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Here and Now

0. Here and Now. Chapter 1. 0. Guidepost.

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Here and Now

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  1. 0 Here and Now Chapter 1

  2. 0 Guidepost • As you study astronomy, you will learn about yourself. You are a planet walker, and this chapter will give you a preview of what that means. The planet you live on whirls around a star drifting through a universe filled with other stars and galaxies. You owe it to yourself to know where you are in the universe because that is the first step to knowing what you are. • In this chapter, you will meet three essential questions about astronomy: • Where are you in the universe? • How does human history fit into the time scale of the universe • Why should you study astronomy?

  3. 0 Guidepost (continued) As you study astronomy, you will see how science gives you a way to know how nature works. In this chapter, you can begin thinking about science in a general way. Later chapters will give you more specific insights into how scientists work and think and know about nature. This chapter is a jumping-off place for your exploration of deep space and deep time. The next chapter continues your journey by looking at the night sky as seen from Earth.

  4. 0 Where are You? To find our place among the stars, we will zoom out from a familiar scene, to the largest scales in the universe. From each frame to the next, we zoom out by about a factor 100.

  5. 0 A Campus Scene 16 x 16 m

  6. 0 A City View 1 mile x 1 mile

  7. 0 The Landscape of Pennsylvania 100 miles x 100 miles

  8. 0 The Earth Diameter of the Earth: 12,756 km

  9. 0 Earth and Moon Distance Earth – Moon: 384,000 km

  10. 0 Earth Orbiting Around the Sun Distance Sun – Earth = 150,000,000 km

  11. 0 Earth Orbiting Around the Sun (2) In order to avoid large numbers beyond our imagination, we introduce new units: 1 Astronomical Unit (AU) = Distance Sun – Earth = 150 million km

  12. 0 The Solar System Diameter of Pluto’s orbit: Approx. 100 AU

  13. 0 (Almost) Empty Space Around Our Solar System Approx. 10,000 AU

  14. 0 The Solar Neighborhood Approx. 17 light years

  15. 0 The Solar Neighborhood (2) New distance scale: 1 light year (ly) = Distance traveled by light in 1 year = 63,000 AU = 1013 km = 10,000,000,000,000 km (= 1 + 13 zeros) = 10 trillion km Nearest star to the Sun: Proxima Centauri, at a distance of 4.2 light years Approx. 17 light years

  16. 0 The Extended Solar Neighborhood Approx. 1,700 light years

  17. 0 The Milky Way Galaxy Diameter of the Milky Way: ~ 75,000 ly

  18. 0 The Local Group: Our Cluster of Galaxies Distance to the nearest large galaxies: several million light years

  19. 0 The Universe on Very Large Scales Clusters of galaxies are grouped into superclusters. Superclusters form filaments and walls around voids.

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