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Space Notes
Comets
• The requirements of a celestial object to be classified as a comet are; “a large
object containing a nucleus of ice and dust trailing gas”. Comets have been in the
news a fair bit recently, the first event was of a team of scientists who achieved
the breathtaking feat of landing a probe on a comet.
• The second event will be the passing of a comet near earth containing colossal
amounts of platinum, the amount detected within the rock is estimated to be
$5.4 trillion by today’s platinum price (however if we did manage to retrieve it
that would render platinum less than the price of copper), that is estimated to be
$400 billion above the worlds total wealth ($5 trillion)
• Most comets closely resemble the moon, they have obviously no atmosphere or
liquid, however most can be shaped in odd formations. Some have large rocky
outcrops, though some have a possibility to be smooth in appearance.
• In 1986, a momentous event happened; the Giotto probe giving vital information
in the study of Halley’s comet. In 1301 the same comet was observed by painter,
Giotto di Bondone, who was the inspiration for the name of the probe. The
images captured by the capsule provided great insight into the details of a comet.
After being hit by several small particles, it still managed to capture pictures from
596km away! The images showed details such as; it was 15km in length, peanut
shaped, and had several jets dispersing gas.
Life in Space
• As you may know, astronauts will often eat dried, powdered or dense liquid
food compacted in tubes, the reason for this, is so that it will not oxidize and
rot. Foods are often vacuum packed so to maintain their nutritional properties
and taste almost indefinitely. These foods had to have 3 properties;
nutritional, tasty and lightweight.
• People who live in space will need oxygen (shock horror). The way they create
oxygen, is made using two methods. The first method is made using a
machine called a Cathode, where reduction takes place.
• Reduction is the process of adding another electron onto an existing element
to create an ion, in this case, water is run through where an electron is added
and then creates hydrogen gas, and hydroxide ions.
• Oxidation is a commonly used method for submarines as well, the process is
what yields the electrons for the Cathode; a machine called an Anode
separates electrons from water creates two substances: Oxygen gas and
hydrogen ions.
• The distance between planets varies greatly, for instance, the distance from
here to Mars is 150-300 days, whereas the distance from here to the sun is 19
years. The from Earth to the closest earthlike moon/planet, Titan (moon of
Saturn) is 6-8 years away.
Nebula and Black Holes
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A Nebula, or a gas cloud, is the product of a planet dying. When the planet dies, it
quite literally explodes, but where does all of the gas go? Well, it shoots off into space,
and sits there, photogenic (they are very easily seen against the dark abyss of space).
Much like Nebulae, Stellar Black Holes or singularities are formed when dense planets
or large stars collapse in on themselves. However some believe that at the beginning
on the universe, they were created to balance the amount of matter created
(Newton’s 3rd law), these are called Primordial Black holes.
Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has a singularity of it’s own in its centre. The super
massive black hole is currently residing in Sagittarius A.
The largest black hole in the observable universe, in inside of a gigantic quasar (the
brightest things in the universe). It has the mass of approx 12 billion times that of our
sun.
It was previously believed that the super massive singularity at the centre of the
universe was the closest to us, this has been disproved by the discover of a new black
hole, 1600 light years away. This “micro-quasar” is dubbed “V4641 Sgr”, however even
at the speed of the fastest rocket we have (only 11km/ph that’s kind of weak) It would
take an estimated 43,280,000 years to arrive there. If we somehow created a rocket
that could travel 100km/ph, then it would only take 4,808,888 years. Obviously this is
no threat to us.
The history of our Solar System
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A popular theory in the creation of our Solar System, is what people have named “the Nebula Theory”. The
theory states that 4.6 billion years ago, a large nebula, filled with the remains of a destroyed planet or sun
(containing dust and ice) drifted by the area in which our planet revolves around; the Sun. The nebula
supposedly collapsed in on itself with such heat, in some sort of reverse sublimation, creating the Sun.
However, it is believed that only a fraction was used to create the Sun, the rest was used for the creation of a
“planetary disc”, the material from the disc, such as ice and dust and rock, went on to create planetary cores.
Particles of rock were left gravitating around the sun, these particles were drawn to each other, creating
rocks, those rocks gravitated to each other, forming enormous rocks. As the rocks grew, small bits of dust and
ice clung to the rocks, forming the cores of planets, though some rocks did not grow to large enough sizes,
these are the asteroids we know today. Some of these rocks left the sun before they could be merged
together, these are dubbed Comets. Any listed under; asteroids, comets or any planetesimals are classified as
“failed planets.”
The entire process of our Solar System took hundreds of millions of years, and thus it was a very slow
process. The beginning began as so; the planetary disc was created, shortly after (relatively speaking)
asteroids were created, enormous asteroids that spanned 200km in length. Fast forward 7 million years, the
largest of planets in our Solar System have been created, these are known as ‘Gas Giants’ such as Jupiter and
Saturn known for mainly being composed of hydrogen. 50 Million years into our Solar System’s existence, the
Sun has generated energy using a Nuclear Reaction, converting hydrogen into helium. 1 million years later,
asteroids orbiting the Sun form together to create the beginnings of planets! In the next 30 million years, a
series of solar winds sweep through the far reaches of space, removing primordial atmospheres from planets,
such as Earth. 90 Million years after the creation of the sun, enormous rocks of ice smash together to create
what we know as Uranus and Neptune, the ‘Ice Giants’. Through the next 10 million years, undeveloped
planets collide, creating hundreds of smaller asteroids, through the next 500 million years, those asteroids
bombard planets creating more mass. Some of these asteroids are mainly composed of ice, which is known
to have bacteria inside of it. When the ice collided with the hot, mass of lava that is earth, it pacified it, the
ice was melted by the heat of the sun, colliding the earth and creating what we now know as the ocean.
