Heavenly bodies

Astronomy (
Astronomy, study of the universe and the celestial bodies, gas, and dust within it. Astronomy includes observations and theories about the solar system, the stars, the galaxies, and the general structure of space. Astronomy also includes cosmology, the study of the universe and its past and future. People who study astronomy are called astronomers, and they use a wide variety of methods to perform their research. These methods usually involve ideas of physics, so most astronomers are also astrophysicists, and the terms astronomer and astrophysicist are basically identical. Some areas of astronomy also use techniques of chemistry, geography, geology and biology. Encarta Reference Library 2005.

Cosmology(gnvRvMwZK wevb)
Cosmology field of study that brings together the natural sciences, particularly astronomy and physics, in a joint effort to understand the physical universe as a unified whole.Cosmology, study of the universe as a whole, including its distant past and its future. Cosmologists study the universe observationallyby looking at the universeand theoreticallyby using physical laws and theories to predict how the universe should behave. Cosmology is a branch of astronomy, but the observational and theoretical techniques used by cosmologists involve a wide range of other sciences, such as physics and chemistry. Cosmology is distinguished from cosmogony, which used to mean the study of the origin of the universe but now usually refers only to the study of the origin of the solar system.

White dwarf star(

White dwarf stars, so called because of the white colour of the first few that were discovered, are characterized by a low luminosity, a mass on the order of that of the Sun, and a radius comparable to that of the Earth. Because of their large mass and small dimensions, such stars are dense and compact objects with average densities approaching 1,000,000 times that of water.White Dwarf, old star that has exhausted its available nuclear fuel and collapsed, yet continues to radiate light from thermal energy (heat energy) trapped in it during its collapse. This is the final luminous phase in the evolution of low- to medium-mass stars.White dwarf stars are common throughout the earths galaxy, the Milky Way. The first few stages in the evolution of a white dwarf are the same as for other stars. A cloud of interstellar hydrogen gas and dust particles condenses under the mutually attractive force of gravitation until the temperature at the center of the cloud is high enough to cause the fusion of hydrogen atoms to form helium . Hydrogen fusion releases electromagnetic radiation, which produces an outward pressure. When the outward radiation pressure and the inward gravitational force reach equilibrium, the star stabilizes as a main-sequence starthe longest phase in the life of any star .

Galaxy(b gjx)
Galaxy, a massive ensemble of hundreds of millions of stars, all gravitationally interacting, and orbiting about a common center. Nature has provided an immensely varied array of galaxies,

ranging from faint, diffuse dwarf objects to brilliant, spiral-shaped giants. Virtually all galaxies appear to havebeen formed soon after the universe began, and they pervade space, even into the depths of the farthest reaches penetrated by powerful modern telescopes. Galaxies usually exist in clusters, some of which in turn are grouped into larger clusters measuring hundreds of millions of light-years across. (A light-year is the distance traversed by light in one year, traveling at a velocity of 300,000 kilometres per second, or 650,000,000 miles per hour.) These so-called superclusters are separated by nearly empty voids, causing the gross structure of the universe to look somewhat like a network of sheets and chains of galaxies. Galaxies differ from one another in shape, with variations resulting from the way in which the systems were formed. Depending on the initial conditions in the pregalactic gas some 15,000,000,000 years ago, galaxies formed either as slowly turning, smoothly structured, round systems of stars and gas or as rapidly rotating pinwheels of such entities. Other differences between galaxies have been observed and are thought to reflect evolutionary changes. Some galaxies are rife with activity: they are the sites of star formation with its attendant glowing gas and clouds of dust and molecular complexes. Others, by contrast, arequiescent, having long ago ceased to form new stars. Perhaps the most conspicuous evolutionary changes in galaxies occur in their nuclei, where evidence suggests that in many cases supermassive objectsprobably black holesformed when the galaxies were young. Such phenomena occurred several billion years ago and are now observed as brilliant objects called quasars. The existence of galaxies was not recognized until the early 20th century. Since then, however, galaxies have become one of the focal points of astronomical investigation. The notable developments and achievements in the study of galaxies are surveyed here. Included in the discussion are the external galaxies (i.e., those lying outside the Milky Way Galaxy, the local galaxy to which the Sun and Earth belong), their distribution in clusters and superclusters, and the evolution of galaxies and quasars.

Nebula(wbnvwiKv)
Nebula, in astronomy, a localized conglomerate of the gaseous and finely divided dust particles that are spread throughout interstellar space. Before the invention of the telescope, the term nebula (Latin, cloud) was applied to all celestial objects of a diffuse appearance. As a result, many objects now known to be star clusters or galaxies were called nebulas. Nebulas exist within other galaxies as well as in our own Milky Way galaxy. They are classified as planetary nebulas, supernova remnants, and diffuse nebulas, including reflecting, emission, and dark nebulas. Small, very bright nebulas known as Herbig-Haro objects are found in dense interstellar clouds, and are probably the products of gas jets expelled by new stars in the process of formation.

Star(Zviv)
Star is a massive shining self-luminous celestial sphere of hot gas that shines by radiation derived from its internal energy sources.. Of all the stars in the universe, our Sun is the nearest to Earth and the most extensively studied. The stars visible to the naked eye all belong to the Milky Way Galaxy, the massive ensemble of stars that contains our solar system . Many stars occur in pairs, multiple systems, and clusters. The members of such stellar groups are physically relatedthrough common origin and are bound by mutual gravitational attraction. Somewhat related to star clusters are stellar associations, which consist of loosegroups of physically similar stars that have insufficient mass as a group to remain together as an organization.

The Ten Nearest Stars

name visual apparent magnitude and spectrum A* Alpha Centauri** Barnard's star*** Wolf 359 Lalande 21185*** Sirius**** Luyten 726-8 Ross 154 Ross 248 Epsilon Eridani 0.1 G2 V 9.5 M5 V 13.5 M6e 7.5 M2 V -1.5 A1 V 12.5 M6e V 10.6 M5e V 12.2 M6e V 3.7 K2 V B* 1.5 K5 V 4.3 5.9 7.6 8.1 8.6 8.9 9.4 10.3 10.7 1.30 0.00044 0.00002 0.0052 23 0.00006 0.0004 0.00011 0.30 0.36000 distance in lightyears visual luminosity A* B*

7.2 dA5 13.0 M6e

0.00800 0.00004

*A and B are brighter and fainter components, respectively, of star. **The two components of Alpha Centauri have masses of 1.0 and 0.9 solar mass, respectively. They are separated by 23.1 astronomical units and revolve around one another with a period 79.9 years. A third component of the system is an 11th magnitude M5 dwarf. ***These stars have unseen, planetlike companions whose presence is revealed by gravitational attraction on the visible star. ****The two components of Sirius are separated by 19.9 astronomical units, 50.1 years. The bright component has 2.2 solar masses; the faint component is a white dwarf of 0.9 solar mass.

