Chapter 6 and 7 outline
Chapter 6 outline
- TELESCOPES: PORTALS OF DISCOVERY
- Eye and cameras: everyday light sensor
How your eye does form an image?
- Refraction
- Focusing light
- Image formation
How does we record image?
- Focusing light
- What we have learnt
- Telescope: Giant eye
What are the two most important properties of telescope?
- Light collecting area
- Bigger is better
- Thought question
- Angular resolution
What are the two basic designs of the telescopes?
- Refracting telescope
- Reflecting telescope
What do astronomers do with telescopes?
- Imaging
- Spectroscopy
- Timing
- Timing
- Telescope and the atmosphere
How does Earth’s atmosphere affect ground-based observation?
- Light pollution
- Twinkling and turbulence
- Adaptive optics
- Calm, high, dark, dry
Why do we put telescope into space?
- Transmission in atmosphere
- Eyes and cameras: everyday light sensor
How can we observe nonvisible light?
- Radio telescopes
- IR & UV telescopes
- X-ray telescopes
- Gamma ray telescopes
How can multiple telescopes work together?
- Interferometry
- Future of astronomy in space?
Chapter 7 outline
- OUR PLANETARY SYSTEM
- Studying the Solar System
How it looks like
- Planets orbit Sun in the same direction and in nearly the same plane
Comparing the planets
- Comparative planetology looks for patterns among the planets.
- Those patterns give us insight into the general processes that govern planets
- Studying other worlds in this way tells us about our own Earth
Major features of the sun and the planets
- Sun: Over 99.9% of the mass
- Mercury: A hot rock
- Venus: Same size as Earth but much hotter
- Earth: Only planet with liquid water on surface
- Mars: Could have had liquid water in past
- Jupiter: A gaseous giant
- Saturn: Gaseous with spectacular rings
- Uranus: A gas giant with a highly tilted axis
- Neptune: Similar to Uranus but with normal axis
- Pluto: An icy “misfit” more like a comet than a planet
- Sample Return Mission: Returns a sample of another world’s surface to Earth
- Patterns in the Solar System
Features of the solar system that provide its formation clues
- Motions of large bodies: All in same direction and plane
- Two main planet types: Terrestrial and Jovian
- Swarms of small bodies: Asteroids and comets
- Notable exceptions: Rotation of Uranus, Earth’s large moon
- Spacecraft’s Exploration of the Solar System
How robotic spacecraft work
- Flyby: Flies by another world only once
- Orbiter: Goes into orbit around another world
- Probe/Lander: Lands on surface
- Sample Return Mission: Returns a sample of another world’s surface to Earth
Works Cited
Landau, Elaine. Mars. New York: Children's Press, 2008. Print.
Rink, Phil. The Mars Mission. Createspace, 2010. Print.
