Space and Its

Mysteries
Topic Summary

Science Department
10 November 2009

S&IM, Page 1
 Gravity On Earth, we are used to gravity keeping things held ‘down’. But, gravity
also keeps moving in circles (or nearly circles - an oval shape called an
‘ellipse’). Earth’s gravity keeps the moon and our satellites in orbit.
The Sun’s gravity keeps the Earth and the other planets in orbit. The
gravity of our Milky Way galaxy keeps our Sun and the billions of
ing other stars together.
g d o w n on someth
ullin
Gravity p makes it o
rbit.
id e w ay s
moving s

g it down will result

som ething is alr ead y moving, gravity pullin Anythin
g with e
If ngs on a string... nough g
orb it - just like we did when we swung thi somethin ravity c
an make
in an g else or
s the centre. Our sun
ce and it pulls toward makes t bit it.
Gravity is the orbit for and com he plane
ts and a
Remember that! ets in th steroids
e solar s
ystem o
rbit it.

Mass & Weight

Mass is the amount of stu
ff in something, the numb
in something – this stays er of particles
the same. This is in kg
Weight is how much a .
planet or moon pulls so
its gravity – this can chan mething down with
ge. This is in N.

the equation:
You have to use ngth
vitational field stre
weight = mass x gra
W = m × g e same thing as
gr avitational
is th
free-fall (m/s/s)
acceleration of
/kg)
field strength (N
ALWAYS have
This bag of sugar would
mass of 1 kilogram
e it is in the solar
e on earth.
But depending on wher
eighs 14 ston igh less or more
Mr Fea th er w
nt planets. system it is, it could we
an ge on differe
His weight
w ou ld ch than it does on Earth
e the same. 40
m as s w ou ld always b
His
30

20
Mercury
Venus 10
Earth
Moon
Mars 0
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto S&IM, Page 2
 How we know so much stuff...
We don’t have to always ‘go’ somewhere to find out about it.
Here are some of the ways that scientists can find out

ting satellite...
sign als back to an orbi
and send in g on Earth. These
ars rover w
hich s th em back to scientists the
This is the M ... which send ts and photos of
of mars, take measuremen
d the surface satellite s ca n also
on Mars.
roams aroun g tests... s. This is a crater
mples, doin surface of planet
collecting sa

Some robo
tic craft lan
move abou d but don’t
t. They are
called
landers.

Telescope
s are used
comets, ou for lookin
r sun, oth g at plane
er stars an ts, moons,
are above d galaxies. T asteroids
the cloud he bigges
level in re t and best
mote plac
night skie es with go
s. od dark

The Hubble Space telesc

ope
orbits about 400km abo
ve the
rough dust clouds
pe s allow astronomers to see th m
Earth. It gets great vie
ws with no
Radio teles co for radio signals fro
e). Th ey are also used for listening m
street light, bad weath
er or
(nebula ra
life in the SETI prog
possible intelligent pollution to get in the wa
y.

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 What’s bigger than what?...

round the
lls of ice an d rock that go
Comets are ba pses. These ar
e
ths called elli lumps of
sun in oval pa m etres ac ro ss
small or big
all, say a few tens of ... h can be t
generally sm
same size as th
e smal lest
...Asteroids,
wh ic We find mos
and about the ten s of km wide. iter,
a few d Jup
rock up to b etw een Mars an
system e Eart h
in our solar e hitting th
rin kled in a ‘belt’. On urs off.
sp osa
illed the din
probably k tha n...
re smaller
Asteroids a

...moo
ns. O
big as ur Mo
far as on i
in the moons o s quite only on
solar s f pla
ystem nets much,
e of 8 o
ther pl
go. much
bigger anets going r
star, w o
hich w und a
th, with our Sun. e call o
Here’s our Ear So far, ur
But Earth is... SYSTE thi
M...co s is the SOLA
moon to scale.
planet mets, astero R
s and 1 ids, mo
star, th ons,
e SUN.