The Ten Brightest Stars

name visual magnitude* and spectrum A*** Sirius -1.50 A1 V Canopus -0.73 F0 Ib Alpha Centauri +0.10 G2 V Vega +0.04 A0 V Arcturus 0.00 K2 III Capella +0.05 G III Rigel +0.08 B8 Ia Procyon +0.34 F5 IV Betelgeuse +0.41 M2 I (var.) Achernar +0.47 B5 IV-V B*** +7.20 dA5 +1.50 K5 V 8.6 98.0 4.3 26.0 36.0 45.0 600.0 11.4 600.0 65.0 distance in light-years** visual luminosity A*** B***

+10.20 M1 V +6.60 B9 +10.80 d

23.0 0.0080 1,450.0 1.3 0.3600 52.0 110.0 160.0 25,000.0 70.0000 7.6 0.0005 21,000.0 210.0

*Negative magnitudes are brightest, and one magnitude difference corresponds to a difference in brightness of 2.5 times; e.g., a star of magnitude -1 is 10 times brighter than one of magnitude +1.5. **One light-year equals about 9.46(10^12) kilometres; ^ indicates exponentiation. ***A and B are brighter and fainter components, respectively, of star.

Cassiopeia

Cassiopeia , northern constellation, near the celestial pole. It is distinguished by a group of five stars, of second to fourth magnitude, in the form of a rough letter W. The brightest supernova on record appeared in the constellation in 1572 and was observed by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. Brighter than the planet Venus, for about 16 months Cassiopeia was visible to the naked eye even at noon. It is named for the mythological Ethiopian queen Cassiopeia, the mother of Andromeda.

Big Dipper(mwlgj)
Big Dipper, common name applied to a conspicuous constellation in the northern celestial hemisphere, near the North Pole. It was known to the ancient Greeks as the Bear and the Wagon and to the Romans as Ursa Major (the Great Bear) and Septentriones (Seven Plowing Oxen). The seven brightest stars of the constellation form the easily identified outline of a giant dipper. In Europe, the pattern is known as the Plow, Charles's (Charlemagne's) Wain, and the Wagon; among the Hindus, it represents the seven rishis, or holy ancient sages. Of the seven stars constituting the Big Dipper, six are of the second magnitude and one is of the third magnitude. Two of the second-magnitude stars, alpha () and beta () Ursa Major, which form the outer edge of the bowl, point directly to the North Star, or Polaris, and hence are called the Pointers. At the bend of the handle of the Big Dipper is the readily visible double star known as Mizar, or zeta Ursa Major. Mizar, the first visual double star discovered, consists of two components having magnitudes of 2.4 and 4, respectively. The brighter component was itself found in spectroscopic studies (1889) to be a double star; subsequently, in 1908, it was discovered that the other component also is a spectroscopic double.

Big Dipper

Planet(Mn)
Planet, any major celestial body that orbits a star and does not emit visible light of its own but instead shines by reflected light. Smaller bodies that also orbit a star and are not satellites of a planet are called asteroids or planetoids. In the solar system, there are nine planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth,

Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Planets that orbit stars other than the Sun are collectively called extrasolar planets. Some extrasolar planets are nearly large enough to become stars themselves. Such borderline planets are called brown dwarfs.

Pleiades
Pleiades , in astronomy, loose cluster of 400 to 500 stars, about 415 light-years from the solar system in the direction of the constellation Taurus. The stars are about 1 light-year apart, on the average, and photographs show them to be surrounded by a nebulosity that shines by their reflected light. The cluster was named by the ancient Greeks after the Seven Sisters of mythology. Observers have claimed to be able to see with the naked eye as many as 12 of the stars in the cluster.

Sirius(jyzK)
Sirius (Greek Seirios,scorching), also Dog Star, brightest star in the sky, situated in the constellation Canis Major. The star was highly venerated by the ancient Egyptians, who regarded it as a token of the rising of the Nile and of a subsequent good harvest. Many Egyptian temples were constructed in such a way that the light of Sirius reached the inner chambers. The hottest part of the summer coincides with the heliacal rising of Sirius, and thus acquired the name dog days. The brilliance of Sirius is in large part a consequence of its relative nearness to the earth. The distance of the star from the earth is 8.7 light-years, or 51 trillion mi, and it is therefore one of the closest stars. It can be seen from every part of the earth. The mass of the star is 2.4 times that of the sun, and its surface temperature is higher than that of the sun. Irregularities in the motion of Sirius led the German astronomer Friedrich Bessel to believe that the star was accompanied by a hitherto unseen companion star. The companion was detected for the first time 18 years later in 1862 by the American astronomer Alvan Clark; it was later shown to be a white dwarf star.

Canis Major and Canis Minor

Canis Major and Canis Minor (greater dog and lesser dog in Latin,), two constellations of stars, the former lying southeast and the latter east of Orion, and separated by the Milky Way. According to ancient mythology, these constellations represent dogs trotting at the heels of the Greek hunter Orion. Canis Major contains Sirius (also called the Dog Star), the brightest star in the heavens, and Canis Minor contains Procyon, far less bright than Sirius but still a star of the first magnitude. Midsummer, when Sirius rises at dawn, was associated by the ancients with the Dog Star, and this period is still known as the dog days or canicular days.

Orion
in astronomy, major constellation lying at about 5 hours 30 minutes right ascension (the coordinate on the celestial sphere analogous to longitude on the Earth) and zero declination (at the celestial equator), named for the Greek mythological hunter. Orion is one of the most conspicuous constellations and contains many bright stars. One of these, Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis), a variable star, is easily distinguished by its reddish colour. The total brightness of Rigel, in the hunter's leg, when measured over all visible light, is greater than that of Betelgeuse. The third brightest star in the constellation is Bellatrix. Orion's girdle, or beltconsisting of three bright starslies nearly on the celestial equator. His sword, south of the belt, contains the great Orion Nebula, visible to the unaided eye, an emission nebula containing hundreds of young stars. Faint extensions of this nebula fill almost the whole constellation.

