Astronomy: 2008

Friday, October 10, 2008

Black Hole

a. Jets of gas
Event horizon
Accretion disk

b. they are related because a black hole exceeds the speed of light so everything around it, including light, is sucked in.

c. we really don't see the black hole, what we see is the matter being sucked into it.

d. a characteristic radius associated with all masses.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

sun spots

Sunspots can be as large as 50,000 miles in diameter.

They were first recorded around 28BC in ancient China.

Sunspot's magnetic field is about 2,500 times stronger than earth's.

They occur in pairs with magnetic fields pointing in opposite directions.

Sunspots are about the same size as Earth.

Sunspots are dark because they are much cooler than the rest of the sun.

Sunspots cause the northern lights.

Sunspots cause solar flares.

Sunspots are plotted on a butterfly diagram.

Sunspots can last from days to weeks.

Sunspots don't only form on our sun.

The Maunder Minimum of the late 17th century caused a little ice age.
The safest way to view sunspots is by way of projection.

Royal Observatory of Belgium and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration keeps track of sunspots.

Two official numbers of sunspots are recorded because of the two places they are recorded.

Spectroscopes and spectrohelioscopes are used to observe sunspots.

Land based solar telescopes and satellites observe sunspots.

Sunspots can be seen with the naked eye. (but it's not safe!!)

Sunspots can be seen with a basic telescope.

It is believed that the ancient Greeks understood that sunspots existed, but not what they were.

Johann Goldsmid, Galileo Galilei, Christopher Schiener, and Thomas Herriot are all accredited for finding sunspots.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

The Very Large Array

c) how old the light coming into the telescope is, in light years or light minutes

a) The Very Large Array can detect all forms of light.
b)

c)
d) it uses 27 antennas that admit radio waves

Friday, September 19, 2008

Part A-
5: interactions- 36
10: interactions- 66
15: interactions- 272
20: interactions- 276
25: interactions- 346

as the number increases the interactions increase as well, the relationship is exponential because of the leaps in the numbers.

Part B-
5: interactions- 25
10: interactions- 113
15: interactions- 203
20: interactions- 403
25: interactions- 620
the numbers are more linear. They are more accurate because there are more test subjects.

Part C-
1.5ev- 828nm- sent-15 detected- 12
1.8ev- 690nm- sent-15 detected- 12
2.0ev- 621nm- sent-15 detected- 14
2.3ev- 540nm- sent-15 detected- 12
2.5ev- 297nm- sent-15 detected- 13
It's wavelength goes down and the number detected stays almost the same

Part D-
2.2eV- 565nm- H- sent- 15 detected- 8
2.2eV- 565nm- O- sent- 15 detected- 13
2.2eV- 565nm- Mg- sent- 15 detected- 11
2.2eV- 565nm- Na- sent- 15 detected- 11
2.2eV- 565nm- Ca- sent- 15 detected- 10
With all of the gases it stays about the same but with O there is a higher amount detected and with H there is fewer. I don't think you will get the same patterens because the numbers seem to vary a lot.

Notes on Stellar Spectra

1.Absorption spectra
2. closer, because the distance they are from us make them seem to move more than the further ones
3. brightness
4. the middle radiates to the rest of the star
5. intensity is how bright it looks
magnitude is how bright it really is

annie cannon

one task would like to spend my whole life doing is working with people. I just want to make a difference in at least one person's life. at this moment i really don't know what i want to do with my life.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

speed of light

Distance between the hot spots 10cm
Wavelength 20cm
Wavelength .2m
Frequency of the microwave 2500000000m
EQUATION c=λ*f .2*2500000000=c
Your calculated speed of light 500,000,000m/s

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Electromagnetic Radiation

With out a cell phone, something that uses electromagnetic radiation, my life would be very different. not only would I not be able to call my friends (or my mom when I needed a ride) I would also be unorganized because I wouldn't have the calender in it (which i use a lot). Telling time would also be a hassle because I don't own a watch, and my phone has a built in clock =3.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Blog 3

a. That the rotation is fairly quick
b. It lost energy between going to mars and coming back
c. The five slices are from five different points of mars that the wave hit.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Tunguska explosion

I think the Tunguska explosion was caused by some sort of nuclear blast. Some reasons for this are:
- No meteorite was found (perhaps it exploded into untraceable pieces)
- The trees have a similar blast pattern as Hiroshima
- There were some mutation in people and animals
- There is radiation damage in the area

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

scaling solar system

1. earth would be located 0.967 meters away
mercury would be 0.374 meters away
that's how far the planets are if Pluto was 175 miles away from the sun

2. .72 years old
the planets have diffrent orbit speeds

3. 75.6
JUPITER

if you are too heavy you will get squished because the gravity pushing on you will be too much

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

- constantly bombarded by debris
- in final stages of formation hot lava forced to surface
- iron is concentrated in mercury's center
- thin shell is on the out side caused by lava flow
- mariner 10 gave us the first photos of the surface

Sunday, August 31, 2008

stars in the night sky

Constellation Name # of Stars I Saw
1. Ursa major- 7
2. Ursa minor- 14
3. Cassiopeia- 16

average x 100 = 1233.3

i don't think every one in the class will have around the same number because around us there are different light sources and we also vary on our seeing abilities.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

astronomers

Aristotle (384-322BCE)

-Discovered the solar eclipse
-Said the earth was round

Hipparchus (190-120BCE)

-Measured distance between Earth and moon
-Measured rotation procession or Earth's rotation axis

Ptolemy (87-150)

- created the geocentric theory of the solar system

Copernicus (1473-1543)

-proved the sun was the center of the solar system using math
-in model of planets used elliptical orbits instead of round ones

Brahe (1546-1610)

-accurately cataloged 1000+ stars
-discovered a new star, Cassiopeia

Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

-solved the mysteries of the high temperatures on Venus
-experimented on mariner, viking, voyager, and viking

Galileo (1564-1642)

-verified that Venus goes though moon like phases
-discovered the other side of the moon
-found the four moons of Jupiter
-used tides to prove earth's movement
-discovered sun spots
-updated the telescope

Newton (1643-1727)