Master of The Universe

1 Our Solar System

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Space Probes: New Age of Discovery

Obliquity of the nine planets. Obliquity is the angle between a planet's equatorial plane and its orbital plane. Obliquity gives rise to Season, Polar Caps and even the Ice Ages. (Today only 8 Planets are recognised as part of our Solar System)
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The Sun

150 Million Km from Earth
109 Times Bigger than Earth
Avg Temperature: 5500 Deg Cel
Composition: Hdrogen and Helium
Energy comes from Nuclear Fusion
Has strong magnetic field and violent eruptions (Plasma)
We see this as visible light and heat.
Lucky for us, the Earth has a atmosphere which cuts of 60% of this Radiation.
Sun has 99.8% of the total Mass of our Solar System.
Age of Sun: 4.6 Billion yrs
Life Span: 9 Billion yrs

The sun and its atmosphere consist of several zones or layers.

How do we know ?

Mainly based on observations from Images and mathematical calculation.
The Core makes up 2% of the total Volume but contains half of the total Mass.

Plasma of the Sun. Can reach up to 100,oo0 miles
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Jupiter

A Jupiter Storm - In the Outer Planet

The Great Red Spot is a huge mass of swirling gas, 3 times the size of Earth. Imagine a storm lasting for millions of years.
Jupiter is the largest Planet in our Solar System
1000 times the size of Earth
800 mil Km from the Sun
A giant ball of gas & liquid, so if there is life it has to be air borne
Surface composed of dense red, brown, yellow and white clouds
Takes 12 years to go round the Sun
However, a Day is only abt 10 hours
Has strong magnetic fields and gravitaional pull
Has 3 Rings around the Equator (20km thick)

Three Moons Cast Shadows on Jupiter (3 eclipses)
Jupiter has 16 satellites (moons). The 4 largest are called
Io, Europa, Ganymede & Callisto.

Probes to Jupiter

Pioneer 10
Pioneer Saturn
Voyager 1
Voyager 2
Ulysses
Galileo

Comet Shoemaker Levy 9 bombards Jupiter
In 1994, 21 pieces of the Comet Shoemaker Levy 9
crashed into Jupiter. If this cosmic collision were to
happen to Earth, it will cause another mass Extinction.
Remember the Extinction of Dinosaurs 65 Mil years ago ???

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View of Saturn's Rings (total 7 flat rings of Ice Particles)
Saturn's ring is around the Equator.
About 900 mil miles from the Sun
Takes 29 and half yrs to round the Sun
A day in Sturn is only 10hrs 39mins
A Giant Ball of Gas with no solid surface
Mainly Hydrogenand Helium at surface
Has 25 Satellites, most famous is Titan
Cassini Probe orbited Saturn in 2004
Huygen Probe was dropped into Titan

One of Saturn's many moons casting shadow on the Planet (Eclipse)

View of Saturn - Over range of Light Spectrum

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Uranus has rings and moons.

the 7th Planet from the Sun
1.8 Billion Miles from the Sun
A giant ball of gas and liquied, with Methane Ice, Liquid Ammonia, and Water on surface. The Core might be Rocky.
Takes 84 years to go round the Sun
Uranus is so tilted, som might have been knocked into the obliquity by a cosmic collission with another Planet.
Has 21 Satellites (Most Famous is Miranda)

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Neptune is 30 times as far from the Sun as is Earth
Neptune has 17 Satellites (Triton is the largest
Goes round the Sun once in 165 years
A day is about 16 hours
Does not have a solid surface and blue color is frozen Methane
Neptune was first discovered by means of mathematic calculations
Has a rings like Saturn
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Mars - One of the Inner Planets

A team of NASA and university scientists has achieved the first definitive detection of methane in the atmosphere of Mars. This discovery indicates the planet is either biologically or geologically active.

The planet Mars, like Earth, has clouds in its atmosphere and a deposit of ice at its north pole. But unlike Earth, Mars has no liquid water on its surface. The rustlike color of Mars comes from the large amount of iron in the planet's soil.

4th Planet from the Sun
Strong evidence that water once flowed on the surface evidence includes channels, valleys, and gullies on the planet's surface
140 Mil Miles from the Sun
Takes 687days to go round the Sun
Length of Day is almost same as Earth
Gravity is about 38% of that on Earth
Has the Largest Volcano in the Solar System and many impact craters
Atmosphere consist mainly of CO2 with small amounts of 02, Nitrogen, CO, and water vapour.
Has 2 tiny Moons, Phobos and Deimos
Does have possibilities for Life (though not conclusive)

Mars has seasons like Earth, North and South Icy Poles.