Black Hole
cosmic body of extremely intense gravity from which nothing, not even light, can escape. A black hole can be formed by the death of a massive star. When such a starhas exhausted its internal thermonuclear fuels at the end of its life, it becomes unstable and gravitationally collapses inward upon itself. The crushing weight of constituent matter falling in from all sides compresses the dying star to a point of zero volume and infinite density called the singularity. Details of the structure of a black hole are calculated from Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. The singularity constitutes the centre of a black hole and is hidden by the object's surface, the event horizon. Black Hole an extremely dense celestial body that has been theorized to exist in the universe. The gravitational field of a black hole is so strong that, if the body is large enough, nothing, including electromagnetic radiation, can escape from its vicinity. The body is surrounded by a spherical boundary, called a horizon, through which light can enter but not escape; it therefore appears totally black. The black-hole concept was developed by the German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild in 1916 on the basis of physicist Albert Einsteins general theory of relativity. The radius of the horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole depends only on the mass of the body, being 2.95 km times the mass of the body in solar units (the mass of the body divided by the mass of the Sun). If a body is electrically charged or rotating, Schwarzschilds results are modified. An ergosphere forms outside the horizon, within which matter is forced to rotate with the black hole; in principle, energy can be emitted from the ergosphere. In 1994 astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to uncover the first convincing evidence that a black hole exists. They detected an accretion disk (disk of hot, gaseous material) circling the center of the galaxy M87 with an acceleration that indicated the presence of an object 2.5 to 3.5 billion times the mass of the Sun. By 2000, astronomers had detected supermassive black

holes in the centers of dozens of galaxies and had found that the masses of the black holes were correlated with the masses of the parent galaxies. More massive galaxies tend to have more massive black holes at their centers. Learning more about galactic black holes will help astronomers learn about the evolution of galaxies and the relationship between galaxies, black holes, and quasars. The English physicist Stephen Hawking has suggested that many black holes may have formed in the early universe. If this were so, many of these black holes could be too far from other matter to form detectable accretion disks, and they could even compose a significant fraction of the total mass of the universe. For black holes of sufficiently small mass it is possible for only one member of an electron-positron pair near the horizon to fall into the black hole, the other escaping . The resulting radiation carries off energy, in a sense evaporating the black hole. Any primordial black holes weighing less than a few thousand million metric tons would have already evaporated, but heavier ones may remain. The American astronomer Kip Thorne of California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, has evaluated the chance that black holes can collapse to form "wormholes," connections between otherwise distant parts of the universe. He concludes that an unknown form of "exotic matter" would be necessary for such wormholes to survive. According to Hawking's theory, numerous tiny primordial black holes, possibly with a mass equal to that of an asteroid or less, might have been created during the big bang, a state of extremely high temperatures and density in which the universe is thought to have originated roughly 10 billion years ago. These so-called mini black holes, unlike the more massive variety, lose mass over time and disappear. Subatomic particles such as protons and their antiparticles (i.e., antiprotons) may be created very near a mini black hole. If a proton and an antiproton escape its gravitational attraction, they annihilate each other andin so doing generate energyenergy that they in effect drain from the black hole. If this process is repeated again and again, the black hole evaporates, having lost all of its energy and thereby its mass, since these are equivalent.

Black Dwarf
Black Dwarf, burnt-out core of an old star that no longer emits light, generally believed to follow the white dwarf stage as the final stage in the evolution of small to medium mass stars. A white dwarf cools as it emits radiation, and so over time its color shifts from blue to white to yellow to red and finally, after billions of years, it no longer shines in the visible portion of the spectrum, at which point it appears black. Astronomers call these small, dense, and cold crystalline cores black dwarfs. Such an object could only be detected with existing technology if it were part of a binary star system. In a binary system, two stars orbit a common center of mass, so the gravitational effect the black dwarf had on its neighboring visible star would be detectable. Thus far, no black dwarf stars have been conclusively detected.

supernova
plural supernovas, or supernovae, any of a class of violently exploding stars whose luminosity after eruption suddenly increases millions or even billions oftimes its normal level. The term supernova is derived from nova (Latin: new), the name for another type of explodingstar. Supernovas resemble novas in several respects. Both are characterized by a tremendous, rapid brightening lasting for a few weeks, followed by a slow dimming.Spectroscopically, they show blue-shifted emission lines, which imply that hot gases are blown outward. But a supernova explosion, unlike a nova outburst, is a cataclysmic event for a star,

one that essentially ends its active (i.e., energy-generating) lifetime. When a star goes supernova, considerable amounts of its matter, equaling the material of several Suns, may be blasted into space with such a burst of energy as to enable the explodingstar to outshine its entire home galaxy. Historically, only seven supernovas are known to have been recorded before the early 17th century, with the most famous occurring in AD 1054. It was seen in one of the horns of the constellation Taurus. The remnants of this explosion are visible today as the Crab Nebula, which is composed of glowing ejecta of gases flying outward in an irregular fashion and a rapidly spinning, pulsating neutron star, called a pulsar, in the centre. The supernova of 1054 was recorded by Chinese and Korean observers; it also may have been seen by southwestern AmericanIndians, as suggested by certain rock paintings discovered in Arizona and New Mexico. It was bright enough to be seen during the day, and its great luminosity lasted for weeks. Other prominent supernovas are known to have been observed from Earth in 185, 393, 1006, 1181, 1572, and 1604. The closest and most easily observed of the hundreds of supernovas that have been recorded since 1604 was first sighted on the morning of Feb. 24, 1987, by the Canadian astronomer Ian K. Shelton while working at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. Designated SN 1987A, this formerly extremely faint object attained a magnitude of 4.5 within just a few hours, thus becoming visible to the unaided eye. The newly appearing supernova was located in the Large Magellanic Cloud at a distance of about50,000 parsecs. It immediately became the subject of intense observation by astronomers throughout the Southern Hemisphere and has been observed by the Hubble Space Telescope. SN 1987A's brightness peaked in May with a magnitude of about 3 and slowly declined in the following months. Supernovas may be divided into two broad classes, Type I and Type II, according to the way in which they detonate. Type I supernovas may be up to three times brighter than Type II; they also differ from Type II supernovas in that their spectra contain no hydrogen lines and they expand about twice as rapidly. The supernova detonation occurs when material falls in from the outer layers of the star and then rebounds off the core, which has stopped collapsing and suddenly presents a hard surface to the infalling gases. The shock wave generated by this collision propagates outward and blows off the star's outer gaseous layers. The amount of material blasted outward depends on the star's original mass. In some cases, the core collapse may be too great to produce a supernova and the imploding star is compressed into an even smaller and denser body than a neutron starnamely, a black hole. Infalling material disappears into the black hole, the gravitational field of which is so intense that not even light can escape. The entire star is not taken in by the black hole, since much of the falling envelope of the star either rebounds from thetemporary formation of a spinning neutron core or misses passing through the very centre of the core and is spun off instead. Supernova explosions release not only tremendous amounts of radio radiation and X-radiation but also cosmic rays and many of the heavier elements that make up the components of the solar system, including the Earth, into the interstellar medium. Spectral analyses show that abundances of the heavier elementsare greater than normal, indicating that these elements do indeed form during the course of the explosion. The shell of remnants continues to expand until, at a very advanced stage, it dissolves into the interstellar medium. Compare nova. See also black hole.

