Astronomy

After watching the great video The Cosmic Voyage, 1)  tell us about four (4) new concepts or facts that you find the most interesting and 2) what did the video show you about the concept of time and space? All initial posts MUST have at least 250 words A Cosmic Voyage w/ Morgan Freeman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQGz76_1feY&feature=youtu.be

this is an astronomy course I need to find TEN facts about life outside of earth in the future and you also need 10  references some of them have to be scholarly articles and some can be opinions but most peer-reviewed facts and references… and this is about the future and then you will need to start a paragraph about it. 

1-2 paragraphs about a historical figure in astronomy, Aristarchus, and their discoveries/achievements/contributions to astronomy.

Week 7 – Pseudoscience vs. Real Science The 2009 movie, 2012, caused a resurgence in popular interest (and in some cases, fear) about global disaster brought about by astronomical events. This was heightened by ready access to less-than-reliable information on the Internet. One of the purposes of this class is to help give you the knowledge to protect yourself from being taken in by this misinformation. Here is one web site that helps separate the “sense from the nonsense”: Information is Beautiful: www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/2012-the-end-of-the-world/ You have two options for your forum assignment this week. Choose just one of the two options below. 1) Find an example from popular culture in which real science (preferably astronomy-related, since this is an astronomy class) is misrepresented. This can be a movie, book, TV show, web site, etc. In your post, discuss the scientific inaccuracy in your example. Also, discuss how the inaccuracy is harmful (for example, does it cause people to be afraid for no reason? Or does it keep people from taking action that would be beneficial?) 2) Find and discuss an example of an Internet source for reliable science information (again, preferably astronomy-related, but it’s OK to branch out a bit if you find a really good one). What makes this source reliable, in your view? What methods can/be used to verify the quality of a science-related web site?

Write a problem solution paper between 750-850 words written on the topic (Effects on the human body after space flight).

Part 4: Summarizing Technological Methods of Kepler and TESS Summarize, briefly (2-3 paragraphs), the planetary detection method used by the TESS and Kepler spacecraft. What are the advantages and disadvantages (challenges) of detecting exoplanets with this specific method? What has been the impact of space telescopes like TESS and Kepler on our search for – and changing understanding of – exoplanets so far, in comparison to other technologies and methods used for exoplanet hunting before TESS and Kepler? (How did it change our view of what exoplanets are like?) What is the main reason or cause of such an impact, behind the TESS and Kepler missions? Part 5: Reviewing Contributions of Citizen Scientists in Planet Hunters Summarize the discoveries made by citizen scientists with Planet Hunters so far, and how they have advanced the scientific research of searching for exoplanets in our galaxy. (You need to discuss at least 2 different and specific discoveries made by them, through Planet Hunters.) Were there any discoveries, made by citizen scientists, of new types of objects and/or events that were otherwise missed by the computer software analyzing the same data, and/or TESS & Kepler team scientists? (Tip: review the Blog section of the Planet Hunters website (https://blog.planethunters.org/ ), for past and most recent discoveries.) Part 6: Personal Reflection Provide a final personal reflection (half-page minimum, 1 full page maximum, double-spaced) on your participation in this citizen science project. Some possible – but not the only ones necessarily – questions to consider are: ? Were there any surprises for you along the way, during this project? What were your most and least favourite parts of this project? ? How do you think your contributions to Planet Hunters may be helpful to science? ? How do you think this project (in our course) could be improved further?

Write a 2 page essay on any astronomy topic of your interest; you can pick something you may have wanted to know about; some ideas are: black holes, the search for aliens (see SETI Institute), life on other planets, dark matter, the Big Bang, etc. In your conclusions you can include 1 paragraph on your feelings about the topic. At the end include the names of the two sources (i.e. books, webpages etc.) that you read to learn about your topic. Size 12 font. Calibri or Times Roman. 1 inch margins on all 4 sides of page. Align text as Justify (this gives an even right side margin). Do not refer to yourself nor your ideas so don’t use pronouns such as “I,” “me,” etc. Check for common writing mistakes: grammar, punctuation, organization, flow, originality. Consequences of cheating: Copying sentences from papers you find online or elsewhere is plagiarism and could result in failing the course and suspension. It is required you write your paper in your own words.

