Mr. Storie 10F Science Space
SPACE
COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING QUESTION ON THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY:
1. What to reasons prompted human beings to look at the Sun and stars more closely?
2. Explain the terms geocentric AND retrograde.
3. Why was Ptolemy's model accepted for so long?
4. How did Copernicus' model for the universe differ from Ptolemy's model?
5. Why was Copernicus' theory not readily accepted?
6. How did the telescope allow Galileo to demonstrate that celestial objects were not perfect?
7. If Tycho Brahe had lived longer, why would he be disappointed with Kepler?
Retrograde Motion Activity
"Backward" Motion of Planets
Planets tend to move across the sky in an easterly direction. Occasionally, something strange occurs. A planet appears to slow down and begin moving backward toward the west. In this activity you are going to find out why this happens. The diagram below represents a part of our solar system. Earth and Mars are shown at several positions in their orbits around the sun. Each position is labelled with the name of the month when the planet will be located there.
Procedure
1. In the diagram below, draw a line from each Earth position through the Mars position for the same month. Extend the line approximately 1 cm past the dashed line.
2. Place a dot at the end of the line and label the dots in order, with the dot on the January line being number 1, the dot on the February line being number 2, and so on. Note: If paths cross draw the lines slightly long and place the dots slightly farther away than you did for the other lines. Notice that the line for January is already drawn, but the dot is yet to be labelled.
3. Using a pencil, start with the dot labelled "1" and carefully connect the dots in order (This line represents the path the planet Mars would follow in its orbit around the sun as seen from Earth.)
The dots that you put at the ends of the lines represent the positions where an observer on Earth would see Mars for the month indicated on the diagram. The line you drew connecting the dots represents the path Mars appears to follow.
Critical Thinking and Application
1. What movement does Mars actually experience from January through August?
2. To an observer on Earth, what movement does Mars appear to experience during that time period?
3. During which months does Mars appear to be moving backward in its orbit?
4. Carefully observe what is happening to Earth and Mars in their orbits when Mars seems to loop "backward." What causes Mars to seem to move backward in its orbit?
5. Do you think that to an observer on Earth all the planets visible in the night sky would appear at some point to go backward?
6. Explain your answer to the previous question.
7. Why would it be very difficult to observe Mercury and Venus to see if they experience such backward motion?
Date:______Name:______
CONSTELLATIONS WEBQUEST
http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/constellations.html
1. In the boxes, carefully sketch the following constellations and provide a brief description as well as a note to the constellation’s history.
URSA MAJOR / Description:History:
ORION / Description:
History:
CASSIOPEIA / Description:
History:
TAURUS / Description:
History:
URSA MINOR / Description:
History:
CEPHEUS / Description:
History:
2. What are the abbreviations for the following constellations?
Constellations / Abbreviations / Brightest StarOrion
Gemini
Taurus
Canis Major
Ursa Major
Ursa Minor
Cepheus
Auriga
3. During which months is Orion best seen?
4. Which constellations are best seen during the month of February?
5. In which constellation would we find the star ALDEBARAN?
6. In which constellation would we find the POLARIS, and what are 4 different names for this star?
CREATE A CONSTELLATION
1. Create a pattern using any number of stars to form a new constellation.
2. Create a brief history of the pattern (name, origin, brightest star…)
HISTORY OF CONSTELLATION ______:
ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS ON STARS AND GALAXIES:
1. What is a nebula?
2. Name our closest star.
3. Where is the sun's energy produced?
4. Describe what happens in a fusion reaction.
5. Name the products when a small, medium, and large star runs out of hydrogen.
6. One night, you observe two stars that have the same apparent magnitude. Could these two stars be giving off different amounts of light? Explain.