Supergiant
Supergiant , extremely large, luminous star that can be seen from vast distances across space. Supergiants are stars that have evolved through several stages, converting the nuclear fuels in their cores to successively heavier elements at each stage. They often explode as supernovas when the nuclear fuels in their cores are exhausted. Supergiants form in the same way that ordinary stars forma cloud of hydrogen gas and interstellar dust compresses under the gravitational attraction of its matter for itself until the temperature at the center of the cloud is hot enough to fuse hydrogen to form helium. The central region where hydrogen fusion occurs is called the core. After hydrogen fusion occurs in a new star, electromagnetic radiation is released from the core. The radiation creates an outward pressure that balances the gravitational force, and the cloud eventually stabilizes as a main-sequence stara star in the first and longest phase of its luminous existence. The primary difference between a star destined to become a supergiant and a more typical star is its mass. Astronomers estimate that a star must be at least six to ten times more massive than the earths sun in order to have a core massive enough to make the star a supergiant. The additional mass leads to stronger gravitational forces that create the temperature and pressure conditions in the core needed to induce the fusion of heavy elements late in the life of the star. The additional mass also causes higher core temperatures in the stars early phases and results in more rapid nuclear reactions than smaller stars. Astrophysicists estimate that the rate of fusion in a star is roughly proportional to the fourth power of its mass. Thus, a star with a mass of ten times the earths sun consumes hydrogen about 104 (10,000) times faster than the sun. Such a star will consume the hydrogen in its core within a few million years, whereas a star of the suns mass will last a thousand times longer. After the hydrogen in a stars core has been consumed, the outward radiation pressure that supported the star dissipates and the star collapses. The outer layers of the star compress enough to cause fusion of the hydrogen in the layer next to the core. This creates a hydrogen-burning shell that causes the outer layers of the star to expand while the inner core of the star continues to contract. The outer layers cool and turn red as they expand, and the star becomes a red giant. If the mass of a red giant stars core exceeds a critical limit, which is approximately 0.7 to 1.0 times the entire mass of the earths sun, the core will compress until its temperature reaches 100 million Chot enough to induce the fusion of helium atoms to form carbon. The radiation released by helium fusion causes the red giant to swell to 500 times the size of the sun or larger and become a red supergiant. Because the mass of a stars core is only about 10 percent of its total mass, only stars with a mass of six to ten suns or more can become supergiants. Antares is a red supergiant star in the constellation Scorpio. It is so large that if it were placed at the center of Earths solar system, it would engulf the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion is another well-known and easily identifiable red supergiant star. The maximum light output of a red supergiant corresponds to an absolute magnitude of about 9the equivalent light output of 600,000 suns. Knowing the maximum light output of these bright stars allows astronomers to use them as standard candles to judge distances to far parts of the Milky Way or even to other galaxies where the stars can be seen. When the nuclear reactions in the core of a supergiant come to an end, the core collapses a final time. Smaller supergiants have cores that are less than a critical value known as the Chandrasekhar limit, which is about 1.4 times the mass of the sun . The core material of such stars will collapse into a state known as a degenerate electron state and the core will become a white dwarf star. Stars with cores of mass between the Chandrasekhar limit and about three times the entire mass of the sun will eventually become iron. The degenerate electron state of a white dwarf does not have the mechanical strength to support such a massive dense body, and so the core collapses further until the electrons and atomic nuclei in the core are squeezed together to form neutrons. When this

happens, the core is squeezed into a spherical shape only 20 km (12 mi) in diameter to form a neutron star. If the mass of the supergiants core is more than three times the entire mass of the sun, the neutron star condenses even furtherliterally disappearing from the visible universe as it becomes a black hole. In both cases, the outer envelope of the star is blown away to form a planetary nebula by a supernova explosion that accompanies the collapse of the core. These planetary nebulas contain hydrogen as well as heavy elementssuch as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and ironthat were synthesized in the core of the star during its earlier phases. Thus, supergiants are a major source of the heavier elements found in the universe. In fact, astronomers generally agree that the earth and all of the earths living organisms are made of matter that was blasted into space by a supernova resulting from the collapse of a supergiant star more than 5 billion years ago

Neutron Star
Neutron Star, rapidly spinning, extremely dense astronomical object. Neutron stars are composed primarily of neutrons, minute, neutrally charged particles that exist in the nuclei of atoms. A neutron star is created when the core of a supergiant stara massive star that has evolved so that it burns heavy elements instead of hydrogenhas converted all of the material in its core to iron. At this stage, no further nuclear reactions can take place to liberate energy, and so the core collapses under the mutual gravitational attraction of its own matter . Neutron stars were first predicted by Indian physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and others in the 1930s. These theorists predicted that when a massive supergiant star exhausts the nuclear fuel in its core, the core will collapse and condense under gravitational forces. If the mass of the core exceeds about 1.4 times the full mass of the suna value known as the Chandrasekhar limitthe core will collapse with such force that the positively-charged protons and negatively-charged electrons of the core will be crushed together to form electrically neutral neutrons. The resulting theoretical body was called a neutron star. The rotational speed of a collapsing supergiant core increases for the same reason that the rotational speeds of spinning ice skaters increase when they pull in their armsthe conservation of angular momentum. As material that was more distant from the center of the star moves in closer, its rotational speed must increase to compensate and conserve angular momentum. A star that originally required days or months to revolve once on its axis would suddenly accelerate to spin several hundred revolutions per second. Only the tremendous forces generated by gravitation and nuclear interactions keep it from flying apart. At the time Chandrasekhar predicted the existence of neutron stars, calculations indicated that the stars would be relatively cold and small and therefore too dim to observe through an optical telescope. In 1967, however, astronomers realized that the magnetic field of a neutron star would also be extremely condensed and would rotate at the same rapid rate as the neutron star. The intense magnetic field at the neutron stars surfaceperhaps a trillion times more intense than the magnetic field of the earthwould cause electrons moving near its magnetic poles to radiate energy in the form of radio waves, creating a signal that would sweep across space with each revolution of the star. An observer positioned within the sweep of radio-frequency radiation would observe a radio signal that pulsates at the same frequency as the rotation of the star. For this reason, neutron stars were also named pulsars because of the hypothetical radio frequency pulsations they were presumed to emit. In early 1968, only a few months after the existence of pulsars was predicted, two astronomers at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory at the University of Cambridge observed the first such pulsating radio frequency source (see Radio Astronomy). Other pulsars were soon discovered, and other evidence indicating that the observed pulsars are neutron stars rapidly followed.

