Astronomy is a science that allows the study of celestial objects. All the phenomenon that exists outside the earth atmosphere are studied under astronomy that is like gamma rays burst, cosmic background radiation, supernova explosions and many others. Astronomy also includes a study of the entire universe and the elements that surround it.
Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences available and traces of this study can be found in Egyptian monuments and Nubian monuments. There were methodical studies conducted on the night by many early civilizations such as Babylon, Greece, China, India and Iran. Since then there have been many astronomical discoveries that have helped in understanding the celestial phenomena.
1.Magnifying the Universe
The observable universe is 93.6 billion light years or 8.80 by 10E26 m in diameters. The pictorial and graphical representation of this scale and its comparison with other known, observable and measurable objects in the universe helps in understanding this massive universe in an easily comprehensible manner.
Source
2. The Curiosity Rover
The Mars Curiosity rover of NASA that recently made history by landing on Mars with the goal to explore the red planet and possibility of it harboring alien life was in the news for successfully landing on the planet. It took the rover ‘seven minutes of terror’ as they are popularly referred to as, to land on Mars.
Source
3. Our Solar System
While we usually know all the planets of our solar system, there are some dwarf planets that we might not be aware of – like Ceres, Haumea, Makemake and Eris. The erstwhile-christened planet Pluto is classified as a dwarf planet only now – which takes the count of planets in our solar system to 8 from the earlier value of 9.
Source
4. Facts about Earth’s Atmosphere
The outermost layer of the earth is called Exosphere, beneath which exists the Thermosphere, followed by Mesosphere, Stratosphere, Troposphere and eventually the earth’s surface. Together these layers of earth’s atmosphere protect Earth from the harshness of Space and from the various harmful forms of energy and objects like ultraviolet rays of the Sun etc.
Source
5. Some facts about our Sun
Sun is approximately 93 million miles away from the Earth and it takes about 8.3 minutes for light from the Sun to reach Earth. Sun is made up of 72% Hydrogen and 26% Helium while the remaining 2% comprises of Carbon, Oxygen and Helium.
Source
6. The Solar System
Our solar system situated in the Milky Way galaxy, consists of the sun along with its planets, one of which is Earth, as well as some dwarf planets and other celestial objects. Starting out with sun at the center there are four planets on the inner side, surrounded by a belt like mass of asteroids followed by the four outer planets that are then surrounded by a Kuiper belt and a scattered disk.
Source
7. Observing the Moon
At any point of time while the moon orbits the earth, only one side of the moon is visible to earth’s inhabitants. The other side that remains invisible always is called the ‘far’ side and it keeps of changing all the time. The visible side actually shows the phases of the moon and a full cycle of these phases is termed as a lunar month.
Source
8. Interesting facts about earth
Earth is very smooth – its high mountains and deep ocean trenches are just 1/5000th of its circumference. In addition, 97% of water on earth is salted and 1 million of living organisms live in the earth’s oceans. Earth’s core is a solid 1500 miles wide iron ball and is as hot as is the Sun’s surface!
Source
9. How to Save £1 Billion a Year Staying Down to Earth
Source
10. How Japan's Hayabusa Asteroid Mission Worked
Source
11. Mechanics of Solar Eclipse
Source
12. Spacecraft visiting celestial Objects
Since times immemorial, human ingenuity has insured that we keep exploring the depths of space. Many spacecraft have travelled to planets and their moons in our solar system to enrich our understanding of them. Some like Voyager have gone even farther to explore interstellar space.
Source
13. Reduced Science spending
2013 saw the president of the United States make a budget proposal that plans to slash NASA’s overall budget by 59 million dollars. If approved, this could translate into a major impediment for the present and future activities planned by NASA in the areas of space research and planetary exploration.
Source
14. Jupiter Facts
The planet Jupiter, named after the king of Roman gods, is so huge in size that it can house 1321 earths inside it! It is a giant gas planet without a solid surface and is made up of Hydrogen and Helium. Unlike earth, it only has 10 hours in a day and is the fifth planet from the Sun in our solar system.
Source
15. Solar Eclipse
This infographic provides information on solar eclipse due to happened on 14 November 2012. Observe the solar eclipse by using proper solar filter. 7.5 minutes is the longest duration of solar eclipse. Pregnancy women are advised to protect their babies from birth defects.
Source
16. Solar System Planets Scale
This infographic depicts on scale of our solar system. Distance in our solar system is measured in astronomical units(AU). 1 AU is 93 million miles, which is equal to 150 million kilometers.
Source
17. Nearest Stars
Alpha Centauri followed by Barnard’s star and Wolf 359 are the top three nearest Star’s from our Sun. These are classified on the basis of their distance from the Sun and their stellar types are as follows. Alpha Centauri’s type is M, G& K while it is M for both of the other two stars.
Source
18. The Voyager space probes
Voyager 1 & 2 are the first man-made objects to venture into interstellar travel. The Voyager spacecraft consists of a 12-foot long communications antenna, some cameras and science instruments, a magnetometer boom, nuclear batteries and plasma wave antennas. It also contains the golden record – a 12-inch gold plated copper disc containing sounds and images of earth.
Source
19. Super moon
A super moon is a term coined for the moon, by astrologer Richard Nolle some 30 years ago, that describes a full moon when it is closest to earth. Astronomically this moon is termed as the Perigee full moon. There are some four to six occurrences of this super moon every year.
Source
20. Alien Planets
The Astronomers have discovered a little more than seven hundred alien planets beyond our solar system. These planets comprise of all sorts of sizes and temperatures, but the search is yet to yield a planet with the same configuration as our Earth.
Source
