Sunday, May 18, 2008

Understanding the solar system

Follow the night sky during the course of the year, and you'll begin to pick up some forms. All the stars seem to March in lockstep across the sky. They rise in the east and set in the west, moving with a little more alacrity than the Sun. As a result, if you observe at the same time every night, the stars seem to slide slowly toward the west. Therefore, the summer sky appears so different from the winter sky. During a full year, the stars make a complete circle.

However, a few bright points of light they break the rules. Even early civilizations recognized that a handful of celestial objects do not follow the same pattern, but instead move in relation to the stars. Old called the wandering objects "planets" and, with the sun and the Moon, considers them with special meaning.

Early civilizations recognized only five planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn - one bright enough to be easy to prove that the naked eye. Astronomers using telescopes discovered three more during the past 225 years: Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Together, the planets makes a huge burden of the material in the Solar system outside the Sun.

The eight planets other than Earth fall into two observational class. In an inferior planets - Mercury and Venus - lie between the Sun and Earth, a superior planet (the other six) lie outside the Earth's orbit. In two categories show a very different observational powers.
Due to poor planets orbit closer to the sun than the Earth, they never stray far from its parent star. Mercury innermost never seems more than 28 ° from the sun in our sky. This means, it remains almost constantly in the twilight, glowing either in the west shortly after sunset or in the east just before sunrise. Despite the shining brighter than all but the most prominent stars, Mercury remains an elusive object.

With an orbit larger than Mercury, Venus can take up to 47 ° from the sun. Although it often is in the twilight, Venus occasionally climbs in a completely dark sky. But you need not contribute to that spot - Venus is by far the brightest object in the sky after the sun and the moon. It is easy except during the relatively short periods, if it happens behind or in front of the sun.

A poor planet seems conspicuous around the time of its greatest elongation from the sun. If you saw a minor planets orbit relative to Earth, the moment when it passes directly between Earth and the sun is seen as inferior. After a bad planet moves faster than the earth as quickly moves from the sun in our sky and finally becomes visible in the east before dawn. It is highest in the morning sky around the time when most western expansion, then it falls back toward the sun. The planet is then on the other side of the sun from the earth, a configuration known as superior connection, before climbing into the western evening sky. It seems to highest greatest eastern elongation, and then heads back towards the sun for the next inferior conjunction. Mercury It takes on average about 116 days to a cycle; Venus takes 584 days.

Observers have their own telescopes tracking Mercury and Venus the changing sizes and stages. Because Mercury presents such a small hard drive and turbulence in the vicinity of Earth's horizon distorted our view, there is really no hope of discerning any surface feature. And thick, highly reflective cloud permanently shroud the surface of Venus. Neither inferior planets varies greatly among the relatively long period of time he spends in the vicinity of Superior. It is located further away from Earth and then, it seems small, and his Gibbous phase changes slowly. The largest eastern elongation, the planet is half-lit. The pace of change accelerated between this strain and inferior. The planet the size is growing fast and the waning phase premature. For Venus, the apparent size increases of about 10 "very close connection of Superior to 60" in relation to inferior. The size and phase changes play in reverse as the planet moves from inferior to superior.
A superior planet shows a far different pattern. If it is on the other side of the sun, as seen from Earth, astronomers, that the call connection. The planet moves in the sky in the early morning, where it is rising steadily higher. Finally he reached the point in its orbit, where it is located opposite the sun in our sky, a configuration file called opposition. Opposition marked the best time to consider all planets. Because it towards the sun, it remains visible all night. Opposition also brings the next planet to Earth, so that it appears through a telescope largest and lights at its brightest. According to the opposition, a superior planet moves in the evening sky and finally sinks in the sun glare. The closer a planet is, the longer it takes to the cycle of a connection or opposition to the next. For Mars, it takes more than two years. Jupiter takes about one month longer than one year, Saturn two weeks longer than one year, and the outer planets just a few days longer than a year.

If through a telescope, Mars shows the biggest changes. (As the next superior planet, there is a greater percentage difference between its distance from the earth in opposition and conjunction.) Around the time of the opposition, Mars looms quite large and fascinating shows details. In 2003 (its closest approach in almost 60,000 years), the Red Planet was published 25 "across. Mars usually spends just a few months of this size in any 26-month phenomenon, so good views are more fleeting.
For backyard observers, Jupiter offers an increasingly important target group as Mars. That is partly because it is the largest planet in the solar system and partly because the distance from Earth is not so much vary. His apparent diameter at the opposition ranges from 44 "to 50", but also in connection (if it is behind the sun and can not be seen), never under 30. "Larger areas show a whole series of alternately dark and bright belt Zones. "Swirling eddies in the turbulent border between the belts and zones. The best known function of Jupiter's cloudtops is the Great Red Spot, a giant atmospheric function more than twice the diameter of the earth. The spot color now appears more of a silent salmon as a bright red, so it is not easy to spot. Look for him on the southern edge of the south equatorial belt. If you're not on the spot, it can on the other side of the planet's hard. Wait a few hours - Jupiter takes less than 10 hours to rotate once - and it should be on the Earth-facing hemisphere.