One of the most compelling pieces of evidence that pulsars are neutron stars was the discovery of a pulsar at the center of the Crab Nebula. Astrophysicists studying neutron stars felt that the collapse of a supergiant stars core would be accompanied by a violent explosion that would blow away the outer envelope of the star. The explosive event was named a supernova. Many suspected that the Crab Nebula was the remains of an explosion that Chinese astronomers had recorded 900 years earlier, since it was in the same region of the sky. Discovery of a pulsar at the exact center of the Crab Nebula confirmed the theoretical connection between supernovas, neutron stars, and pulsars. The sequence of events following the formation of a neutron star appears to be as follows: The outer envelope of a collapsing star, which comprises 80 percent or more of the stars total mass, also collapses when nuclear fusion in the core ceases, but it does not become part of the neutron star. When the outer envelope falls through the intense gravitational field of the neutron star to the neutron stars surface, the material of the outer envelope gains an enormous amount of energy. When this highly energetic material hits the surface of the neutron star, massive thermonuclear reactions are ignited all over the surface of the neutron star simultaneously, blowing the outer envelope into a vast spherical bubble of gas and debris that surrounds the new neutron star. The total mass of a star immediately before it becomes a neutron star is probably about five times the final mass of the neutron star. Thus, most of the material of the star is blasted into space in the supernova explosion that follows the formation of the neutron star. Stars also lose mass in many other ways as they progress from one phase to the next. A star that eventually becomes a neutron star must first go through several intermediate phases, from a young star probably all the way to the formation of iron in its core. Thus, the minimum mass of a star whose core will eventually become a neutron star could be as much as 20 times the mass of the sun or more. The gravitational and nuclear forces that hold a neutron star together combine to create the most dense, exotic material in the visible universe. Calculations predict that a neutron star is perhaps only 10 to 20 km in diameter, yet it retains all of the mass of the stars coreat least 1.4 times the full mass of the sun. The density of such material could be as high as 1015 grams per cubic centimeter (1,000,000,000,000,000 gm/cc). A teaspoonful of this material would weigh ten billion tons on the surface of the earth. Physicists estimate that a neutron star probably has an atmosphere a few centimeters (about 1 inch) thick. Beneath the atmosphere is a surface crust about 1 km (about 0.6 mi) thick, which is made of iron 10,000 times more dense and stiff than any iron found on the earth. Despite the great stiffness of the surface material, the tremendous gravitational forces of neutron stars limit the height of mountains on their surfaces to only few centimeters (about 1 inch) in height. Beneath the superdense iron crust is a superfluid sea of neutronsa strange, liquidlike substance that is even more dense than the iron crust, yet has no resistance to movement (see Superfluidity). At the center of a neutron star is a core of exotic nuclear particles found under no other conditions in the known universe. The rapid rotation of neutron stars causes their equators to bulge, and they take on the shape of a flattened ball. When a neutron star is a member of a close binary star system, the intense gravitational field of the neutron star can distort the outer layers of the companion star and pull material from the companion star onto the neutron star. This material accelerates under the influence of the neutron stars gravity to enormous speeds, then crashes into the surface in thermonuclear explosions that release intense beams of X rays and gamma rays.X-Ray Astronomy; Gamma-Ray Astronomy. If the mass of a collapsing stars core is less than the Chandrasekhar limit, it cannot generate enough gravitational force to cause the fusion of electrons and protons to form neutrons. The collapse of such a star will instead stop at a less extreme statethe white dwarf stage. If a white dwarf is part of an interacting binary star system, it may eventually accumulate enough mass to exceed the Chandrasekhar limit, at which point it will condense into a neutron star. White dwarfs and neutron stars share a unique property: As they accumulate matter, they actually grow smaller, not larger. This shrinking occurs because the additional mass increases the

gravitational pull of the stars material for itself, which squeezes the matter even tighter. If the mass of the collapsing core is greater than about three times the full mass of the sun, the gravitational force will exceed the strength of the material, and the core will collapse until it disappears from the visible universe altogether. This extreme state of gravitational collapse is known as a black hole. Astronomers speculate that neutron stars in interacting binary star systems can become black holes by accumulating mass in the same way that white dwarf stars in interacting binary star systems become more massive.

Little Dipper
Little Dipper, constellation of the northern sky, situated close to the Big Dipper. Known to the Romans as Ursa Minor, or Little Bear, the Little Dipper may be found on winter evenings to the left of and above the Big Dipper, with its handle pointed upward. Polaris, or Alpha () Ursae Mino ris, commonly known as the North Star, or polestar, marks the end of the handle of the Little Dipper; presently the polestar is situated slightly less than 1 from the North Pole. The North Star is a second-magnitude star, the brightest in the constellation.

Heavenly bodies Astronomy (

)
A S M Hefzul Kabir

Astronomy, study of the universe and the celestial bodies, gas, and dust within it. Astronomy includes observations and theories about the solar system, the stars, the galaxies, and the general structure of space. Astronomy also includes cosmology, the study of the universe and its past and future. People who study astronomy are called astronomers, and they use a wide variety of methods to perform their research. These methods usually involve ideas of physics, so most astronomers are also astrophysicists, and the terms astronomer and astrophysicist are basically identical. Some areas of astronomy also use techniques of chemistry, geography, geology and biology.