Probes to Mars

Mariner 9, orbited Mars in 1971
Viking Probe landed on 1976
Mars Pathfinder landed a Rover Sojouner
Mars Global Surveyor, an Orbiter
Mars Odyssey Probe Mars in 2001
Mars Express Mission in 2003 landed Beagle 2

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Venus

Earth's Twin, almost same size as Earth
At closest, it is 23 mil miles from Earth
Takes only 225 days to go round the Sun
Rotates in Retrograde direction
Venus has a variety of surface features, including level ground, mountains, canyons, and valleys. About 65 percent of the surface is covered by flat, smooth plains. Has many Impact Craters
Thick clouds of sulfuric acid cover Venus

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Mercury The Closest to the Sun

Mercury is the planet nearest the sun
It moves round the sun faster than any other planet
Goes round the Sun once in 88 days
Rotation of the planet is slow, a day in Mercury is equivalent to 176 earth days.
The Surface is much like our Moon and the interior is like our Earth

Probes to Venus
Mariner 10 in 1974
Messenger Probe in 2004 and orbit it in 2011

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Clip1: Hubble Telescope: Beyond Earth

Clip 2: Other Space Telescopes

Clip 3 The Universe and Other Specialised Telescope

Click here to go to MENU

2 Galaxies

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A galaxy is a system of stars, dust, and gas held together by gravity.

Scientists estimate that there are more than 100 billion galaxies scattered throughout the visible universe. Astronomers have photographed millions of them through telescopes. The most distant galaxies ever photographed are as far as 10 billion to 13 billion light-years away. A light-year is the distance that light travels in a vacuum in a year -- about 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers).

Galaxies are normally found in groups called clusters. A cluster may contain from a few dozen to several thousand galaxies. Clusters of galaxies, in turn, are grouped in larger structures called superclusters.

The Milky Way Galaxy

The Milky Way is a galaxy -- a huge group of stars and other objects in space. The Milky Way includes the Sun, the Earth, and the rest of our Solar System. It also includes hundreds of billions of stars. Huge clouds of dust and gases lie throughout the galaxy.

The Milky Way galaxy is shaped like a disk with a bulge in the center.

The Milky Way - An impression

The Spiral Galaxy

A spiral galaxy is shaped like a disk with a bulge in the center. The disk resembles a pinwheel, with bright spiral arms that coil out from the central bulge. The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy.

Like pinwheels, all spiral galaxies rotate -- but slowly. The Milky Way, for example, makes a complete revolution once every 250 million years or so.

Elliptical galaxies range in shape from almost perfect spheres to flattened globes. The light from an elliptical galaxy is brightest in the center.

Galaxies of a third kind, irregular galaxies, lack a simple shape. Some consist mostly of blue stars and puffy clouds of gas, but little dust. The Magellanic Clouds are irregular galaxies of this type

Origin of Galaxies: Shortly after the big bang, masses of gas began to gather together or collapse. Gravity then slowly compressed these masses into galaxies.

Whirlpool galaxy

Eagle Galaxy

A Zoo of Galaxies

Sombrero Galaxy

3 Nebulae

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A Nebula is a cloud of dust particles, clouds and gases in space. ie Gaseous Nebulae. Classified either as diffuse and planetary Nebulae

A diffuse nebula may occur near an extremely hot, bright star. The intense ultraviolet light from the star energizes the gas atoms of the nebula and enables the mass to emit light.

Astronomers believe some emission nebulae are places where new stars are forming. Gravity causes a portion of a nebula's dust and gases to contract into a much smaller, denser mass. Pressure and temperature build up within the mass of dust and gases as contraction continues for millions of years. In time, the mass becomes hot enough to shine -- and forms a new star.

Star Cluster Hodge 301 in the Tarantula Nebulae Enormous stars in the Tarantula Nebula, one of the largest massive star-forming regions close to the Milky Way

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Planetary Nebulae: bow tie shape, compose of materials cast off by a dying sun like stars as it enters its white dwarf phase of evolution
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NGC 345 in the Small Magellanic Cloud

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Helix Nebulae: The nebula, which is composed of gaseous shells and disks puffed out by a dying sunlike star, exhibits complex structure on even the smallest visible scales.

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The Cat's Eye Nebulae shows a bull's eye pattern of eleven or even more concentric rings, or shells, around the Cat's Eye
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Nebulae NGC3603 star cluster, a resident of the nearby Carina spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy.

