What is Astronomy?

Ancient Astronomy
• People have used the stars for ages.
• Used constellations to set planting times
• Used constellations to guide travels
• Some lights in the sky wandered through
the constellations
• Called them “planets” which is Greek for
wanderers
 The Mayan Calendar
• The Mayans were the
first civilization to
widely use a standard
calendar. It consisted
of 365 days very much
like the calendar we
use today….
 Time
Year: Cycle through the seasons as the Earth revolves
around the Sun.
Month: Based on cycle of the moon – adjusted to make
exactly 12 months in a year instead of the actual 12.4
cycles per year.
Week: 7 is chosen since there are 7 astronomical objects
viewed by Ancient Astronomers besides the stars:
Sunday, Moonday, Thorsday (Thor = Jupiter), Saturnday,
in English can easily be identified. In Spanish you can
easily identify Marsday (Martes = Tuesday), Mercuryday
(Miercoles = Wednesday), and Venusday (Viernes =
Friday).
 Time
Day: Time from Noon on one day to Noon on the next.
Noon is the sun’s highest point.
Hour: Day is broken into day and night, and the daytime
is broken into 12 units, just like the year, and the night is
broken into 12 units, also. Total is 24 hours in a day.
Minute: A minute (pronounced my-nute’ meaning tiny) part of
an hour – based on Egyptian idea of a minute (tiny) part =
1/60th .
Second: A minute (tiny) part of a minute (tiny) part of an
hour, or a second minute (tiny) part of an hour, or simply
a second.
Lunar Phases
Lunar Phases

The moon goes

through different
phases during the
month because the
illuminated (sun-
facing) side changes
its orientation
relative to the earth.
Lunar Eclipses

When the moon passes through the Earth’s

shadow, a lunar eclipse occurs.
Lunar Eclipses

A total eclipse of the moon.

Solar Eclipses

Path of a total solar eclipse on the earth.

When the Earth passes through the Moon’s

shadow, a Solar eclipse occurs.
Solar Eclipses

A total solar eclipse.

 Tilt of the Earth’s Axis
• The axis around which the Earth rotates is
tilted by 23.5 degrees with respect to the
ecliptic.
• The seasons are due to the tilt of the Earth’s axis.
Consider what happens on June 21 when the
northern hemisphere of the Earth is tilted toward the
Sun:

Northern Summer Northern Winter

Southern Winter Southern Summer

• The sunlight strikes the ground more

vertically than in December. The light is
spread out over less ground and heats the
ground better.
Earth on June 22
Earth on December 22
 Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

He used the telescope to look at astronomical

objects. He discovered craters on the Moon,
moons going around Jupiter, rings around Saturn,
and the fact that Venus has phases that are related
to its orbit.
The heliocentric model can explain all of these,
whereas the geocentric model fails.
Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) He collected great
amounts of very precise data about the positions
of the planets using instrumentation he
developed.
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) He used Brahe’s
data and mathematics to come up with three
laws:
1. Planets follow elliptical instead of circular orbits.
2. Planets sweep through equal areas in equal times.
3. The square of the period is proportional to the cube of the
semimajor axis of the ellipse.
 Planets
• Move in an elliptical orbit
 Planets
• Period of revolution
• the time it takes to go once around the sun
• One revolution is a year
• Mercury 88 days, Pluto 248 years
 What keeps them there?
• Law of inertia - objects motion won’t
change unless acted upon by an outside
force.
• Won’t change speed or direction
• Why do they curve?
• Gravity pulls them toward the sun
What keeps them there?
In
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a

ity
av
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 Rotation
• Planets spin on their axes
• One rotation is a day
• Mercury 58 days, Jupiter 10 hours
A light wave is a light wave, no matter how long...
 Refracting Telescopes
Refracting telescopes are used to gather and focus light.
Curved lenses are used to make is easier to see things in the
distance.
When the eye looks into the telescope, the eye can easily
interpret the light rays, due to the straightened pattern of the
light rays.
 Reflecting Telescopes

Refracting telescopes are very similar to reflecting

telescopes, except that the reflecting telescopes use
mirrors, instead of lenses.
 Same Space -- Different Light

Radio Telescope Infrared Telescope

Optical Telescope X-ray Telescope

 Light-Year
• To measure distances between stars we a distance
measurement called the Light- year
• 1 light-year is the distance light travels in one year.
• Light moves at 300,000 km/sec
– That’s 186,000 mile/sec
• It would reach the sun in about 5 minutes
• How far would it go in a year?
• Nearest star is 4.3 light years away
 Distance to stars
• One method is parallax
• Apparent change in position as the earth
goes around the sun
Measure the angle to the star
Wait half a year

Measure the angle to the star

Triangle tells distance

 Rockets
• Rely on Netwon’s Third law of Motion
– For every action there is an equal and opposite
reaction.
• Reward blast of hot gases causes rocket to
shoot forward.
• First developed by Chinese in 1000
– Tube full of gunpowder with cap on one end.
 Satellites
• If a projectile has a large enough horizontal
(tangential) velocity component (8 km/s), it will fall
around the earth but never strike the surface.
• The result is a circular orbit around the earth.
• For the space shuttle or a satellite to orbit, it must
be above the earth’s atmosphere to avoid air
resistance (200 km above the surface).
• At an altitude of 200 km, the force of the earth’s
gravity is only slightly reduced.
 Placing the Shuttle into Orbit

• The shuttle is given a vertical thrust from a rocket to

push it up to an altitude of 200 km.
• At that point it is given a thrust from another rocket to
increase its tangential speed to 8 km/s.
 Spacecraft
• Probes have gone past all the planets except
Pluto
• Have sampled comets tails
• Have taken pictures of planets and moons.