Next are galaxi

es, each a colle
thousands of m ction of
illions of other
which we call st suns,
ars, held togeth
er by s of
gravity
dre ds of billion
n e
Univers
e hu
There ar
s in ... t h e
galaxie

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 Humans in space
surroundings
at a comfortable temperature
Space craft push gases out of their eng
ines.
w).
This is the Action Force (down arro
other
These gases push the spacecraft in the
ction
direction, and this is called the Rea
Force (up arrow).
The acce
leration
much for is given b
ce there y how
is per kil
ogram:
a=F/m

enough
oxygen
to b r e
ath e
oved
xide rem food and d
carbon dio a ir
rink
from the
On a space station,
astronauts need...

surroundings
at a comfortab
le ex
temperature
way ercise
so
f h facili
to el ti
ke e p i n g t e s o r
pf he o
sleeping, washin
g and toilet
it a ast ther
nd r
from radia
tion
facilities. hea onaut
protection lth
y
s

t s i d e? ...
Go ing ou

Your spa
ce suit h
•keep y as to
ou insula
and cold ted from
the extr
eme hot
•protec
tion from
radiatio tiny met
n eors & U
V
•give yo
u oxygen
your ma , water &
chines electricit
y for
S&IM, Page 5
 Life Cycle of Stars

Nebulae are clouds of gas

and dust, and this is where
llect
s a nd dust co d a gravity starts to pull stuff
The g a ll calle
eth er in a ba . together...
tog tar..
protos

Once tight enough,

nuclear reactions
begin and the star
‘shines’. it is now a
main sequence
star.

Bigge In older age, small star

r star s
but a s swell up a lot, look re
lot mo also swell u we call them Red Gian
d and
re. we p, ts.
Red S
uper G call them
iants.

ts end up
Red Gian eir outer
off th
blowing
make a
parts to ...
They then y Nebula
explode, Planetar
dramatically.
This is
called a Super
nova.

... and end up

being a Whit
Dwarf - slow e
ly losing its h
It will end up a Neutron and light, bu ea t
s t not making
l end up a more from n any
Star... ...or it wil ole. uclear reactio
a Black H ns

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 Are we alone?...

Launched in 19 We in
cl
‘Voyager’ spacec
77, the two what uded infor
raft only ‘left’ ou we lo matio
it bum ok na
solar system de
cades later
r ps int like, just ‘i bout
o any n case
because even ou thin ’
r solar system is The c understan g that can
big. hance d it.
s are
very
small
...

great idea
to fin d a liens isn’t a
eships
Using spac
because : times
long journey ad for
•ridiculously to h e
ow where
•we don’t kn lk to are
find ing alie ns we can ta
of
The chances
ause :
low , b ec e planets
fe w star s have suitabl nt life
•v er y
th os e m ay have intellige
•very few of any life
ose may have NOW
•very few of th e may have intelligent life
os
•very few of th

Using normal
telescopes to
work too wel look for alien
l, because s doesn’t
•We don’t kn
ow where to
•Light is bloc look – there’s
ked by gas & a LOT of sky
dust

r
scopes to look fo
We use Radio tele e
becaus
intelligent aliens de
wa ve s ca n be sent out in a wi
•Radio
beam es
cross huge distanc
•Radio waves can

...because in 1977 we think we hea

rd
a signal that wasn’t noise from a star
.
wnload a screen was it ET?
You can even do their
to help SETI do ...you never know, your We don’t know, and we haven’t hea
saver program computer rd
calculations... may even end up discov
ering he it since....
next Wow! signal...

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 How did it all get started?

eo ry
Big Bang Th coming less de
nse, so it
is expa nd in g an d be
st. Steady
The universe nser in the pa St ate Th
t ha ve be en smaller and de 00 0 00 0 yrs. the The Un eor y
mus t that 14 00 0 iverse
gg es ngle expand h
s new mas no beginn
ow su a a si
Calculations sh erse was concentrated at looks th ing or e
whole of th e un iv aterial n
point. e we see toda
y. look at e same stead fills up the ga d. As it
ol ve d in to the Univers it. y Unive
rse wh
ps so th
It exploded an
d ev
enever at it
you

EVIDENCE: 1929 Edwin Hubble

Red Shift in galaxies
All galaxies are moving away from each
other.
The further they are, the faster they going... Big Bang Prediction
Starting in a Big Bang which must have been
incredibly hot, shouldn’t we be able to detect
the ‘afterglow’...

EVIDENCE: 1964 Penzias & Wilson

Accidentally, they discover the microwave afterglow in all
directions from the Universe.
This afterglow is mapped by a spacecraft launched in 1989. The
lumpiness in the heat map is where galaxies will later form...

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