Cosmology(gnvRvMwZK wevb)
Cosmology field of study that brings together the natural sciences, particularly astronomy and physics, in a joint effort to understand the physical universe as a unified whole.Cosmology, study of the universe as a whole, including its distant past and its future. Cosmologists study the universe observationallyby looking at the universeand theoreticallyby using physical laws and theories to predict how the universe should behave. Cosmology is a branch of astronomy, but the observational and theoretical techniques used by cosmologists involve a wide range of other sciences, such as physics and chemistry. Cosmology is distinguished from cosmogony, which used to mean the study of the origin of the universe but now usually refers only to the study of the origin of the solar system.

White dwarf star(

White dwarf stars, so called because of the white colour of the first few that were discovered, are characterized by a low luminosity, a mass on the order of that of the Sun, and a radius comparable to that of the Earth. Because of their large mass and small dimensions, such stars are dense and compact objects with average densities approaching 1,000,000 times that of water.White Dwarf, old star that has exhausted its available nuclear fuel and collapsed, yet continues to radiate light from thermal energy (heat energy) trapped in it during its collapse. This is the final luminous phase in the evolution of low- to medium-mass stars.White dwarf stars are common throughout the earths galaxy, the Milky Way. The first few stages in the evolution of a white dwarf are the same as for other stars. A cloud of interstellar hydrogen gas and dust particles condenses under the mutually attractive force of gravitation until the temperature at the center of the cloud is high enough to cause the fusion of hydrogen atoms to form helium . Hydrogen fusion releases electromagnetic radiation, which produces an outward pressure. When the outward radiation pressure and the inward gravitational force reach equilibrium, the star stabilizes as a main-sequence starthe longest phase in the life of any star .

Galaxy(b gjx)
Galaxy, a massive ensemble of hundreds of millions of stars, all gravitationally interacting, and orbiting about a common center. Nature has provided an immensely varied array of galaxies, ranging from faint, diffuse dwarf objects to brilliant, spiral-shaped giants. Virtually all galaxies appear to havebeen formed soon after the universe began, and they pervade space, even into the depths of the farthest reaches penetrated by powerful modern telescopes. Galaxies usually exist in clusters, some of which in turn are grouped into larger clusters measuring hundreds of millions of light-years across. (A light-year is the distance traversed by light in one year, traveling at a velocity of 300,000 kilometres per second, or 650,000,000 miles per hour.) These so-called superclusters are

separated by nearly empty voids, causing the gross structure of the universe to look somewhat like a network of sheets and chains of galaxies. The existence of galaxies was not recognized until the early 20th century. Since then, however, galaxies have become one of the focal points of astronomical investigation. The notable developments and achievements in the study of galaxies are surveyed here. Included in the discussion are the external galaxies (i.e., those lying outside the Milky Way Galaxy, the local galaxy to which the Sun and Earth belong), their distribution in clusters and superclusters, and the evolution of galaxies and quasars.

Nebula(wbnvwiKv)
Nebula, in astronomy, a localized conglomerate of the gaseous and finely divided dust particles that are spread throughout interstellar space. Before the invention of the telescope, the term nebula (Latin, cloud) was applied to all celestial objects of a diffuse appearance. As a result, many objects now known to be star clusters or galaxies were called nebulas. Nebulas exist within other galaxies as well as in our own Milky Way galaxy. They are classified as planetary nebulas, supernova remnants, and diffuse nebulas, including reflecting, emission, and dark nebulas. Small, very bright nebulas known as Herbig-Haro objects are found in dense interstellar clouds, and are probably the products of gas jets expelled by new stars in the process of formation.

Star(Zviv)
Star is a massive shining self-luminous celestial sphere of hot gas that shines by radiation derived from its internal energy sources.. Of all the stars in the universe, our Sun is the nearest to Earth and the most extensively studied. The stars visible to the naked eye all belong to the Milky Way Galaxy, the massive ensemble of stars that contains our solar system . Many stars occur in pairs, multiple systems, and clusters. The members of such stellar groups are physically relatedthrough common origin and are bound by mutual gravitational attraction. Somewhat related to star clusters are stellar associations, which consist of loosegroups of physically similar stars that have insufficient mass as a group to remain together as an organization.

Nearest Stars
name visual apparent magnitude and spectrum A* 0.1 G2 V 9.5 M5 V 13.5 M6e 7.5 M2 V -1.5 A1 V B* 1.5 K5 V distance in lightyears 4.3 5.9 7.6 8.1 8.6 visual luminosity A* 1.30 0.00044 0.00002 0.0052 23 B* 0.36000

Alpha Centauri** Barnard's star*** Wolf 359 Lalande 21185*** Sirius****

7.2 dA5

0.00800

Brightest Stars
name visual magnitude* and spectrum B*** +7.20 dA5 +1.50 K5 V distance in light-years** 8.6 98.0 4.3 26.0 36.0 45.0 visual luminosity A*** Sirius -1.50 A1 V Canopus -0.73 F0 Ib Alpha Centauri +0.10 G2 V Vega +0.04 A0 V Arcturus 0.00 K2 III Capella +0.05 G III A*** B*** 23.0 0.0080 1,450.0 1.3 0.3600 52.0 110.0 160.0

+10.20 M1 V

Cassiopeia
Cassiopeia , northern constellation, near the celestial pole. It is distinguished by a group of five stars, of second to fourth magnitude, in the form of a rough letter W. The brightest supernova on record appeared in the constellation in 1572 and was observed by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. Brighter than the planet Venus, for about 16 months Cassiopeia was visible to the naked eye even at noon. It is named for the mythological Ethiopian queen Cassiopeia, the mother of Andromeda.

Big Dipper(mwlgj)
Big Dipper, common name applied to a conspicuous constellation in the northern celestial hemisphere, near the North Pole. It was known to the ancient Greeks as the Bear and the Wagon and to the Romans as Ursa Major (the Great Bear) and Septentriones (Seven Plowing Oxen). The seven brightest stars of the constellation form the easily identified outline of a giant dipper. In Europe, the pattern is known as the Plow, Charles's (Charlemagne's) Wain, and the Wagon; among the Hindus, it represents the seven rishis, or holy ancient sages. Of the seven stars constituting the Big Dipper, six are of the second magnitude and one is of the third magnitude. Two of the second-magnitude stars, alpha () and beta () Ursa Major, which form the outer edge of the bowl, point directly to the North Star, or Polaris, and hence are called the Pointers. At the bend of the handle of the Big Dipper is the readily visible double star known as Mizar, or zeta Ursa Major. Mizar, the first visual double star discovered, consists of two components having magnitudes of 2.4 and 4, respectively. The brighter component was itself found in spectroscopic studies (1889) to be a double star; subsequently, in 1908, it was discovered that the other component also is a spectroscopic double.