Go to the following website and read about astronomers who have come before us.  http://www.starteachastronomy.com/astronomers.html  (Links to an external site.)     After reading about these scientists choose a team of  6 that you feel are head and shoulders above the rest.    Your team can consist of astronomers who are not on the list, but are ones you wanton your team.   Your team should include a minimum of 1 from each of the following:   1 before 1200 AD 1 from the Middle Ages 1 Female 1 Male 1 Post Civil War to Present 1 Non American or European   You should write a paragraph about each member of your team and then one identifying the captain of your team and why you chose him or her   Perhaps it is because of when they did their work, maybe it is what they did without computers or maybe it is a combination of things.   Once you have identified your team, choose a team captain, the one who would lead the others, the one who the team can not do without.  http://www.starteachastronomy.com/astronomers.html

Introduction to StellariumAssignment: Download and use the free planetarium software Stellarium.Remember…to turn in your answers for grading, hit the “Submit Assignment” Button in the top right and then submit all the work as text. Make sure to number each answer.Installing Stellarium and getting orientedTo complete this Third Hour activity, I recommend you follow these steps.Download Stellarium. Go to https://stellarium.org/ (Links to an external site.) and download the latest (v 0.20.x) and appropriate 64-bit program (i.e. Mac or Windows). If you have a Chromebook, you will probably have to use someone else’s desktop or laptop.Watch my instructional video in this module. I will explain some of the basic features of Stellarium. As you watch that program, follow along with me on your own copy of Stellarium! Even if you would prefer to step through the installation instructions that are written below, you should absolutely watch the video.Once you have installed Stellarium, explore it! It’s cool!Written Stellarium InstructionsIf you’d rather read instructions, than follow along with my video, here are some written instructions.Open Stellarium! The program will start out in full screen mode … you can access the some of the important features by moving the cursor to somewhere at the bottom (on my wide screen, it is at bottom-left),  until a panel with a set of options appears (we will refer to this as the lower panel). Tap them, or mouse-over them, to learn what they do.If you go to the lower left side of the screen, another panel will appear on the left side of the screen. We will refer to this as the side panel). Similarly, mouse-over these to learn what they do.From this side panel, mouse over or tap the star-shaped icon, probably at the top. This is the “Location window”, and it lets you change your viewing location on the Earth. Select this and a new window will appear. Select Sacramento from the list of cities and then close the window. Do this even if you live near/in and the program detects your location, otherwise you may lose points when you try to complete some of the assigned questions. Click the option to make this the default so you don’t have to keep doing it.Next we will set up some defaults. On the left Side Panel select the “Sky and viewing options button” (It looks like a bunch of planets in a cartoon dialog box.) A window labeled View will appear. Under the Sky tab, make sure the Stars box (upper right) is checked.Close this window and go back to  the side panel, select the configuration button (which looks like a wrench and a star) . A new window appears, labelled “Configuration.”  Select the Extras Tab and make sure the Show constellation boundaries button is checked!Now select the Plugins tab (probably top-right) and select the Angle Measure option (look near the top of the list of options, at the right).This is critical….click the “Load at startup” button at the bottom of the screen.Exit this window by clicking on the x in the upper right hand corner.You must now restart Stellarium to initiate these changesCompleting the AssignmentBefore you start answering the questions, configure Stellarium.Go to the lower panel (that appears at the bottom of the screen),  and find the “Set normal time rate” button, which looks like a right-triange “advance” button. Select it, turning it into a pair of vertical lines. Notice that you have stopped the clock from advancing.Let’s set set some of the lower panel buttons so that we have a nice view