Then, by theory of the primordial soup theory, bacteria took 200 million years to become prokaryote, then
eukaryote and eventually primitive microorganisms. Concerning most people, it took 800 million years for life
to begin after the creation of the Sun.
Life cycles of stars
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The life of a star is completely dependant on it’s size, smaller stars will always life longer than suns.
Larger suns, such as ‘Red Giants’ have infinitely more mass compared to the average star, and thus will
consume gigantic quantities of hydrogen to burn. It uses thus hydrogen at an accelerated rate, and burns
through within an average of 3 million years. Smaller stars such as the Red dwarf, have a lifespan of up
to 3 trillion years, this is because they use up all of the hydrogen in and around the star, not just the
hydrogen stored in their core.
Statistically, most suns will reach the end of their lives at 5 billion years in existence, during the last years
of it’s life, the sun/star will expand to enormous sizes, that will only just swallow Earth in the case of our
Solar System, but during the end of their lives they grow 100 times their original size, becoming a Red
Giant, this will last some time. Eventually the star shrinks down smaller than it’s original size to become
a White Dwarf star, a small concentrated ball of energy and gas.
Several classifications for stars include; Protostar, the newly formed star after a nebula collapses. Main
Sequence Star, the majority of suns fit into this classification, all characteristics perfectly fit into the
description of our sun. Red Dwarf Star, this is the most common star in our universe, they have an
extremely long lifespan and are around 0.075 – 0.5 the mass of our sun. White Dwarf, the cooling star
after a star has expanded to Red Giant size. Red Giant, the result of a planet consuming all of it’s fuel
after expanding. Red Hyper/Supergiant, there are the largest known objects in the Universe, these have
a very short lifespan (live fast, die young), because they output enormous amounts of energy using all of
their hydrogen. The largest Hypergiant (named UY Scuti), has a diameter of 2.8 billion km!
Supernova’s are the result of a dying star, when the star eventually explodes, it creates an enormous
explosion which briefly outshines the entire galaxy. The aftermath of the incredible boom, is a Nebula,
which will drift over millions of years until in collapses in on itself to create a new sun or star. In the
initial explosion, the core heats up to 100 billion Kelvin, 6,000 times hotter than our sun. During the
explosion, fundamental materials of the universe will be created an jettisoned with the nebula. Not
every single star will become a supernova, only those which contain enough mass and iron, others will
turn into white dwarves.
Telescopes
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The telescope was first invented 1608 by a Dutch spectacle maker, his idea was that he could create an eyeglass
with 3x the magnification, the inventor’s name was Hans Lippershey. The following year, famous astronomer,
Galileo, found that the magnification was not powerful enough, he then set to work on improving the design.
He found that he could enhance magnification using a series of glass panes ordered in a certain way. He found
that his improvements could allow the telescope to view the quality of human vision tenfold, the only difficulty,
was the limit of a wide field of view.
There is currently two different types of the telescope, they are commonly known as; Reflectors and Refractors.
Reflectors magnify the sky by using a series of mirrors to capture and focus light, reflectors are mostly used by
astronomers because it shows a much brighter image compared to refractors.
The Refractor telescope is a very rare sight among today’s astronomers, they use a series of magnifiers to get
the image rather than mirrors. This isn’t used very much because it shows a much smaller aperture and creates
an image of little quality. The refractor is special because it can be supported from behind the telescope.
The most well known telescope in the world is called the Hubble telescope, you’ve probably heard of it,
considering that it is one of the most powerful telescopes in the world. In 1923, a man named Hermann Oberth
proposed the theory in a book of his, that a telescope could be jettisoned into orbit in order to view planets
without the pollution of our planet’s atmosphere allowing for clarity, infrared light and ultraviolet light
This idea was build upon in 1946 when a scientist named Lyman Spitzer discussed the furthering of the theory
of a space telescope and the advantages over a ground based telescope. He dedicated the most part of his
career to the creation of this telescope, then in 1962, NASA debated the concept. This lead to the promotion of
Spitzer becoming the head of a committee to decide (when they had funding) what they would be researching
once it the telescope was completed. Eventually in 1978 the US funded the project for $36 million and began
construction immediately, then after 5 years it was completed and dubbed “the Hubble”.
The name of the telescope was dedicated to the famous astronomer; Edwin Hubble. One of Hubble’s most
notable achievements, was his hypothesis that the universe is expanding, we can confirm today, that is correct
although some believe that the universe will go through a “big bounce” where it will eventually shrink
exponentially fast, exact to the speed of the creation of the big bang.
fin
Thank you very much
for reading my
presentation, I hope
you enjoyed it.