Lapurga, Jerico M.

BSES 35
BSE SCI 3-1

Astronomy Activity 1. Getting familiar with the Jargons in Astronomy and its History
1 AU = 1.4960x10^11 m = 1.4960x10^8 km (Astronomical Unit)
1 ly = 9.4605x10^15 m = 9.4605x10^12 km (light year)
1 pc = 3.0857x10^16 m = 3.0857x10^13 km = 3.2616 ly = 206265 AU (parsec)
See : https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/cosmic-distances/

A. Can you define the following cosmic units?

1. Astronomical Unit - astronomical unit (AU, or au), a unit of length effectively equal to the
average, or mean, distance between Earth and the Sun, defined as 149,597,870.7 km
(92,955,807.3 miles)
2. Light year - Light-year is the distance light travels in one year. Light zips through interstellar
space at 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) per second and 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion
kilometers) per year.
3. Parsec - Parsec or parallactic second or is a unit of distance. It is defined as the distance at
which one AU (astronomical unit) subtends an angle of one arc second, and is equal to 3.26
light years. Or, it is the unit of length which is used to measure the large distances of celestial
bodies outside the solar system.

B. Can you define/ describe the following Celestial Bodies?

1. Stars - A star is any massive self-luminous celestial body of gas that shines by radiation
derived from its internal energy sources.
2. Variable Stars - A variable star is, quite simply, a star that changes brightness. A star is
considered variable if its apparent magnitude (brightness) is altered in any way from our
perspective on Earth.
3. Intrinsic Variable Stars - Intrinsic variables are those in which the change in brightness is
due to some change within the star itself such as in pulsating stars like the Cepheids.
4. Extrinsic Variable Stars - Extrinsic variables are those in which the light output changes due
to some process external to the star itself.
5. Planets - A planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient
mass for itself-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium
(nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.
6. Moons (Natural Satellites) - A natural satellite is any celestial body in space that orbits
around a larger body. Moons are called natural satellites because they orbit planets.
7. Asteroids - Asteroids are small, rocky objects that orbit the Sun. Although asteroids orbit the
Sun like planets, they are much smaller than planets. Asteroids are small, rocky objects that
orbit the sun.
8. Comets - Comets are cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock, and dust that orbit the Sun.
9. Meteoroids - A meteoroid is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space. Meteoroids are
distinguished as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to
objects up to a meter wide.
10. Exoplanets - An exoplanet is a planet that is located outside our Solar System. While there
is currently no formal agreement on what exactly defines an exoplanet, the word is used to
indicate planet-sized bodies that are located beyond our Solar System.
11. Galaxies - A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark
matter bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek galaxias, literally 'milky', a
reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System.
12. Nebulae - A nebula is a giant cloud of dust and gas in space. Some nebulae (more than one
nebula) come from the gas and dust thrown out by the explosion of a dying star, such as a
supernova. Other nebulae are regions where new stars are beginning to form.
13. Black Holes - A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light
can not get out. The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space.
This can happen when a star is dying.
14. Pulsars - A pulsar is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of
electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles.
15. Quasars - Quasars are a subclass of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), extremely luminous
galactic cores where gas and dust falling into a supermassive black hole emit electromagnetic
radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum.
16. Supernovae - A supernova is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. A supernova
occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star, or when a white dwarf is triggered
into runaway nuclear fusion.
17. White Dwarfs - A white dwarf is what stars like the Sun become after they have exhausted
their nuclear fuel. Near the end of its nuclear burning stage, this type of star expels most of its
outer material, creating a planetary nebula. Only the hot core of the star remains.
18. Brown Dwarfs - Brown dwarfs are substellar objects that have more mass than the biggest
gas giant planets, but less than the least massive main-sequence stars.
19. Meteor Showers - A meteor shower happens when Earth passes through the path of a
comet. When this happens, the bits of comet debris, most no larger than a grain of sand, create
streaks of light in the night sky as they burn up in Earth's atmosphere.
20. Nebulae - A nebula is an enormous cloud of dust and gas occupying the space between
stars and acting as a nursery for new stars. The roots of the word come from Latin nebula,
which means a “mist, vapor, fog, smoke, exhalation.” Nebulae are made up of dust, basic
elements such as hydrogen and other ionized gases.
21. Binary Stars - A binary star or binary star system is a system of two stars that are
gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are
seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved using a telescope as separate stars,
in which case they are called visual binaries.
22. Galaxies Clusters - A galaxy cluster, or a cluster of galaxies, is a structure that consists of
anywhere from hundreds to thousands of galaxies that are bound together by gravity, with
typical masses ranging from 10¹⁴ to 10¹⁵ solar masses.
23. Superclusters - Superclusters are supermassive objects formed by the gravitational
aggregation of multiple galaxy clusters.
C. See: https://www.space.com/16014-astronomy.html and give a brief Outline of the
history of Astronomy. Where do you think it is headed?