of the sky. (Your buttons might be in a slightly different order than mine.)Options you should have “turned on” are in white (from left to right): Constellation Labels, Constellation Boundaries, Ground, Cardinal points, Atmosphere, Planet labels, Full screen mode, and Stop Time. If you want to exit Full Screen display, select the option called “Full screen mode”  and the program goes in a “windowed” display.To set the time and date, go to the side panel and select the “Date/Time window.” Change the date to May 17 and the time to noon (12:00:00) and let’s get to the questions! (Why May 17? Just to keep us all on the same page, and it’s as good as any other date!)So you have a clear list of what to answer, I’ve summarized the questions at the bottom of this tutorial.What is the latitude of Sacramento as given by Stellarium?Now let’s move the sky to face south–you should see the “S” indicator at the bottom of the screen, on the horizon:Move the screen upwards until you see the sun. Click on the sun and you will see information about the Sun. What time will the sun set on this day? Note: Stellarium uses a 24-hour clock so the time as they list will look something like 21h 33m which means 21:33 or 9:33 pm.Change the time to 21:30:00. Go to the West (W) horizon and find Mars. What constellation is it in?Now click on Mars and find out what is its J2000 Right Ascension and Declination (RA/DEC) ?What is the altitude (angle above the horizon) of Mars (to the nearest degree)?Now find the Moon. What Constellation is it in?What time will the Moon set? What is the Moon’s phase age?Now let’s change the time to 04:30:00 on May 18 (7 hours later). Let use Find tool to spot our next object. To Find something without scanning the sky, use Ctrl-F (Cmd-F on the Mac) and then in the new window that appears, type in Saturn. Select the magnifying glass and off you go!Now you should have a screen that is centered on Saturn!Notice at the very bottom of the screen you should see the “Field of View” indicated (FOV). It will probably indicate FOV 60o., whch means that the view on your display renders a field of view of 60o. Use the Mouse Wheel or Ctrl-Up/Down (or Cmd-Up/Down on the Mac), one can zoom in (or out) for a better view of Saturn. Zoom in until the FOV is close to 0.1o. Notice we can see the rings and many of the moons of Saturn! Which moon looks the brightest? Do not confuse the star HIP 103920 for a moon!Staying with Saturn, Zoom out to about 45 degrees. Notice that Jupiter is also in the Field now. We are going to measure the angular separation between Saturn and Jupiter. To do this you need to toggle the angular measuring tool with Ctrl-A (Cmd-A on the Mac) or the little protractor icon  on the lower panel. (Note: if you cannot activate the angle separation tool, you did not install that plugin, select the plugin checkmark at the bottom of the page, AND/OR restart Stellarium. Watch the instructional video and learn about this option.)Move the cursor on top of Saturn and click and drag the cursor to Jupiter. As you do this a blue line will appear and get longer as you get to Jupiter. Release the mouse button when you are on top of Jupiter. What is the angular separation between Saturn and Jupiter–ROUNDED to the nearest degree?Make sure to get out of the angle measuring mode by pressing Ctrl-A (Cmd-A on the Mac). Now find (using Ctrl-F [Cmd-F on the Mac]) the star Altair. What is the magnitude of Altair? (This is the second line of the information given in the upper left of the screen).Find M27. What constellation is it in and what is the common name of this object? If you want to see what it looks like zoom in!While still looking at the Information about the last object, what is angular size of the object? Note: This will be given in by a two dimensional format like  0LaTeX: ^circ?12′ 23″ x 0LaTeX: ^circ?4′ 15″ , meaning the long dimension is 0LaTeX: ^circ?12′ 23″ long and the short dimension is  0LaTeX: ^circ?4′ 15″ wide.Make sure the FOV is back to about 60LaTeX: ^circ?. Find M3. What constellation is it in?Return to the date and time from Question #3. Now find the Comet named Halley (use 1P/Halley (2061) and not 1P/Halley). What is its distance from the sun in AU?Now find the Asteroid named Vesta. What constellation is it in? What is its physical diameter in km?When you finish, you can close the program by clicking on the far right icon on the lower panel.Cutting/pasting the following may help you when you are submitting your answers.1)2)3)4)5)6))8)9))11)12)13)14)15)

