Your Place In Space

1. Your Place In Space Created by Dr. A. Davila

2. The Milky Way galaxy is the spiral galaxy we call home, as do roughly 100 billion other stars The Sun is revolving around the center of the Galaxy at a speed of half a million miles per hour, yet it will still take 200 million years for it to go around once. The Milky Way has a bulge, a disk, and a halo. Although all are parts of the same galaxy, each contains different objects. The halo and central bulge contain old stars and the disk is filled with gas, dust, and young stars. The center of our galaxy is located about 28,000 light-years away, beyond the constellation Sagittarius (actually just beyond the border of Sagittarius and Scorpio). So, if you can locate these two constellations in the sky, you'll be looking toward the center of our galaxy! http://www.windows2universe.org/the_universe/Milkyway.html

3. http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/milkyway.html

4. There are almost as many stars between the spiral arms as in the spiral arms. The reason why the arms of spiral galaxies are so prominant is that the brightest stars are found in the spiral arms. Spiral arms are the major regions of star formation in spiral galaxies and this is where most of the major nebulae are found. http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/milkyway.html

5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way The Solar System is located in the Milky Way galaxy halfway out from the center, on the inner edge of the Orion–Cygnus Arm. The Sun orbits around the center of the galaxy in a galactic year—once every 225-250 million Earth years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Milky_Way_Spiral_Arm.svg

6. http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060828.html Eris The eight planets now recognized by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune Solar System objects now classified as dwarfplanetsare: Ceres, Pluto, and Eris. Planets, by the new IAU definition, must be in orbit around the sun, be nearly spherical, and must have cleared the neighborhood around their orbits.

7. A dwarf planet is a category of celestial bodies defined in a resolution passed by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) on August 24, 2006. Currently, there are three celestial bodies that have been redefined by the IAU as dwarf planets: • UB313 (informally known as Xena, and now formally known as Eris)• Pluto• Ceres http://www.memphisgeology.org/sg_eris.htm

8. Asteroid Belt The asteroid belt is found between Mars and Jupiter. Most asteroids are rocky bodies that orbit the Sun. Scientists estimate the asteroid belt also contains more than 750,000 asteroids larger than three-fifths of a mile (1 kilometer) in diameter and millions of smaller ones. Not everything in the main belt is an asteroid — for instance, comets have recently been discovered there, and Ceres, once thought of only as an asteroid, is now also considered a dwarf planet. http://www.space.com/51-asteroids-formation-discovery-and-exploration.html

9. A comet is an icy body that releases gas or dust. Scientists think short-period comets, also known as periodic comets, originate from a disk-shaped band of icy objects known as the Kuiper belt beyond Neptune's orbit, with gravitational interactions with the outer planets dragging these bodies inward, where they become active comets. Long-period comets are thought to come from the nearly spherical Oort cloud even further out, which get slung inward by the gravitational pull of passing stars. http://www.space.com/53-comets-formation-discovery-and-exploration.html

10. http://www.orderoftheplanets.org/kuiper-belt.html A Hubble Space Telescope image of Pluto and its Moons, Charon, Hydra and Nix. Charon is the largest moon close to Pluto. Hydra is the higher of the two dots to the right of Pluto. Nix is the lowest dot. Pluto orbits beyond the orbit of Neptune (usually). It is much smaller than any of the official planets and now classified as a "dwarf planet". Pluto is a plutoid that is found in the Kuiper Belt. Therefore, it is just basically a really large asteroid.

11. http://www.orderoftheplanets.org/kuiper-belt.html The Kuiper Belt is pronounced as /Ki-per/ and is often called the Solar system’s final frontier as it is the outermost region of the solar system. The discovery of its existence was in the year 1992 and was named after a Dutch-American astronomer, Gerard P. Kuiper who predicted its existence in the early 1950s.

12. http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=KBOs In 1950, Dutch astronomer Jan Oort proposed that certain comets come from a vast, extremely distant, spherical shell of icy bodies surrounding the solar system. This giant swarm of objects is now named the Oort Cloud, occupying space at a distance between 5,000 and 100,000 astronomical units. (One astronomical unit, or AU, is the mean distance of Earth from the sun: about 150 million km or 93 million miles.) The outer extent of the Oort Cloud is considered to be the "edge" of our solar system, where the sun's physical and gravitational influence ends.

13. http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/earth.html Earth Earth, our home planet, is a beautiful blue and white ball when seen from space. The third planet from the Sun, it is the largest of the inner planets. Earth is the only planet known to support life and to have liquid water at the surface. Earth has a substantial atmosphere and magnetic field, both of which are critical for sustaining life on Earth. Earth is the innermost planet in the solar system with a natural satellite – our Moon.

14. The magnetosphere shields the surface of the Earth from the charged particles of the solar wind and is generated by electric currents located in many different parts of the Earth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_magnetic_field

15. Earth's magnetic field comes from this ocean of iron, which is an electrically conducting fluid in constant motion. Sitting atop the hot inner core, the liquid outer core seethes and roils like water in a pan on a hot stove. The outer core also has "hurricanes"--whirlpools powered by the Coriolis forces of Earth's rotation. These complex motions generate our planet's magnetism through a process called the dynamo effect. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2003/29dec_magneticfield/

16. Earth's magnetic field comes from this ocean of iron, which is an electrically conducting fluid in constant motion. Sitting atop the hot inner core, the liquid outer core seethes and roils like water in a pan on a hot stove. The outer core also has "hurricanes"--whirlpools powered by the Coriolis forces of Earth's rotation. These complex motions generate our planet's magnetism through a process called the dynamo effect. absorbed.

17. The Earth is surrounded by a blanket of air, which we call the atmosphere. It reaches near or over 600 kilometers (372 miles) from the surface of the Earth, so we are only able to see what occurs fairly close to the ground. Early attempts at studying the nature of the atmosphere used clues from the weather, the beautiful multi-colored sunsets and sunrises, and the twinkling of stars. With the use of sensitive instruments from space, we are able to get a better view of the functioning of our atmosphere. http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/9-12/features/912_liftoff_atm.html

18. Life on Earth is supported by the atmosphere, solar energy, and our planet's magnetic fields. The atmosphere absorbs the energy from the Sun, recycles water and other chemicals, and works with the electrical and magnetic forces to provide a moderate climate. The atmosphere also protects us from high-energy radiation and the frigid vacuum of space. The envelope of gas surrounding the Earth changes from the ground up. Four distinct layers have been identified using thermal characteristics (temperature changes), chemical composition, movement, and density. http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/9-12/features/912_liftoff_atm.html

19. Past and Future Space Probes http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/index.cfm

22. http://www.kidsastronomy.com/index.htm http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/ http://virtualfieldtrip.jpl.nasa.gov/smmk/top/gates