Physics Presentation

SPACE
PHYSICS
By Samriddhi and Smera
Motion of the Earth
The Earth rotates from east to west and this rotation is responsible for the
Coriolis effect.
The rotational speed at the equator is 1670 km/h.
The Earth rotates around the Sun in an elliptical orbit, because of which the
distance between the Sun and the Earth changes throughout the year. The
point where is it closest to the sun is known as perihelion and the point where
it is the farthest from the Sun is aphelion.
On the days 21st March and 23 September, the sun
rises exactly in the east and sets exactly in the west.
These days are knows as equinoxes.
Two factors are responsible for the seasons on Earth.
The revolution of the Earth around the Sun and the
tilt of 23.5 degrees of the Earth’s axis.
Motion of the Moon
The moon orbits the Earth in an elliptical path, taking 27.3 days to complete 1 orbit.
This duration is known as the sidereal month.
The Moon's orbit is inclined by about 5.1 degrees to the plane of the Earth's orbit around the
Sun.
We always see the same side of the moon due to synchronous rotation.
The phases of the moon are created as the Moon orbits Earth, different portions of its sunlit
side are visible from Earth, creating the different phases.
The moon also has its own gravitational pull and this creates tides on Earth, but this
interaction also affects the Moon's motion. Over time, tidal friction is causing the Moon to
slowly move away from Earth at a rate of about 3.8 cm per year.
The Solar System
The solar system consists of 1 star and 8 major planets orbiting the star. The star being
the Sun and the planets being Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and
Neptune.
There is an asteroid belt which separates the planets into two groups: the inner
terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) and the outer gas giants (Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune).
Asteroids are different sized rocks which have similar
densities to the inner planets.
Comets are small celestial bodies made of ice, dust, and
rocky material that orbit the Sun.
The most famous comet is Halley’s comet which enters the
inner solar system every 76 years.
The origin of the Solar System
The solar system formed about 4.6 billion years ago from a massive cloud of gas and
dust called the solar nebula. Triggered by a nearby supernova, the nebula collapsed under
gravity, forming a spinning disk. Most material gathered at the center, creating the Sun.
The remaining gas and dust clumped together, forming the planets, moons, asteroids, and
other objects in an accretion process which is the combining of small particles to make
bigger objects.
The Sun makes up 99.86% of the solar system’s mass.
The further the planets are from the Sun, the longer they take to complete one orbit
around the Sun, and their surface temperature decreases.
The force between the Sun and the planet provides the centripetal force that is needed
to keep the planets orbiting the Sun in an almost circular manner.
To calculate the orbital speed of a celestial object, we use the formula.
circumference of orbit/orbital period = 2πr/T
The Sun:
Stars !
Medium sized star made of hydrogen and helium, the nuclear reactions within the
Sun causes the hydrogen to heat up and glow emitting infrared, visible and
ultraviolet radiation.
Nuclear reactions in stars:
In hot and dense stars nuclear fusion The mass of the star and the surface
occurs in the core of the star. temperature are responsible for the
High temperature is acquired through the colour and brightness of the star
large amounts of energy released during
nuclear fusion.
The energy is transferred to the outer
layers of the star causing it to glow
white/blue stars temp: 6000-25000°C

red/yellow stars temp: 3000-6000°C
Space and galaxies
Light year: distance travelled by light in one year in
space. It is approximately 9,500,000,000,000
kilometers.
A galaxy is a large collection of stars, clouds of gas (mostly hydrogen and dust)
They normally move in a spiral disc like patterns with arms and a bulge in the centre
Sometimes the bulge is a blackhole
The typical diameter of a galaxy is 30,000 light years
The nearest spiral in our local cluster is the Andromeda galaxy, which is 2.5 million light
years away
Andromeda galaxy
milky way
fun fact:
composition of the universe:
atoms:4.6%
dark matter:24%
dark energy:71.4%
Origin of stars
Interstellar: clouds of dust Pressure builds up and huge

The temperature increases
and gas (hydrogen jets of gas burst our from
protostar is born in the
collapse) the centre
centre
The mass of the disc

The young star becomes The atoms of hydrogen
increases rapidly by sucking
increasingly smaller, combine together
in more dust and gas brighter and hotter and forming helium A STAR IS BORN !
generating more heat . the temp in the core
and producing large
increases to 15 million
amounts of energy
degrees
Life cycle of a star
the star starts to run

out
of hydrogen which is the
fuel for the nuclear
reactions, the star
becomes unstable
in a stable star the gravity
pushes inwards opposing the forces there is less energy through the temprature in the core
trying to expand the star due to nuclear fusion hence the star starts becomes
its high temperature (kinetic energy collapsing under the gravitational high enough for helium to turn into
of nuclei in the core. attraction. potential energy carbon through nuclear fusion.
the stable state lasts for 10000 for sun in about 5000 million
converted to kinetic making the
million years years this will happen and mercury
core hotter .
most hydrogen is converted into will be engulfed, life of earth will
the fast burn-up, expansion and quick destroy
helium
cooling of the surface leads to the
star becoming a red giant
Low mass and High mass stars
Low mass stars
As a low-mass star nears the end of its hydrogen fuel, it expands into a red
giant.
Instead of exploding in a supernova like massive stars, low-mass stars shed
their outer layers and leave behind a dense, cooling core, which becomes a white
dwarf
Their lifespan is way longer than high mass stars. They can live billions to
trillions of years long.
This is because their fusion rates are slow.
High mass stars

Once the core of a high-mass star builds up iron, fusion can no
longer occur efficiently. The core collapses, triggering a supernova
explosion
Depending on the mass of the star, the core remnant after the
supernova may become a neutron star or collapse into a black hole.
Their lifespan is short compared to low mass stars as they burn fuel
quickly. They can live a few million to tens of millions of years.
Expanding universe & big bang
When light emitted from the sun reaches the earth there are a few
missing spaces with black lines in them. This is because the chemicals in
the atmosphere absorb some of the wave lengths
when coming from far away galaxies the pattern is shifted towards
right because the wave gets stretched while travelling to us because
the space between the galaxies is increasing
The bigbang is a theory which is agreed upon by scientists all around the
world it says that as the universe is constantly expanding it must have some
sort of starting force. This starting was the big bang where a huge explosion
occurred 14 billion years ago, it is still expanding because it follows newtons
first law of motion following this is the theory of the big crunch
CMB’s are the radiation left from the big bang providing us insights on the
early universe
Hubble constant
The hubble’s constant is the ratio of the speed at which galaxies
are moving away from each other
The value of hubbles constant is 2.2×10−18 the speed of
recession (v) is calculated through the shift the distance (d)
can be calculated through the brightness of the star or the
parallax method (using simple circle theorems and trig).
Age of universe calculation through Hubble's constant
Distance is taken as 1 because it is thought at the start of the

universe everything was so close together that the distance was
negligible

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SPACE

white/blue stars temp: 6000-25000°C

Interstellar: clouds of dust Pressure builds up and huge

The mass of the disc

the star starts to run

High mass stars

Age of universe calculation through Hubble's constant

Distance is taken as 1 because it is thought at the start of the

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