Who Am I?: Pkuchhal@ddn - Upes.ac - in
Who Am I?: Pkuchhal@ddn - Upes.ac - in
Who Am I?: Pkuchhal@ddn - Upes.ac - in
Introductions
Who am I?
aster = star
+
nomie=naming
Example:
▪ Watch a football game. Try to figure out the rules without knowing them or
having a rule book.
➢ The Phenomena of the sky aroused Cro Magnon People’s interest a long time ago
around 30,000 yrs ago.
➢ The oldest astronomical documents: Bone engravings depicting the different phases of
moon.
➢ Agriculture Required good knowledge of the seasons.
➢ Religious rituals and prognostication were based on the location of celestial bodies.
➢ During the development of seafaring, for voyages determination of their location was the
challenge. Astronomy has provided the practical solution in terms of precise tables on
the movements of the planets.
➢ Discovery of laws governing the motions of the planets; Copernicus, Kepler, Galilei and
Newton
➢ Astronomical research; Man and Earth play an insignificant role in a vast universe ( in
contrary to anthropocentric view of ancient time)
Role of Astronomy
➢ Modern astronomy explores the whole Universe and its different forms of matter and
energy. Astronomers study the contents of the Universe from the level of elementary
particles and molecules (with masses of 10−30kg) to The largest superclusters of galaxies
(with masses of 1050kg). Astronomy can be divided into different branches in Several
ways. The division can be made according to either the methods or the objects of
research.
➢ The Key interests of astronomy are earth, earth atmosphere, Moon.
➢ Although spacecraft and astronauts have visited its surface and brought samples.
➢ Space crafts have soft landed on mars and venus
➢ This kind of exploration has been tremendously added to our knowledge of the
conditions on the planets, but continuous monitoring can be made from the Earth.
➢ Many planets in our solar system still waiting for their space crafts.
Chandrayaan program -II
➢ The Solar System is governed by the Sun, which produces energy in its centre
by nuclear fusion. The Sun is our nearest star, and its study lends insight into
conditions on other stars.
➢Some thousands of stars can be seen with the naked eye, but even a small
telescope reveals millions of them.
➢Stars can be classified according to their observed characteristics. A majority are
like the sun; we call them main sequence stars. However, Some stars are much
larger, giants or supergiants, and some are much smaller, whitedwarfs.
➢Different types of stars represent different stages of stellar evolution. Most stars
are components of binary or multiple systems, many are variable: their
brightness is not constant over the time.
Roll of Astronomy
➢ Among the newest objects studied by astronomers are the compact stars:
neutron stars and black holes. In them, matter has been so greatly compressed
and the gravitational field is so strong that STR must be used.
➢ Stars are points of light in an other wise seemingly empty space. Yet
interstellar space is not empty, but contains large clouds of atoms, molecules,
elementary particles and dust. New matter is injected into interstellar space by
erupting and exploding stars; at other places, new stars are formed from
contracting interstellar clouds.
➢ Stars are not evenly distributed in space, but form concentrations, clusters of
stars. These consist of stars born near each other, and in some cases, remaining
together for billions of years.
Role of Astronomy
Mercury
Mars
EARTH
17
18
Jupiter Uranus
Neptune
Earth
Pluto
(not a planet)
and its moon
Charon
Saturn
19
The Sun
20
The Solar
System
21
The Milky Way
(Our Galaxy)
A hundred, thousand,
22 million stars!
the Milky Way
as seen from
the Enterprise
24
The local group of galaxies
Andromeda is
the nearest big
galaxy to the
Milky Way
Milky
Way
25
Light from Andromeda takes
2 million years to reach us.
Milky
Way
Andromeda
26
The Local Supercluster
Here the local group has shrunk to the size of the Milky Way in
the last slide.
Local
group 27
Light from Virgo has taken 65 million years to reach us. It left
when the dinosaurs were on Earth.
Virgo
Cluster
28
The Universe is mind-bogglingly big!
➢ The greatest density met on the earth is 22,500 kg/m3 (Osmium Transition metal
M= 76)
𝑘𝑔
➢ While in neutron stars 𝜌 ~ 1018 𝑚3
➢ The density in the best vacuum achieved on earth is only 10-9 kg/m3 but in
interstellar space the density of the gases may be 10-21 kg/m3 or even less.
➢ Modern accelerators can give particle energy of the order of 10 12 ev, while cosmic
rays coming from the space may have energy over 1020 eV.
Mass of astronomer
= 70 kilograms (kg)
Mass of Earth
= 6 10 kg
24
Mass of Sun
= 2 10 kg
30
= 330,000 mass of Earth The Earth as seen from the Moon. The picture was taken on
the first Apollo flight around the Moon, Apollo 8 in
1968.(Photo NASA)
Nighty Sky
➢ If seeing conditions are favorable, a view of the night sky provides a far wider variety of
celestial phenomena.
➢ Shapes of Moon If it is visible; crescent or gibbous or even circular. At the last condition, its
apparent diameter is very close to that of the Sun.
➢ We can see a ‘Man in the Moon’, a ‘Beautiful Lady’ or a ‘Rabbit’, sketched out by these
features.
➢ Some two to three thousand tiny, twinkling points of light—the stars are seen, ranging in
brightness from ones easily visible just after sunset to ones just visible when the Moon is
below the horizon and the sky background is darkest.