Each telescope also shows four bright points arrayed on both sides of the planet Jupiter's disk. These are the Galilean's moons, discovered by Galileo in 1610, when he had his first telescope on Earth. Watch them dance around the planet from one night to the next. Spaceship showed the four moons to worlds in their own right. Innermost Io series as the most volcanically active object. Bright, smooth Europe apparently involves a large underground ocean of liquid water. Giant Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system - and larger than the planets Mercury and Pluto. And outermost Callisto SPORTS The solar system's most heavily cratered surface.
No object in the solar system fascinated observer more than Saturn. Even a small margin shows the system of rings around the planet pale-yellow ball. It looks like people expect that - it is a rarity in the world of backyard observed. Three main rings can be transformed through a telescope. Prominent ones are the outer ring A, and only in him, the brighter B ring. The dark Cassini Division separates these two. The dusky, C innermost ring appears with difficulties to those with large areas. Saturn is smaller than Jupiter and is further away, so that it never looms as large as his brother giant. Saturn's ring system is wide enough that it is a larger diameter than Jupiter most of the time.

Saturn remains a large retinue of moons. Although none seems as bright as Jupiter's Galilean moons Chen, backyard observers on the ground can take several. Easy to find Estonians-magnitude 8th Titan, the second largest moon in the solar system and the only one with a substantial atmosphere. A 4 - to 6-inch frame shows 10th-magnitude Tethys, Dione, Rhea. Oddest of all is Iapetus. If it is west of Saturn, they lit in orders of magnitude 10th -- Two orders of magnitude brighter than if it is east of the planet.

The outer gas giant planets - Uranus and Neptune - less to offer backyard observers. Uranus lights in the 6th Magnitude and can be glimpsed with the naked eye from a dark place. Unfortunately, a telescope not reveal many details. Around the time of the opposition, Uranus shows a clear blue-green plate that measures slightly less than 4 "across. Neptune lights on 8 magnitude and a telescope by some opposition, appears blue-gray and slightly more than 2" across .

Distant Pluto shows absolutely no detail at all. You need an 8-inch telescope and a detailed star chart to a decent chance of spotting 14th-magnitude glimmer of light. The reward for espionage Pluto does not come from the display every detail, but from the mere fulfilment of the location of the outer planets.
So big as the observation of a planet or moon can be many skywatchers place of interaction of three objects at the top of their solar system to observe. When the sun, moon, earth and line up, observers flock to see a solar eclipse. When the earth lies between the sun and the moon, our planet shadow falls on the moon, and we see a lunar eclipse. When the moon comes between the Sun and Earth, the moon blocks in whole or in part by the sun from view, the creation of a solar eclipse. Eclipses occur either at Full Moon (Lunar) or New Moon (solar). Since the orbit of the moon to Earth tilts in relation to the orbit of the earth around the sun, we do not get every darkness and New Moon. Instead, they come in about six months, when the moon crosses the plane of orbit the earth at the right stage.
During a lunar eclipse, Earth's shadow gradually creeps across the Moon's bright face. In a penumbral eclipse, the Moon remains in the outer, lighter part of Earth's shadow (the penumbra) and many people are hard-pressed to see the Moon darken at all. In a partial eclipse, the Moon enters the inner, darker part of Earth's shadow (the umbra) and the Moon appears to have a bite taken from it.

Few sky events can rival the majesty of a total lunar eclipse, when the entire Moon plunges through Earth's umbra. These eclipses start as penumbral ones and progress through partial phases until the Moon lies totally within the umbra. You might think the Moon would disappear during totality because, to the eyes of a hypothetical observer on the Moon, Earth blocks the whole Sun from view. Yet the Moon normally takes on a reddish color. The culprit — Earth's atmosphere. If Earth were an airless planet, the shadow would be pitch black and the eclipsed Moon would vanish. But our atmosphere acts like a filtered lens, bending red sunlight into the shadow and scattering out blue light. It's the same reason sunrises and sunsets appear reddish. In fact, the ruddy light hitting the Moon during totality is the glow from all of our planet's sunrises and sunsets.

Lunar eclipses seem fairly common because they can be seen from the entire nightside of Earth if the weather cooperates. Solar eclipses seem rare in comparison because they produce noticeable effects over a limited geographic area. During a partial solar eclipse, the Moon covers a fraction of the Sun that can range from a nick up to near totality. Because the Sun appears so bright, however, more than half the Sun needs to be blocked before any discernible effect can be seen on the ground. The Sun's brilliant surface is also why you never should view a partial eclipse directly without a proper solar filter.
The best eclipses occur when the moon passes centrally throughout the Sun's disk. Since the moon and sun, almost the same diameter square, a central solar eclipse can only from a narrow path on Earth's surface. When the moon is relatively far from the earth, but not the entire block of the sun and a ring of sunlight remains visible. This is called an annular solar eclipse.

But the most spectacular solar eclipse of all as a whole solar system. In this case, the moon is close enough to Earth that it blocks the Sun's entire disk no longer appear. With the brilliant photosphere hidden, you can totality with the naked eye or visual aids without a solar filter. During totality, the Sun's faint outer atmosphere - Corona - appears front and center. This thin, pearly-white light is usually two or three times the diameter of the sun uneclipsed. Even after fiery prominences, hot red tongues of gas, sent from the Sun and limbs come into contact with the prospect photosphere blocked. Total solar eclipses are so impressive that many observers travel the world to see as many as possible.

astronomy.com

No comments: