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SavannaTaylor
BrianDelgado
HonorsAstrophotography
15April,2016

TheScienceOfStars

Prompt:
Whatisgravityandhowisitsignificanttothestructuresweseeinthenightsky?

Asmuchas90percentofthematterintheuniverse
isinvisible.Detectingthisdarkmatterwillhelpastronomers
bettercomprehendtheuniverse'sdestiny
fromScientificAmerican,byVeraRubin
One of the most fundamental forces known to man, is gravity. Gravity is what attracts
one object to another. For example, Newton threw an apple up in the air and it fell back down.
This is because both objects had mass and gravity attracts anything with physical matter to any
other object. Even thouh gravity is known for these big changes in the universe, its actually a
weak force. If you were to fall gravity would be pushing you closer toEarth. Whenyoufallits
usuallyquick,thisisbecauseofthesizeofEarthcomparedtoyou.
Gravity is most commonly described as a mystery by many physicists and astronomers.
To describe gravity is quite hard duetothefactthatitsaforcethatcannotbeseen.Sohowdoes
one describe something that cant be seen? Its known that gravity is the force that holds
everything to the Earth, but gravity is much more than that. Gravity expands out towards the
even
moremysteriousspace,affectingthestarsseeninthenightsky.
As the Earth spins and rotates around the sun, the constellations, stars, and galaxy that
can beseenbylookingupchange.Forinstance,thezodiacsigns.Onemonthoutoftheyeareach

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constellation of thezodiacareint
hesky,butthenextmonththeyarenot.Thisisbecausethesun
is located in between the constellation and Earth and this blocks the view.
ancient
astrologers assigned each zodiac sign to the time of year when the sun blocks that constellation
fromourview.Thesamecanbesaidforalltheotherconstellationsaswell.

The Earth is traveling at approximately 108,000 kilometers per hour (67,000 miles per
hour) in its orbit around the sun. Earths position inspace iswhatallowspeopletoseethestars
in the sky depending on how far North or South of the equator someone is. This means that,
places locatedatthesamelatitudewillseethesamestarsinthesky.Scientistsknowthisbecause
of studies done based on how the Earth is spinning. These places see the sameskybecausethe
Earthisrotatingaround thesameline.TheEarthspinsonanaxisthatrunsfromtheNorthtothe
South Pole When living on the same longitude, these people will see a different sky at night
becausethatisnothowtheEarthspins.
There is no onemodelthatdescribeseverythinggoingonintheuniverse.Todescribethe
universe there are two theories: Quantum Physics and General Relativity. Quantum Physics is
used to understand the three fundamental forces, weak forces, strong forces, and
electromagnetism. General Relativity is used for gravity in large scales.Inotherwords,General
Relativity is large scale and Quantum Physics is small scale. To fully understand gravity you
havetostartoutsmall.
There was an experiment done at Harvard University where scientists created model
molecular cloudstosimulatethecreationofstarsandhowtheycometobe.Someotherscientists
tried to argue that the patterns that they were finding in sample clouds were due to the factthat
gravity was bringing the material closer. The ending result they got was, gravity is more

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significant than they thought in scenarios suchasturbulenceTheyalsofoundthatgravityaffects

most of the material in a cloud not limited to just the materials in the core. This brings up the
pointthatgravityisallaroundusandalloverspace.
Now have you ever wondered why everything in the universe is a sphere?To start,after
the big bang, everything was a mess flying everywhere in space until objects hit each other
creating debris. The objects that hit other objectsoftenwouldcombineandgravityiswhatmade
them round. The materials that usually crashed were heavier ,like iron, because they had a
stronger force of gravity. The ironwouldheatupatthisceratedthecoreof manyplanetssuchas
Earth. Thelighterlayers areformedaftertheobjectsgotbigger.Isntthishowpeopleareableto
balance and stack objects? The heavier objects usually go on the bottom and the lighter objects
areontop.
In conclusion, the stars we see at night are due to the rotation of the Earth. Earths
rotation determines what stars you will see in the night sky. Gravity is the force that brings
objects with physical matter together. In order to fully understand gravity andhowitworksyou
need to figure outtherelationshipbetweenQuantumPhysicsandGeneralRelativity,alsoknown
as the small scale and big scale. This is all important because it also affects what we see in the
night sky and how we are able to see them. The stars are close enough to be seen because of
gravity.Withoutgravitywecouldnotseethestars.

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Synonym."
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Synonym
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AstronomyToday
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AstronomyToday,n.d.Web.4Apr.2016.