➢ Careful comparison of one bright star with another shows that stars have different colours; for
example, in the star pattern of Orion, one of the many constellations, Betelgeuse is a red star in
contrast to the blue of Rigel.
➢ With the eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness, a faint band of light, the MilkyWay,
catches the observer’s attention. Modern astronomers, with the aid of telescopes, know that
this luminous region stretching from horizon to horizon across the sky in a great circle is made
up of a myriad of stars too faint to be resolved with the naked eye.
Nighty Sky
➢As darkness falls, the first stars become visible above the eastern horizon. With the
ending of twilight the fainter stars can be seen and, as the hours pass, the stellar groups
rise from the eastern horizon, reach their maximum altitude like the Sun, then set or
become dim and invisible as daylight returns.
➢The impression of being on a flat plane surmounted by a dark revolving bowl to which
the stars are projected is strong, especially when it is seen that there are many stars in a
particular region of the sky that revolve, never rising, never setting, about a hub or
pivot. These stars are said to be circumpolar.
➢ Occasionally a bright object, called a meteor, shoots across the sky in a second,
looking like a fast-moving or ‘falling star’.
➢It may be too that faintly luminous sheets are seen, hanging down the bowl of the
heavens like great curtains. These are the aurorae.
Nighty Sky
➢it is quite likely that one or more faint specks of light will be seen to cross the
sky, taking a few minutes to do so, their presence giving reminder that man-made
satellites are now in orbit about the Earth. Indeed, one of the latest satellites the
International Space Station is exceedingly bright as bright as the brightest planet
Venus and bears testament to the continual development of manned orbiting
laboratories.
Celestial Sphere
➢ The ancient universe was confined within a finite spherical shell The stars were fixed to this
shell and thus were all equidistant from the Earth, which was at the centre of the spherical
universe. It helps us to easily understand the diurnal and annual motions of stars, and, more
important, to predict these motions in a relatively simple way.
➢ Since the distances of the stars are ignored, we need only two coordinates to specify their
directions. Each coordinate frame has some fixed reference plane passing through the centre
of the celestial sphere and dividing the sphere into two hemispheres along a great circle.
➢ The Horizontal Plane; tangential plane at the point of observation on Earth.
➢ The Equatorial system; The plane perpendicular to axis of rotation of Earth.
➢ The elliptic System; The orbital plane of Earth
➢ Galactic Coordinates; For studies of the Milky Way Galaxy, the most natural reference
plane is the plane of the Milky Way
Celestial Sphere
➢ Distance on the Earth’s surface is usually measured in nautical miles, a nautical mile being
the great circle distance subtending an angle of one minute of arc at the Earth’s centre.
Although the unit may sound ‘old fashioned’, it is still used in air transport and in ‘down
range’ distances at rocket launches. Because the Earth’s surface is not absolutely spherical,
the length of the nautical mile varies,being 6046 feet at the equator and 6108 feet at the poles.
➢ A mean value of 6080 feet is used in the UK but the International Nautical Mile used by the
Admiralty and most other nations, measures 1·8520 km being defined to be equal to one
minute of arc at a latitude of 45◦.
➢ A rate of 1 nautical mile per hour is termed 1 knot, the unit in which a ship’s speed is usually
measured. The difference in longitude may be expressed in minutes of arc, this number being
equal to the number of nautical miles. The departure can then be calculated from the equation
departure = difference in longitude × cos(latitude).
➢ It is to be noted that the difference in longitude is formed algebraically taking east longitudes
to be of opposite sign to west longitudes.
Numerical Questions
Q.1 There are about 7,000 asteroids in our solar system. Assume each one has a mass of 1017 kg. What is the total mass of
all the asteroids? If these asteroids are all rocky, and so have a density of about 3,000 kg/m3, how large a planet could
be formed from them?
Q.2 What is the maximum value of the force of gravity exerted on you by Jupiter?
Q.3 What is the circular velocity of the space shuttle in lower Earth orbit (300 km above the surface)?
Q.4 What is the density of the Earth? How does this compare to the density of rocks (between 2,000 and 3,500 kg/m3)?
What does this mean?
Q.5 An asteroid’s closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is 2 AU, and farthest distance from the Sun (aphelion) is 4 AU.
What is the semi-major axis of its orbit? What is the period of the asteroid? What is the eccentricity?
Q.6 The average speed of atoms in a gas is 5 km/s. How fast will they move if the temperature increases by a factor of
four?
Q.7 What is the average speed of nitrogen molecules (m =4:7 x 10-26 kg) at 758F?
Q.8 Calculate the length of the nautical mile in feet, given that the Earth is a sphere of radius 3960 miles.
Q.9 Two places A and B have latitude and longitude (35◦ 28_ N, 44◦ 32 _ W) and (35◦ 28_ N, 13◦ 30_ W) respectively. Calculate the
departure between them.
Q.9 Two places A and B on the same parallel of latitude 38◦ 33 N are 123◦ 19 apart
in longitude. Calculate in nautical miles (i) their distance apart along the
parallel, (ii) the great circle distance AB.
Q.10 Two seaports are on the same parallel of latitude 42 ◦ 27 N. Their difference in
longitude is 137◦ 35. Ship A and ship B sail at 20 knots from one port to the
other. Ship A sails along the parallel of latitude; ship B sails the great circle
route connecting the two ports. Calculate the time difference in their arrival
times if they leave port together.