According to the article, the history of astronomy has 3 parts; the beginnings, the arrival of
telescopes and the modern era. In the beginnings of astronomy it emphasizes that the people
from the early civilizations used the sky-gazing practice to observe stars in the sky at night.
Also, ancient monuments like stonehenge and the nebra disk are one of the few ancient
tangible arts that existed to observe the movement of sun, moon and the stars in the sky. All
over the years some prominent people created their own way to use their naked eye to observe
the movement of celestial bodies in the sky. Thus, to this day astronomy is considered the first
and oldest science because of the early written records that they discovered.

In the arrival of telescopes, during the middle ages, astronomy continued to advance in Asia
particularly in Islamic countries. Modern tools for measuring the positions of objects in the sky
are also invented such as the quadrant and the sextant. The arrival of the telescope by Galileo
Galilei which is a breakthrough invention to study and understand the solar system. Also,
Galileo was able to sketch the surface of the moon, discover the main moons of Jupiter, find
sunspots on the sun, and much more, thanks to the telescope. Stellar maps are also invented
during this time. In the 18th century, astronomers for the first time managed to calculate the
distance of a nearby star, adding a third dimension to stellar catalogs. The emergence of
photography in the 19th century simplified the charting of the night sky and the stellar position
catalogs quickly grew from a few thousand to tens of thousands of stars. Lastly, In the second
half of the 19th century, they opened up new and utterly unanticipated paths for astronomical
investigation. Astronomers may examine the chemical makeup of celestial objects using
spectroscopy: first, those that are closer to Earth, like the moon and sun, and then, those that
are farther away, like other stars and even galaxies.

In the modern era of astronomy, Early in the 20th century, rapid advancements in telescope
technology made astronomers wonder for the first time if the Milky Way was the universe or only
one of several stellar universes dispersed throughout space. In due course, other "nebulas"
were identified as galaxies. Scientists discovered within ten years that these nebulas were
accelerating away from Earth the further away they were. This finding gave rise to the theory
that the cosmos has been expanding since its creation, most likely during a massive explosion
that occurred in the farthest past. Thus was born the Big Bang theory. Also, even in the time of
the second world war technological advancement in astronomy was brought to a new level,
bringing in the era of space travel and cosmic exploration.. Also, various satellites emerged like
in 1957 with the U.S.S.R launched the first-ever satellite, Sputnik. NASA's Mariner 2 became
the first spacecraft to visit another planet, Venus, and in 1964, the first radio astronomy satellite,
the U.K.'s Ariel 2, made it into orbit. The space race of the 1960s culminated with the successful
moon landings of the Apollo program. In 1968, NASA launched the Orbiting Astronomical
Observatory 2, nicknamed Stargazer, the first attempt to study the wider universe from space.
Also, the Hubble Space Telescope & James Webb Space Telescope was used. From ancient
times to modern times, the advancements in astronomy have indeed been successful & helpful.