Astronomy and other Space Sciences (Essay Sample)

SurnameTutorCourseDate
Mohamed HW
Chapter 1:2. The solar system comprises of the sun, the planets and their satellites, asteroids coupled with various gases and dust that exist within interplanetary space, as well as, comets and asteroids. On the other hand, the galaxy has billions of stars, and the solar system. It also contains gases and dust particles within the interplanetary space, and clouds, as well.3. Light years is recommended as a measures of the distance between stars because they are separated by light years that range from few light years to thousands of light years4. The planets that orbit other stars appear dim hence they are not easy to observe. In addition, they appear to have smaller sizes when compared to the stars, which they orbit around.5. When photographs of stars are seen through a telescope, they look much bigger in size and brighter, as compared to when they are observed through a camera. The best explanation is that the stars will look as if they have bigger diameters on a photographic image than the stars because their intensity of brightness diminishes, irrespective of their relative sizes.6. The Milky Way basically refers to a light band that is seen above the sky and this also incorporated with the light that is illuminated from many stars that are in the Milky Galaxy. On the other hand, the Milky Way galaxy refers to what is observed in the sky at night that comprises of the light that originates from the sun.
7. Filaments are the largest known structures in the universe. These are large strings of super clusters of several galaxies. Chapter 2:4. People from different cultures view the images that are in the sky based on their values and perceptions. However, it is possible that they could observe the same constellations as a result of the definitions that they accord the things that they observe in the sky. The other difference that can be observed is that asterism depends on different cultural backgrounds. Due to this, the appearance of stars in the sky may not show similar patterns because people from different cultures observe them at different geographical locations.5. The stars up in the sky are accorded different constellations as designated by Greek letters; therefore, this demonstrates brightness of the stars as they are observed at night. In addition, the Greek letter designation is only functions in an alphabetical order and this range from bright to faint. This means that the Greek letter designation cannot be relied on in order to make comparisons of how bright or faint the stars appear in the sky.6. In a logarithm scale, there are different aspects of brightness, which is a magnitude system. This demonstrates how the stars in the sky appear and how the human eye responds to the brightness of the stars. In addition, the human eye adapts and guides how the magnitude system operates. As a result, due to the response of the human eye, it is able to detect the brightness of the stars and this adaptation allows the human eye to observe different ranges of the brightness of stars; hence this magnitude system is derived through classifying the stars according to how bright or faint they appear at night. For instance, the stars that appear faint have larger numerical magnitude when compared to the stars that appear brighter, that have smaller magnitude values.
9. When referring to angular distance between celestial objects, the word on is used instead of in because at an indeterminable distance, the objects appear in a celestial sphere. Practically, the celestial objects are at different distances up in the sky; hence, their distances cannot be relied upon when determining their angular distance.11. The Earths equator is the best position to observe the north and south celestial poles. In addition, the best position is at 0.50N and 0.50S above the northern horizon and southern horizon respectively. This can enable one to observe both poles at the same time, at latitude between 0.50S and 0.50N .12. The Zenith at the north geographic pole will be at 900N. In addition, Zenith will be at the south geographic pole at 900 S at the south geographic pole.
Chapter 4:4. Both Ptolemaic and Copernican systems are considered to have a uniform circular motion since they need to employ epicycles. On the other hand, the Ptolemy’s system is also considered to account for the changes for the orbital velocity. Consequently, Co...