest refracting telescope in the world
More telescopes! • Some telescopes are in orbit around Earth. • The Hubble Telescope is in orbit and provides some of the clearest images of distant objects Picture of distant galaxies from the Hubble space telescope
Space travel Sputnik 1 – 1st Satellite • The idea of going into space or sending people into space started in the 1950s • 1957 – The Soviet Union launched the first satellite to orbit earth • 1958 – The Soviet Union sent the first human into space
Race to the Moon! • The United States Won! • NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) created the Apollo program to try to reach the moon • July 11, 1969 the crew from Apollo 11 walked on the surface of the moon
Researching the moon • NASA achieved 5 more moon landing between 1969 and 1972 • The Apollo program helped scientists learn about the moon’s surface and interior
The International Space Station! • Space station – a satellite in which people can live and work for long periods • Russia, US and 15 other nations began building the Intertational Space Station in 1998. • The first crew was in 2000 • As big as 2 football fields • Crew makes observations of earth and perform experiments especially about gravity
The Space Shuttle • How NASA launches the ISS crew into space • First Space Shuttle, Columbia was launched in 1981 • Can be used over and over again • Have been launched more than 100 times since 1981 http://www.aee.odu.edu/shuttlerepository/shuttlerepair.html
Unmanned Spacecraft • We cannot send humans to other planets • The trip is too long, too expensive and the conditions are too harsh on many other planets • Carry instruments that test the compositions and characteristics of planets
Flybys Picture the Voyager 2 took of Saturn • A spacecraft passes one or more planets without orbiting them • Voyager 2 was sent in the 1980s and flew by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune
Orbiters Orbiter of Mars • Target a specific planet to study and orbit that planet over a long period of time • Data is collected and sent back to earth as radio waves • Help create detailed maps of planets Lunar orbiter
Landers • A craft designed to land on a planet’s surface • Have been to the Moon, Venus, and Mars
Probes • A spacecraft that usually drops into a planet’s atmosphere, but only work for a short time before they are destroyed by conditions on a planet • Useful for studying the deep atmosphere of the giant planets like Jupiter The Galileo probe which dropped into the Atmosphere of Jupiter
Quiz: Was this Spacecraft a probe, a lander, an orbiter, or a flyby? • 1. Luna 1 in 1959 flew by the moon • 2. In 1966 Luna 9 made a soft landing on the moon’s surface • 3. The Galileo spacecraft in 1995 began to orbit Jupiter but released a ______ which studied Jupiter’s atmosphere for 1 hour before it was destroyed. • 4. Magellan in 1989 made a map of the surface of Venus by revolving around the planet • 5. The Viking 2 was sent in 1975 to Mars to roam the surface and search for life
Brief Timeline of Space • 1609 Galileo invents the telescope • 1924 An astronomer named Edwin Hubble confirms the existence of other galaxies • 1957 First artificial satellite Sputnik was launched by the Soviet Union • 1958 The National Aeronatics and Space Administration (NASA) is established to oversee the exploration of space • 1969 First man, Neil Armstrong walks on the moon • 1977 The Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are launched to Jupiter, Saturn and beyond, they are now 10 billion km away and still sending back pictures to earth • 1981 The first space shuttle, Columbia, was launched by NASA • 1992 Astronomers discover the first planet outside our solar system • 2000 The first 3 man crew was sent to the International Space Station