7. What is a spectrum and how is it unique?
8. What instrument does an astronomer use to measure the spectrum of a star?
9. What does “red shift” mean?
10. If an astronomer saw ‘blue shift” in a star, what could she conclude?
11. How does the Big Bang theory explain the expanding universe?
12. How does a theory differ from a belief?
Planet Project Planning
Group planet/moon information
o Create a 1-page information sheet to teach people about your planet.
o Mr. Storie will choose the best of each planet (from the marks) to copy for the class.
o Be creative!
o In order to create an accurate representation of our solar system, we will all use the same scale ratio to represent our planets.
o As well, we will use a common scale to find the distance of your planet from the Sun.
Scale:
Distance from Sun 1 cm = 5 million km
Diameter 1 cm = 1000 km
Here are some examples of useful information:
§ Discovery
· Who discovered the planet? When? How?
§ Place in the Solar System
· Where? Distance from Sun?
§ Size (diameter in kilometres), mass and density?
· Scale down the size and compare it to a common item at home or school.
· SEE ABOVE SCALE
§ General Appearance
· Colour? Appears striped? Why?
· Be specific and detailed.
§ Add-on information
· Does it have moons?
· Does it have rings?
§ Topography (surface)
· Volcanoes? Dark Spots? Craters?
§ Composition (what is it made of)
· Atmosphere?
· Core?
· Elements found?
§ Weather
· Temperature?
· Storms?
§ Time
· Revolution/“Year”?
· Rotation/“Day”?
§ Interesting Facts
§ Pictures
GRADING:
We will decide as a class, how we want to mark this assignment.
The total will be out of 20 marks :
Accuracy? Detais? Quality? Creativity? Group, participation?
…What do these words even mean?!?!
Grading Rubric:
NEWS IN SPACE PROJECT
· For the two weeks, you will collect current news items about space.
These items must be factual, not from science fiction movies or television.
· You need three items.
· You must use at least two different sources, such as magazines, different newspapers, the Internet, etc.
· Attach a photocopy of the article.
· Fill in all information in the boxes. Most importantly is your summary of what the article states or proves.
Article Title:Source: / Date of Article:
Author:
Your Summary:
Article Title:
Source: / Date of Article:
Author:
Your Summary:
Article Title:
Source: / Date of Article:
Author:
Your Summary:
The Great Astronomical Word Explosion
Instructions: Complete each statement using the words and phrases below. This should be a useful review of many of the terms you have encountered in your introduction to astronomy. Some of the words can be used more than once. The numbers are used only once.
Halley / Cultures and religions / Minerals / White dwarfApparent / The Earth / Star / Galaxies
Hydrogen / Pluto / 1000 / Jupiter
The Sun / Expansion / Solar / Verification
Comet / Nuclear fusion / Instabilities / One million
Suns / Moons / Gravity / Galaxy
Contraction / Alpha Centauri / Light / Heliocentric
Supernovas / Black hole / Ellipse / Planet
Nine / 150 million / One year / 63,000
Hubble / Aurora Borealis / Dispersed / Light spectrum
Mass / Geocentric / Four to five / Blue
Sirius / Neptune / Ray of light / Asteroids
Pressure / Cloud of gas and dust / Red / Uranus
Years / 10-15 billion years ago / Neutrons / Helium
Radio waves / 100-400 billion / Ring / Astronomical
Light-year / Galaxies / Yellow-orange / Saturn
1. A ______is a celestial body that has an orbit around a central ______. Our solar system has ______of them, and some astronomers speculate that the belt of ______between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter was once a tenth planet that has been destroyed.
2. It is the force of ______that holds the planets in orbit around the ______, and also causes the entire solar system to orbit around the ______.
3. ______are natural satellites of planets. The large number of small bodies between Mars and Jupiter are called the ______, which means “star-like.” Certain planets also have a ______system that encircles them, comprised of thousands of small, rocky and icy pieces of material left over from the disintegration of a once-large satellite.
4. Certain asteroids, called the Trojans, cross the orbit of Mars and make close approaches to the Earth. Their maximum size is about ______kilometres across. Due to the fact that asteroids and moons are composed of rocky material, some people would like to exploit them as sources of ______.
5. The largest planet in the solar system is ______, and the smallest is ______. The “third rock” from the Sun is ______.
