Celestial Bodies

By: Adrian G, Erin N, and Kelsey M

 Introduction
Do scientists know all about our galaxy,
the Milky Way? No. There is much that
waits to be discovered. This PowerPoint
show focuses on celestial bodies. Celestial
bodies are constellations, comets,
meteors, asteroids, galaxies, and basically
everything in space.
 Comets

Comets are made of dust, stones, ice, and frozen gases. Their
tail is made of gas and dust and faces away from the solar wind
coming from the Sun. They are only a few miles across, but when
the sun heats them, they turn to gas and expand to thousands of
miles across. Their ellipse (orbit) is shaped like a flat beach ball.
One famous comet is Halley’s Comet. It is seen every 76
years. It’s discoverer was Edmund Halley, who discovered it in
1682.
 An asteroid is a
huge chunk of stone
and metal left over Asteroids
from the creation of
the Solar System.

Famous Asteroids The Asteroid Belt

Name Diameter  Between Mars and Jupiter
(or the divider between the
•Ceres •584 mi near and far planets)
•Vesta •335 mi  Maybe over one million
asteroids over 0.5 miles
•Pallas •326 mi across
•Hygeia •267 mi  A planet may have once
existed there, the asteroids
•Interamnia •202 mi may be leftover debris of
the planet
•Davida •202 mi
 Meteors
Meteors are made up of rock and dust.
Meteors are smaller than asteroids. They are
called meteorites when they hit planets. The
biggest meteor ever found was Hoba West and
weighed 66 Tons. There are small meteors called
micrometeoroids. Meteor showers are seen as
streaks of light. Some people call them shooting
stars. A lot of times, these shooting stars
come in showers over several nights.
 Galaxies
Our galaxy is called the Milky Way, a spiral galaxy. There are four
main types of galaxies, Spiral, Elliptical, Irregular, and Barred-
Spiral. Our Solar System is found in the outer reaches of the Milky
Way, and is a tiny speck compared to the vast Milky Way. Millions
of Solar Systems, or groups of stars and planets are in the Milky
Way. Galaxies are so big that even the small ones take billions of
light years to cross. Galaxies are formed by clouds of spinning
gasses, and some of those clouds still spin.
Local Galaxies
 Andromeda
 M33
 Large Magellanic Cloud
 Small Magellanic Cloud
 NGC8822
 NGC205
 Stars and Constellations
Stars are a gaseous mass within space that give
off light. They live more or less than 10 billion
years. One of the mysteries about stars is why do
the stars twinkle? We have the answer. As the
light travels through earth’s atmosphere,
turbulence in the atmosphere messes with some
and make them look like they are twinkling.
Constellations are a group of stars that form a
path, creating a picture. Long ago, people named
stars and constellations after animals, gods, and
heroes. The next couple slides will go in depth
with some.
 The Life of a Star
1.) Nebulae (cloud of gases)
2.) Dwarf Star
3.) Expanding Star
4.) Red Giant Star
5.)Shrinking Star
6.)White Dwarf Star
Fall and Winter Constellations in
the Northern Hemisphere
Winter
Fall  Auriga
 Androneda  Caelum
 Aquarius  Canis Major
 Aries  Canis Minor
 Cetus  Carina
 Grus  Columba
 Lacerta  Eridanus*
 Pegasus  Fornax
 Perseus*  Gemini
 Phoenix  Horologium
 Piscis Austrinus  Lepus
 Pisces  Monoceros
 Sculpton  Orion
 Triangulum  Pictor
 Puppis
 Reticulum
*Has details on “Details” page  Taurus Vela
Spring and Summer Constellations
in the Northern Hemisphere
 Spring Summer
 Antlia  Aquila
 Bootes*  Ara
 Cancer  Capricornus
 Canes Venatici
 Corona Australis
 Centaurus
 Corona Borealis
 Coma Berenices
 Cygnus
 Corvus
Hercules
Crater


Delphinus
 Hydra 

 Leo  Equuleus
 Leo Minor  Indus
 Lupus  Libra
 Lynx  Lyra
 Pyxis  Microscopium
 Sextans  Ophiuchus*
 Virgo  Scorpius
 Scutum
 Sagittarius
 Telescopium
 Vulpecula
 Constellation Details
Fall/Winter
Eridanus Spring/Summer
 Mid-November to late December
Bootes
 Long line of stars named after
mythological Greek river  Found in Spring
 One star, Epsilon Eridai, 10.8 light  Looks like a herdsmen
years away
Ophinchus
 Another star, Achernar, 85 light years
away  Found in Summer
Perseus  Greeks thought it looked like
 Mid-September to mid-November it held a snake
 Resembles Perseus, ancient Greek
hero
 Many open star clusters
 One star, Algol, has an eclipse for
almost 3 days, one star passes in
front of it and Algol fades to nearly ½
of its brightness
 A meteor shower occurs between July
25 and August 20 in Perseus
 Wow Fun Facts
 Stars change by moving, because the Big Dipper wasn’t the shape of a
dipper at first, but many years later it changed and looked like a big
dipper.
 The universe is still expanding by the Big Bang. The big bang was the
asteroid that might have killed the dinosaurs.
 There are many galaxies like M33, M32, Wolf- Lundmark, and Etc.
 Stars move approximately ten miles each second. Our galaxy is a spiral
galaxy.
 An asteroid called Ida has a moon.
 Comets, meteors and asteroids are different because we often see
meteors, but not comets or asteroids.
 Some comets are so far away that you can’t see them move.
 In olden times, comets were called a bad omen.