Mass: 1.99 x 10 Diameter : 1 392 000 km Temperature of the surface : 5200 i Ê Time of rotation : 25h (poles) 34h ( equator) The sun shines and warms our planet, without it life on Earth would be impossible not just for human , but for microorganisms as well. The sun is the main (though...

Near-Earth Objects are comets and asteroids that have been pushed by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth's neighborhood. They are about 4.5 billion years and can range in size from pebbles or lumps of ice, to rocky or icy worlds nearly 1,000...

Earth-Like Planet Discovered 50 Light Years Away European astronomers have discovered a planet less than 50 light years away. This planet has come to be known as a sort of super Earth. It takes only ten Earth days to orbit its sun (much like our own) and the surface of the planet is scorc...

Space Rock . Eros Eros is an asteroid but can be called a minor planet. It orbits the sun that sometimes causes it to closely pass as 14,000,000 miles next to Earth. Scientists believe that Eros comes this close to Earth every 31 years. The last time Eros came close to Earth was back in 19...

THE BEGINNING OF ASTRONOMY Early races believed that the earth was flat and stationary, with the sky rotating round it once a day. The early races also believed things that sound weird to us today like the Vedic priests of India believed that the earth was supported upon 12 massive pillars and duri...

THE BEGINNING OF ASTRONOMY Early races believed that the earth was flat and stationary, with the sky rotating round it once a day. The early races also believed things that sound weird to us today like the Vedic priests of India believed that the earth was supported upon 12 massive pillars and duri...

Towards the end of our solar system lies the smallest of all the nine planets, Pluto. In 1905, Percival Lowell, an American astronomer, found the force of gravity of some unknown planet to be affecting the orbits of Neptune and Uranus. In 1915, he predicted the location of a new planet, and began se...

Synchronous Orbits of Communication Satellites The orbits of communication satellites vary for the type of satellite it is. The type of satellite it is depends on the work it is designed for. For example spy satellites (and most of the LEO satellites) need to be close to earth to take clearer pi...

Venus is one of the brightest objects in the sky, so it is clearly visible to the naked eye. It can be tricky to see because it is always near the Sun. So it rises and sets with the Sun each day. Venus rotates "backwards," so the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east. Ancient ci...

In the late 1400's to the mid 1500's, people believed that the earth was the center of the universe. Ptolemy stated that the Earth was stationary and that the sun, moon, planets, and stars revolved around imaginary points, which in turn revolved around the Earth. Copernicus knew that natu...

Throughout the history of astronomical theory, there have been two main theories on the setup and placement of the heavenly bodies within our observed universe. The two theories are the geocentric model, our earliest theory, wherein the earth is at the center of everything, and everything rotates ar...

"For better or worse , education is a process that involves resvising the ideas , beliefs, and values people held in the past." Education, which play a increasing crucial role in the contemporary society where there is so much information that it is difficult to distinguish the right ...

A Comet looks like a star with a tail. Some comets do not have tails, and look like hazy, round spots of light. But most comets have three parts; a nucleus, a head, and a tail. The bright central nucleus may be nearly as large as the earth, which is about 7,900 miles in diameter. The head, or c...

For 2000 years, Europeans believed earth was at the center of the universe. This is also known as the Ptolemaic theory. Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish astronomer in the late 15thearly 16th century was unsatisfied with the belief that all heavenly bodies revolve around the earth. So in 1512, Copern...

The Discovery of Kepler Using the precise data that Tycho had collected, Kepler discovered that the orbit of Mars was an ellipse. Man being, as Kepler believed, made in the image of God, was clearly capable of understanding the Universe that He had created. Moreover, Kepler was convinced that God h...

Issue: What is a comet made up of? View of Aristotelian Philosophers: The Aristotelian philosophers decided that comets were disasters that happened in the atmosphere of the earth. Comets were not permanent in the atmosphere. Since they appeared and disappeared, the comets "fuzzy-glow"...

Day after day, we wake up and find ourselves surrounded by life. Most of us encounter life in the human form; when we go to school, to work or to the supermarket. Other times we run into different forms of life, that do not take the human form, and that do not live in the same environment humans liv...

Pluto Ninety three years ago an astrologer noticed slight variations in the orbit of the planet Uranus.Then the search began for a ninth planet.Twenty five years later a startling discovery was made. The year was nineteen thirty when Clyde William Tombaugh had discovered a ninth planet be...

What is the shape of the universe? Brahe's model of the universe can be explained best with this model below. (p.409, Dictionary of Scientific Biography) In this model, Brahe describes the universe with the earth at the center. The sun orbits the earth while the other planets revolv...

Astronomy Second Paper 11-27-00 I attended the Wagner College Planetarium(located in Spiro Hall)on November 15, 2000 at 11:00 for research and to observe the stars, planets and our entire solar system more closely. There was a clear dome on the cei...

An asteroid is a small or minor planets that are members of the solar system and move in elliptical orbits. Usually found between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. A comet is relatively small, rocky, and icy. It revolves around the sun. When a comet passes close to the sun some of the ice turns to...

Full title: English Summer Reading: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- "One Man's Trash is Another's Treasure"  One theme in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is that while the Earth is important to us, it means nothing to alien civilizations. The prolo...

Nicolaus Copernicus was a Polish astronomer, best known for the astronomical theory that the sun is stationary and Earth, spinning on it's axis once daily, revolves around the sun annually. He was very intelligent and was educated at various universities. If Copernicus hadn't challeng...

On February 19, 1473 Nicolaus Copernicus was born, destined to be one of the most influential men in scientific history. Throughout his years, Copernicus has contributed many thoughts to science. The Autograph De Revolutionibus, preserved in the Jagiellonian Library, is a result of work of the great...

The scientific revolution dated back to the sixteenth century and went through the eighteenth century. The scientific revolution began with the study of astronomy and physics and ended after René Descartes's idea of deductive reasoning. Religious authorities rejected the Cop...