Big Dipper

Planet(Mn)
Planet, any major celestial body that orbits a star and does not emit visible light of its own but instead shines by reflected light. Smaller bodies that also orbit a star and are not satellites of a planet are called asteroids or planetoids. In the solar system, there are nine planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Planets that orbit stars other than the Sun are collectively called extrasolar planets. Some extrasolar planets are nearly large enough to become stars themselves. Such borderline planets are called brown dwarfs.

Pleiades
Pleiades , in astronomy, loose cluster of 400 to 500 stars, about 415 light-years from the solar system in the direction of the constellation Taurus. The stars are about 1 light-year apart, on the average, and photographs show them to be surrounded by a nebulosity that shines by their reflected light. The cluster was named by the ancient Greeks after the Seven Sisters of mythology. Observers have claimed to be able to see with the naked eye as many as 12 of the stars in the cluster.

Sirius(jyzK)
Sirius (Greek Seirios,scorching), also Dog Star, brightest star in the sky, situated in the constellation Canis Major. The star was highly venerated by the ancient Egyptians, who regarded it as a token of the rising of the Nile and of a subsequent good harvest. Many Egyptian temples were constructed in such a way that the light of Sirius reached the inner chambers. The hottest part of the summer coincides with the heliacal rising of Sirius, and thus acquired the name dog days. The brilliance of Sirius is in large part a consequence of its relative nearness to the earth. The distance of the star from the earth is 8.7 light-years, or 51 trillion mi, and it is therefore one of the closest stars. It can be seen from every part of the earth. The mass of the star is 2.4 times that of the sun, and its surface temperature is higher than that of the sun. Irregularities in the motion of Sirius led the German astronomer Friedrich Bessel to believe that the star was accompanied by a hitherto unseen companion star. The companion was detected for the first time 18 years later in 1862 by the American astronomer Alvan Clark; it was later shown to be a white dwarf star.

Canis Major and Canis Minor

Canis Major and Canis Minor (greater dog and lesser dog in Latin,), two constellations of stars, the former lying southeast and the latter east of Orion, and separated by the Milky Way. According to ancient mythology, these constellations represent dogs trotting at the heels of the Greek hunter Orion. Canis Major contains Sirius (also called the Dog Star), the brightest star in the heavens, and Canis Minor contains Procyon, far less bright than Sirius but still a star of the first magnitude. Midsummer, when Sirius rises at dawn, was associated by the ancients with the Dog Star, and this period is still known as the dog days or canicular days.

Orion
in astronomy, major constellation lying at about 5 hours 30 minutes right ascension (the coordinate on the celestial sphere analogous to longitude on the Earth) and zero declination (at the celestial

equator), named for the Greek mythological hunter. Orion is one of the most conspicuous constellations and contains many bright stars. One of these, Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis), a variable star, is easily distinguished by its reddish colour. The total brightness of Rigel, in the hunter's leg, when measured over all visible light, is greater than that of Betelgeuse. The third brightest star in the constellation is Bellatrix. Orion's girdle, or beltconsisting of three bright starslies nearly on the celestial equator. His sword, south of the belt, contains the great Orion Nebula, visible to the unaided eye, an emission nebula containing hundreds of young stars. Faint extensions of this nebula fill almost the whole constellation.

Black Hole
cosmic body of extremely intense gravity from which nothing, not even light, can escape. A black hole can be formed by the death of a massive star. When such a starhas exhausted its internal thermonuclear fuels at the end of its life, it becomes unstable and gravitationally collapses inward upon itself. The crushing weight of constituent matter falling in from all sides compresses the dying star to a point of zero volume and infinite density called the singularity. Details of the structure of a black hole are calculated from Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. The singularity constitutes the centre of a black hole and is hidden by the object's surface, the event horizon. Black Hole an extremely dense celestial body that has been theorized to exist in the universe. The gravitational field of a black hole is so strong that, if the body is large enough, nothing, including electromagnetic radiation, can escape from its vicinity. The body is surrounded by a spherical boundary, called a horizon, through which light can enter but not escape; it therefore appears totally black.

Black Dwarf
Black Dwarf, burnt-out core of an old star that no longer emits light, generally believed to follow the white dwarf stage as the final stage in the evolution of small to medium mass stars. A white dwarf cools as it emits radiation, and so over time its color shifts from blue to white to yellow to red and finally, after billions of years, it no longer shines in the visible portion of the spectrum, at which point it appears black. Astronomers call these small, dense, and cold crystalline cores black dwarfs. Such an object could only be detected with existing technology if it were part of a binary star system. In a binary system, two stars orbit a common center of mass, so the gravitational effect the black dwarf had on its neighboring visible star would be detectable. Thus far, no black dwarf stars have been conclusively detected.

Supernova
plural supernovas, or supernovae, any of a class of violently exploding stars whose luminosity after eruption suddenly increases millions or even billions oftimes its normal level. The term supernova is derived from nova (Latin: new), the name for another type of explodingstar. Supernovas resemble novas in several respects. Both are characterized by a tremendous, rapid brightening lasting for a few weeks, followed by a slow dimming.Spectroscopically, they show blue-shifted emission lines, which imply that hot gases are blown outward. But a supernova explosion, unlike a nova outburst, is a cataclysmic event for a star, one that essentially ends its active (i.e., energy-generating) lifetime. When a star goes supernova, considerable amounts of its matter, equaling the material of several Suns, may be blasted into space with such a burst of energy as to enable the explodingstar to outshine its entire home galaxy.

Supergiant
Supergiant , extremely large, luminous star that can be seen from vast distances across space. Supergiants are stars that have evolved through several stages, converting the nuclear fuels in their cores to successively heavier elements at each stage. They often explode as supernovas when the nuclear fuels in their cores are exhausted. Supergiants form in the same way that ordinary stars forma cloud of hydrogen gas and interstellar dust compresses under the gravitational attraction of its matter for itself until the temperature at the center of the cloud is hot enough to fuse hydrogen to form helium. The central region where hydrogen fusion occurs is called the core. After hydrogen fusion occurs in a new star, electromagnetic radiation is released from the core. The radiation creates an outward pressure that balances the gravitational force, and the cloud eventually stabilizes as a main-sequence stara star in the first and longest phase of its luminous existence.