Introduction to StellariumAssignment: Download and use the free planetarium software Stellarium.Remember…to turn in your answers for grading, hit the “Submit Assignment” Button in the top right and then submit all the work as text. Make sure to number each answer.Installing Stellarium and getting orientedTo complete this Third Hour activity, I recommend you follow these steps.Download Stellarium. Go to https://stellarium.org/ (Links to an external site.) and download the latest (v 0.20.x) and appropriate 64-bit program (i.e. Mac or Windows). If you have a Chromebook, you will probably have to use someone else’s desktop or laptop.Watch my instructional video in this module. I will explain some of the basic features of Stellarium. As you watch that program, follow along with me on your own copy of Stellarium! Even if you would prefer to step through the installation instructions that are written below, you should absolutely watch the video.Once you have installed Stellarium, explore it! It’s cool!Written Stellarium InstructionsIf you’d rather read instructions, than follow along with my video, here are some written instructions.Open Stellarium! The program will start out in full screen mode … you can access the some of the important features by moving the cursor to somewhere at the bottom (on my wide screen, it is at bottom-left),  until a panel with a set of options appears (we will refer to this as the lower panel). Tap them, or mouse-over them, to learn what they do.If you go to the lower left side of the screen, another panel will appear on the left side of the screen. We will refer to this as the side panel). Similarly, mouse-over these to learn what they do.From this side panel, mouse over or tap the star-shaped icon, probably at the top. This is the “Location window”, and it lets you change your viewing location on the Earth. Select this and a new window will appear. Select Sacramento from the list of cities and then close the window. Do this even if you live near/in and the program detects your location, otherwise you may lose points when you try to complete some of the assigned questions. Click the option to make this the default so you don’t have to keep doing it.Next we will set up some defaults. On the left Side Panel select the “Sky and viewing options button” (It looks like a bunch of planets in a cartoon dialog box.) A window labeled View will appear. Under the Sky tab, make sure the Stars box (upper right) is checked.Close this window and go back to  the side panel, select the configuration button (which looks like a wrench and a star) . A new window appears, labelled “Configuration.”  Select the Extras Tab and make sure the Show constellation boundaries button is checked!Now select the Plugins tab (probably top-right) and select the Angle Measure option (look near the top of the list of options, at the right).This is critical….click the “Load at startup” button at the bottom of the screen.Exit this window by clicking on the x in the upper right hand corner.You must now restart Stellarium to initiate these changesCompleting the AssignmentBefore you start answering the questions, configure Stellarium.Go to the lower panel (that appears at the bottom of the screen),  and find the “Set normal time rate” button, which looks like a right-triange “advance” button. Select it, turning it into a pair of vertical lines. Notice that you have stopped the clock from advancing.Let’s set set some of the lower panel buttons so that we have a nice view of the sky. (Your buttons might be in a slightly different order than mine.)Options you should have “turned on” are in white (from left to right): Constellation Labels, Constellation Boundaries, Ground, Cardinal points, Atmosphere, Planet labels, Full screen mode, and Stop Time. If you want to exit Full Screen display, select the option called “Full screen mode”  and the program goes in a “windowed” display.To set the time and date, go to the side panel and select the “Date/Time window.” Change the date to May 17 and the time to noon (12:00:00) and let’s get to the questions! (Why May 17? Just to keep us all on the same page, and it’s as good as any other date!)So you have a clear list of what to answer, I’ve summarized the questions at the bottom of this tutorial.What is the latitude of Sacramento as given by Stellarium?Now let’s move the sky to face south–you should see the “S” indicator at the bottom of the screen, on the horizon:Move the screen upwards until you see the sun. Click on the sun and you will see information about the Sun. What time will the sun set on this day? Note: Stellarium uses a 24-hour clock so the time as they list will look something like 21h 33m which means 21:33 or 9:33 pm.Change the time to 21:30:00. Go to the West (W) horizon and find Mars. What constellation is it in?Now click on Mars and find out what is its J2000 Right Ascension and Declination (RA/DEC) ?What is the altitude (angle above the horizon) of Mars (to the nearest degree)?Now find the Moon. What Constellation is it in?What time will the Moon set? What is the Moon’s phase age?Now let’s change the time to 04:30:00 on May 18 (7 hours later). Let use Find tool to spot our next object. To Find something without scanning the sky, use Ctrl-F (Cmd-F on the Mac) and then in the new window that appears, type in Saturn. Select the magnifying glass and off you go!Now you should have a screen that is centered on Saturn!Notice at the very bottom of the screen you should see the “Field of View” indicated (FOV). It will probably indicate FOV 60o., whch means that the view on your display renders a field of view of 60o. Use the Mouse Wheel or Ctrl-Up/Down (or Cmd-Up/Down on the Mac), one can zoom in (or out) for a better view of Saturn. Zoom in until the FOV is close to 0.1o. Notice we can see the rings and many of the moons of Saturn! Which moon looks the brightest? Do not confuse the star HIP 103920 for a moon!Staying with Saturn, Zoom out to about 45 degrees. Notice that Jupiter is also in the Field now. We are going to measure the angular separation between Saturn and Jupiter. To do this you need to toggle the angular measuring tool with Ctrl-A (Cmd-A on the Mac) or the little protractor icon  on the lower panel. (Note: if you cannot activate the angle separation tool, you did not install that plugin, select the plugin checkmark at the bottom of the page, AND/OR restart Stellarium. Watch the instructional video and learn about this option.)Move the cursor on top of Saturn and click and drag the cursor to Jupiter. As you do this a blue line will appear and get longer as you get to Jupiter. Release the mouse button when you are on top of Jupiter. What is the angular separation between Saturn and Jupiter–ROUNDED to the nearest degree?Make sure to get out of the angle measuring mode by pressing Ctrl-A (Cmd-A on the Mac). Now find (using Ctrl-F [Cmd-F on the Mac]) the star Altair. What is the magnitude of Altair? (This is the second line of the information given in the upper left of the screen).Find M27. What constellation is it in and what is the common name of this object? If you want to see what it looks like zoom in!While still looking at the Information about the last object, what is angular size of the object? Note: This will be given in by a two dimensional format like  0LaTeX: ^circ?12′ 23″ x 0LaTeX: ^circ?4′ 15″ , meaning the long dimension is 0LaTeX: ^circ?12′ 23″ long and the short dimension is  0LaTeX: ^circ?4′ 15″ wide.Make sure the FOV is back to about 60LaTeX: ^circ?. Find M3. What constellation is it in?Return to the date and time from Question #3. Now find the Comet named Halley (use 1P/Halley (2061) and not 1P/Halley). What is its distance from the sun in AU?Now find the Asteroid named Vesta. What constellation is it in? What is its physical diameter in km?When you finish, you can close the program by clicking on the far right icon on the lower panel.Cutting/pasting the following may help you when you are submitting your answers.1)2)3)4)5)6))8)9))11)12)13)14)15)