6. The four giant gas planets, listed in order of increasing distance from the Sun are______, ______, ______, and ______. They all have large families of ______orbiting them.
7. An ______unit (AU) is the average distance between ______and the ______. It is equivalent to about ______kilometres. A ______is a much larger distance unit used by astronomers, and is the distance that a ______traverses in ______. A light-year is equivalent to about ______AU’s.
8. A ______is a solar system object that can have a gas and dust tail exceeding millions of kilometres in length. These celestial wonders of ice, cock, and organic compounds travel around the Sun in elongated orbits called an ______. In 1997, Hale-Bopp was one of the most brilliant to recently enter the inner solar system, and was visible to the unaided eye for months. However, it is ______that is the most celebrated ______, returning to put on a show with a period of about 76 years.
9. The Sun is a ______, an enormous sphere of gas that emits its energy through the process of ______. The temperatures in the extreme outer layer of the Sun’s atmosphere, the “solar corona,” can reach ______degrees Celsius. Every 10 years or so, ______flares erupt from the Sun’s surface layers, eventually disturbing communication systems on Earth. The beautiful ______near the North Pole is caused by streams of charged particles which are emitted by the Sun and interact with the magnetic field of the Earth high in the atmosphere.
10. The nearest star to the Earth is the ______. The next nearest star system to ours is ______, which is a triple-star system approximately ______light-years from Earth. The colour of its three stars, indicating that they are Sun-like, is ______. The hottest stars are ______in colour, and the coolest stars are ______.
11. The ______magnitude (brightness as seen from the Earth) of a star differs from its absolute magnitude (a truer measure of a star’s brightness) because of the great distance between the star and the Earth. This affects the quantity of ______that is observed in the night sky. The brightest star in the sky from our point of view is ______in the constellation Canis Major (the Great Dog), but it is actually much less luminous than the nearby red giant, Betelgeuse, in the constellation Orion. Very often, stars appear bright simply because they are close to us.
12. A ______is the remains of a supermassive star that is apparently invisible due to the fact that tremendous ______forces do not permit its visible ______to escape and be seen.
13. Neither the ______model of the universe (with Earth at the centre) nor the ______model (with Sun at the centre) represents the actual conceptions of the cosmos accepted by astronomers today. The solar system is just on small fraction of the galaxy called ______. The universe is comprised of perhaps hundreds of billions of ______like the nearest great spiral galaxy to ours, the Andromeda Galaxy.
14. A ______is actually an enormous collection of stars, dust, and various gases, all bound together by gravitational attraction. The Milky Way contains somewhere in the neighbourhood of ______stars. Some galaxies have a pinwheel-like appearance, and are called ______galaxies (like the Milky Way). Still others are irregular in form (like the Large Magellanic Cloud, for instance). Quasars (which is a loose acronym for “quasi-stellar objects”) are strange sources of ______, and can emit as much energy as an entire galaxy of stars.
15. A large cloud of gas and dust called a ______is often called the “birthplace of stars.” These clouds of gases, mostly ______and ______, contract under the influence of ______. A star is born when its ______furnace inside ignites as temperatures rise to millions of degrees Celsius.
16. Depending on the initial ______of the material from the nebula that coalesces to form a star, the resulting star can end its life span as a small______, or as a spectacular ______explosion that leaves behind a super-dense remnant called a ______star. The most massive stars, those about 25 times heavier than our Sun, have the potential to become a ______, from which time and space cannot escape. All of the chemical elements that make up other stars, planets, and matter (including living beings like you) are made from the exploding stars.
17. By analyzing the rainbow-like colours of a ______from a celestial body (for example, a star beyond our Sun), it is possible to detect planets around it by looking for small ______in the motions of the central star. The ______Space Telescope has already confirmed the existence of a number of planetary systems around stars other than our Sun.
18. According to cosmologist (scientists studying the ultimate fate of the cosmos), it is thought that after the universe’s initial period of ______, a period of ______will result in what has been called the “Big Crunch.” After that, another ______could give rise to a whole new universe.