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The Cat's Eye Nebulae
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The Cone Nebulae: Resembling a nightmarish beast rearing its head from a crimson sea, this monstrous object is actually a pillar of gas and dust. Called the Cone Nebula because of its conical shape in ground-based images, this giant pillar resides in a turbulent star-forming region.
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The Carina Nebulae are actually molecular clouds, knots of molecular gas and dust so thick they have become opaque

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The Crab Nebulae is the remnant of a star that was observed to explode in 1054 A.D. It is located 6,000 light years away in the constellation of Taurus, and is a strong source of wavelengths from radio waves through gamma ray waves The center of the Crab Nebula contains a rapidly rotating neutron star -- or pulsar -- that is apparently pumping enormous amounts of energy into the nebula in the form of high-energy particles and magnetic fields.

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The Orion Nebulae, turbulent star formation region, More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. The Orion Nebula is a picture book of star formation, from the massive, young stars that are shaping the nebula to the pillars of dense gas that may be the homes of budding stars.

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Pillars of Gas This penetrating view of the central region of the Eagle Nebula reveals how much star formation is happening inside these iconic structures.

4 Super Nova: The Birth Or Death of a Star

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The catastrophic, explosive death of a star, accompanied by the sudden, transient brightening of the star to an optical luminosity comparable to that of an entire galaxy.

A supernova shines typically for several weeks to several months

Supernovae are major element factories, responsible for producing most of the elements in nature heavier than nitrogen. The largest yields are of the more abundant elements, including oxygen, silicon, magnesium, neon, iron, and a portion of carbon, but dozens of other elements are also made.

More than five supernovas have been observed to have occurred in our galaxy in the last thousand years, including the “guest star” in Taurus described by Chinese astronomers in 1054; Tycho's star in Cassiopeia, observed by Tycho Brahe in 1572; and Kepler's supernova in 1604. In 1885 the first extragalactic supernova was discovered telescopically in the Andromeda Galaxy; some 700 others have been observed since.

In 1987 Supernova 1987A appeared in the Large Magellanic Cloud. It was the first supernova visible to the unaided eye since 1604, and its eruption marked the first time that neutrinos were detected on earth from such an event

Supernova that occurred in 1994 on the outskirts of a spiral galaxy

5 Black Holes

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The View Near a Black Hole

The Cygnus X-1 binary star system contains one of the best candidates for a black hole

Gravitational collapse begins when a star has depleted its steady sources of nuclear energy and can no longer produce the expansive force, a result of normal gas pressure, that supports the star against the compressive force of its own gravitation. As the star shrinks in size (and increases in density), it may assume one of several forms depending upon its mass. A less massive star may become a white dwarf, while a more massive one would become a supernova. If the mass is less than three times that of the sun, it will then form a neutron star. However, if the final mass of the remaining stellar core is more than three solar masses, as shown by the American physicists J. Robert Oppenheimer and Hartland S. Snyder in 1939, nothing remains to prevent the star from collapsing without limit to an indefinitely small size and infinitely large density, a point called the “singularity.”

At the point of singularity the effects of Einstein's general theory of relativity become paramount. According to this theory, space becomes curved in the vicinity of matter; the greater the concentration of matter, the greater the curvature. When the star (or supernova remnant) shrinks below a certain size determined by its mass, the extreme curvature of space seals off contact with the outside world. The place beyond which no radiation can escape is called the event horizon, and its radius is called the Schwarzschild radius after the German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild, who in 1916 postulated the existence of collapsed celestial objects that emit no radiation. For a star with a mass equal to that of the sun, this limit is a radius of only 1.86 mi (3.0 km). Even light cannot escape a black hole, but is turned back by the enormous pull of gravitation.

6 Universe

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The Universe is defined as everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and constants that govern them.

Current interpretations of astronomical observations indicate that the age of the universe is 13.73 (± 0.12) billion years, and that the diameter of the observable Universe is at least 93 billion light years.

According to the prevailing scientific model of the Universe, known as the Big Bang, the universe expanded from an extremely hot, dense phase called the Planck epoch, in which all the matter and energy of the observable Universe was concentrated. Since the Planck epoch, the Universe has been expanding to its present form, possibly with a brief period (less than 10-32 seconds) of cosmic inflation.

Experiments and observations suggest that the Universe has been governed by the same physical laws and constants throughout its extent and history. The dominant force at cosmological distances is gravity, and general relativity is currently the most accurate theory of gravitation. The remaining three fundamental forces and all the known particles on which they act are described by the Standard Model.

7 Great Minds of the Universe

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8. The Blue Planet

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9 How Did It All Began

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10 Earth

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11 Life

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12 Humans

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13 ET

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The End

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