ASTRONOMY

DISCUSSION OF THE FIELD OF

ASTRONOMY UNITS AND MEASUREMENTS,
OVERVIEW OBJECTIVES
 What is Astronomy?
 What is Astronomy?

 Astronomy is the study of everything in the universe

beyond Earth’s atmosphere. That includes objects
we can see with our naked eyes, like the Sun , the
Moon , the planets, and the stars . It also includes
objects we can only see with telescopes or other
instruments, like faraway galaxies and tiny
particles. And it even includes questions about
things we can't see at all, like dark matter and
dark energy .
 What are the big ideas about astronomy?
 What are the big ideas about astronomy?
 1. When we look up at the night sky, we see patterns
and want to explain them
 Early observers looking at the night sky
noticed patterns in the stars . These patterns,
which we call constellations, might appear to
change place, but they don’t change shape.
People around the world gave them names
(like Orion the hunter or Leo the lion) and
told stories about them. You may know some
of these stories as myths, or as astrology.
Astrology can be fun to think about, but it’s
different from astronomy. Astrology is not
science!
 Early observers also noticed some
bright objects in the sky that seem to
wander around among the stars. The
ancient Greek philosophers called
these objects “planets,” which is
Greek for “wanderers.” The planets
are our near neighbors, and they do
move. They orbit the Sun , just as
Earth does.
 2. The sky is vast and distances between
objects can be very large
 To the naked eye, the stars look like
tiny points of light . But stars are not
tiny—they're huge, burning balls of
gas, like our Sun. They just appear
small because they are so far away.
The nearest star to our solar system is
4 light years away, which is 20
trillion miles.`
 The stars may all look the same
distance away, as if they were pasted
on the wall of a giant dome. But
that's an illusion too. Some stars are
tens of thousands of light years
farther away from Earth than
others. You can see this illusion for
yourself by
building your own Big Dipper.
 Thestars of the Big
Dipper may all look the
same distance away, as if
they were pasted on the
wall of a giant dome.
 But if you look at the same
stars from a different place
in the universe, you'll see
that some stars are billions
of miles farther away than
others!
 How can we tell how far away a star is? One clue is
its brightness. Distant stars look dimmer than they
would if we were close to them. But that clue isn’t
very reliable, because stars vary a lot in their
brightness. Some stars that stand out in the sky
aren’t actually very far away compared to other
stars—they’re just incredibly big and bright. And
some nearby stars are dim. In fact, our Sun’s closest
star neighbor, Proximus Centuri, is so faint and tiny
that we need a telescope to see it!
 So astronomers rely on
measurements of something called
parallax to figure out the distances
of stars. They look at a nearby star
from two different places and
compare its position relative to
other, much more distant stars.
 Astronomers can use
satellites in two different
positions (instead of two
eyes) to calculate the
distance to a star (instead
of a thumb).
 3. Everything in space is moving all the time
 3. Everything in space is moving all the time
 You might feel like you’re sitting still, but you’re
actually flying through space incredibly fast! That’s
because Earth is carrying you like a spaceship.
 3. Everything in space is moving all the time
 You might feel like you’re sitting still, but you’re
actually flying through space incredibly fast! That’s
because Earth is carrying you like a spaceship.
 Earth is spinning. If you were standing on the equator,
you and the spot under your feet would be rotating at a
speed of about a thousand miles per hour. But Earth is
also orbiting around the Sun, moving even faster:
67,000 miles per hour. And the Sun itself is moving
around the center of our galaxy, carrying everything in
the solar system with it, at a rate of 490,000 miles per
hour. And that’s not all. Our galaxy, the Milky Way , is
moving too—at a rate of 872,405 miles per hour. Our
cluster of galaxies is moving too. And so is everything
 4. Gravity holds everything together
 4. Gravity holds everything together

 If Earth is moving so fast, why don’t we fly off? Thank

gravity for that. Gravity is the force of attraction
between all objects in the universe. An object’s gravity
depends on its mass —its total amount of matter , or
“stuff.” The more massive the object, the stronger the
gravitational force. And the closer two objects are, the
stronger the gravitational pull between them. Gravity is
what keeps your feet on the ground—and what keeps
Earth and the planets orbiting around the Sun instead of
floating away.
 When you jump, you always fall back to Earth. What
goes up must come down, right? Not quite! Something
can go up and not come down if it reaches the escape
velocity, the speed at which it breaks free from a
planet’s gravitational pull. That’s how rockets work.
Their engines are designed to push the rocket up so
hard that it moves fast enough to get away. The
universe is full of “runaway” stars and planets that
escaped the gravity of their neighbors.
 5. There’s much more to light than our eyes can see
 5. There’s much more to light than our eyes can see
 Light is a form of energy called electromagnetic
radiation. We see objects because they reflect, or
bounce, light into our eyes. But there’s a whole spectrum
of electromagnetic radiation, and our eyes can detect
only a teeny, tiny portion of it. That portion—visible
light—consists of different wavelengths of light that we
perceive as different colors. If you think of the
electromagnetic spectrum as a piano keyboard, visible
light is the equivalent of a single octave. Objects in
space are emitting or reflecting radiation from all across
the spectrum, including ultraviolet (UV), infrared,
microwaves, and radio waves. To see this invisible
electromagnetic radiation, we need to use special tools
like microwave telescopes and gamma-ray telescopes.
 PUERTORICO TELESCOPE
 6. The universe contains mysterious, invisible stuff
 6. The universe contains mysterious, invisible stuff
 So far we’ve talked about things we can detect with our
eyes and our tools, like galaxies, stars, and planets.
These objects (and even trees, puppies, and ourselves)
are all called matter. But did you know that there are
things in the universe that we can’t detect, no matter
what instruments we use? They’re called dark matter
and dark energy.
 6. The universe contains mysterious, invisible stuff
 So far we’ve talked about things we can detect with our
eyes and our tools, like galaxies, stars, and planets.
These objects (and even trees, puppies, and ourselves)
are all called matter. But did you know that there are
things in the universe that we can’t detect, no matter
what instruments we use? They’re called dark matter
and dark energy.
 Dark matter doesn't give off light like a galaxy or
absorb light like a black hole. Scientists know it exists
because it has a gravitational pull, just like normal
matter.
 Dark energy is a mysterious pressure working in
opposition to gravity, pushing matter apart.
 Scientists still don’t know very much
about dark matter and dark energy, but
they are hard at work trying to find out
more. Maybe one of those scientists will
be you!
 Scientists still don’t know very much
about dark matter and dark energy, but
they are hard at work trying to find out
more. Maybe one of those scientists will
be you!
 7. It takes a team of people working together to study
the universe
 7. It takes a team of people working together to study
the universe
 When you think of an astronomer, maybe you’re
imagining someone using a telescope to collect data
about objects in the sky. Some astronomers do that—
they’re called observational astronomers. But there
are lots of other kinds of astronomers too! Do you like
to build things? Make things work? Write computer
programs? Solve equations? There are astronomers
who do all different things like these.