Dec. 12 – Astronomy

New Unit: Astronomy

In this unit we are are looking at all the wonderful amazing objects in our sky.  Check out this site to have a look at the size of our universe: http://htwins.net/scale/

Learning Goals: Understand the basic makeup of our solar system.

Success Criteria: You can name the planets and their relative sizes as well as other celestial objects in our solar system.

On a clear night far away from the city, you can see the "Milky Way", our galaxy.

Here are some definitions you should know:

Astronomy - Study of what is beyond the Earth.

Celestial Object - object in space.

Universe - everything that exists.

There are galaxies as far in our universe as we can see.

Galaxy - a collection of billions of stars, planets, dust and other celestial objects

"Milky Way" - our galaxy

Stars - a massive ball of gas (plasma) that emits a huge amount of energy.

Our closest star, the sun.

Planet - a large spherical object that travels around a star and dominates its orbit.

The relative sizes of the planets.

At this point I gave everyone a piece of blank paper and we all drew the planets in our solar system at the correct relative sizes.

Dwarf Planet - a large spherical object that travels around a star and does not dominate its orbit.  Pluto is one of many dwarf planets that have been discovered.

Orbit - closed path of one object around another.

Satellite - an object that orbits a planet.

Asteroid - a celestial object too small to be a planet.

Meteoroid - smaller than asteroids.  When they crash into our atmosphere, we see them as shooting stars.  The larger ones can cause something like this...

Comet - a chunk of rock and ice that travels on long orbits around the sun.  Parts of comets get burnt off by the sun and leave a tail pointing away from the sun.

Homework: P. 308 #1 – 7