Neutron Star
Neutron Star, rapidly spinning, extremely dense astronomical object. Neutron stars are composed primarily of neutrons, minute, neutrally charged particles that exist in the nuclei of atoms. A neutron star is created when the core of a supergiant stara massive star that has evolved so that it burns heavy elements instead of hydrogenhas converted all of the material in its core to iron. At this stage, no further nuclear reactions can take place to liberate energy, and so the core collapses under the mutual gravitational attraction of its own matter . Neutron stars were first predicted by Indian physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and others in the 1930s. These theorists predicted that when a massive supergiant star exhausts the nuclear fuel in its core, the core will collapse and condense under gravitational forces. If the mass of the core exceeds about 1.4 times the full mass of the suna value known as the Chandrasekhar limitthe core will collapse with such force that the positively-charged protons and negatively-charged electrons of the core will be crushed together to form electrically neutral neutrons. The resulting theoretical body was called a neutron star.

Little Dipper
Little Dipper, constellation of the northern sky, situated close to the Big Dipper. Known to the Romans as Ursa Minor, or Little Bear, the Little Dipper may be found on winter evenings to the left of and above the Big Dipper, with its handle pointed upward. Polaris, or Alpha () Ursae Minoris, commonly known as the North Star, or polestar, marks the end of the handle of the Little Dipper; presently the polestar is situated slightly less than 1 from the North Pole. The North Star is a second-magnitude star, the brightest in the constellation.

Solar System

A S M Hefzul Kabir

Solar system is assemblage consisting of the Sunan average star in the Milky Way Galaxyand those bodies orbiting around it: 9 major planets, at least 60 planetary satellites, countless asteroids and comets, and the vast interplanetary medium. Four of the major planets have ring systems, and seven have one or more satellites. The several thousand minor planets, or asteroids, are predominantly in orbits between Mars and Jupiter, while most of the several billion comets travel around the Sun in a spherical shell approximately 50,000 times farther out than the Earth. The

interplanetary mediuman exceedingly tenuous plasma (ionized gas) laced with concentrations of dustextends outward from the Sun to great distances. Observations of the motions of the Sun, the Moon, and the visibleplanets by early investigators gave rise to the science of astronomy. These objects are still studied today in an attempt to understand their origin and evolution, which can aid in determining whether there may be other similar systems among the millions of stars in the galaxy. General considerations: Containing more than 99 percent of the mass of the solar system, theSun lies at the centre of the system; all the planets (and the asteroids) move around it in elliptical orbits in the same direction as the Sun rotates. Looking down on the system from a vantage point above the North Pole of the Earth, an observer would find that all the orbital motions are in a counterclockwise direction. The shape of an ellipse is defined in terms of its eccentricity, e. For a circle, e = 0; for a parabola, e = 1.0. Venus and Neptune have the most circular orbits, with eccentricities of 0.007 and 0.009, respectively. Another attribute of a planet's orbit is inclination, which is the angle that it makes with the plane of the Earth's orbit. The closest and most distant planets have the greatest inclinations: Mercury's orbit is inclined at 7 and Pluto's at 17. The earliest of such theories were certainly much less constrained. A scientific approach to the origin of the solar system became possible only after the publication of Isaac Newton's laws of motion and gravitation in 1687. Even after this breakthrough, many years elapsed while scientists struggled with applications of Newton's laws to explain the apparent motions of planets, satellites, comets, and asteroids. Meanwhile, the first semblance of a modern theory for solar system origin was proposed by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant in 1755. Kant's central idea was that the system began as a cloud of dispersed particles. He assumed that the mutual gravitational attractions of the particles caused them to start moving and colliding, at which point chemical forces kept them bonded together. As some of these aggregates became larger than others, they grew still more rapidly, ultimately forming the planets. Because Kant was not highly versed in either physics or mathematics, he did not recognize the intrinsic limitations of his primitive approach. His model does not account for planets moving around the Sun in the same direction and in the same plane, as they are observed to do, nor does it explain the revolution of planetary satellites. A significant step forward was made by Pierre-Simon Laplace of France some 40 years later. Laplace was a brilliant mathematician who was particularly successful in the field of celestial mechanics. After publishing a monumental treatise on this subject, Laplace wrote a popular book on astronomy, with anappendix in which he made some suggestions about the origin of the solar system. It is this relatively minor work for which he is best remembered. Laplace's model begins with the Sun already formed and its atmosphere extending beyond the distance at which the farthest planet would be created. Knowing nothing about the source of energy in stars, Laplace assumed that the rotating Sun would start to cool as it radiated away its heat. In response to this cooling, as the pressure exerted by its gases declined, the Sun contracted. Owing to the law of conservation of angular momentum, the decrease in size would have to be accompanied by an increase in the Sun's rotational velocity. Centrifugal acceleration pushed the material in the atmosphere outward, while the gravitational attraction pulled it toward the central mass; when these forces just balanced, a ring of material was left behind. This process would have continued through the formation of several concentric rings, each of which subsequently coalesced to form a planet. The satellites are thought to have originated from similar rings produced by the forming planets.

Laplace's model led naturally to the observed result of planets revolving around the Sun in the same plane and in the same direction as the Sun rotates. Because the theory of Laplace incorporated Kant's idea of planets coalescing from dispersed material, these two approaches for planet formation are often combined in a single model called the Kant-Laplace nebular hypothesis. This model for solar system formation was widely accepted for about 100 years. During this period, the apparent regularity of motions in the solar system was contradicted by the discovery of asteroids with highly eccentric orbits and satellites with retrograde orbits. Another problem with the nebular hypothesis was the fact that, while the Sun contains 99.9 percent of the mass of the solar system, the planets (principally the outer planets) carry more than 99 percent of the system's angular momentum. To conform to this theory, either the Sun would have to be rotating more rapidly or the planets would have to be revolving around it more slowly. In the early decades of the 20th century, several scientists independently decided that these deficiencies of the nebular hypothesis were so great that it was no longer tenable. The Americans Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin and Forest Ray Moulton, along with Sir James Jeans and Sir Harold Jeffreys, bothof Britain, independently developed variations on the idea that the planets were formed catastrophicallyi.e., by the close encounter of the Sun with another star. The basis of this model was that, when the two bodies passed at close range, material would be drawn out from one or both stars, and this material would later coalesce to form planets. A somewhat discouraging aspect of this theory was the implication that the formation of solar systems must be extremely rare, because sufficiently close encounters between stars occur very seldom, and thus very few would have taken place during the lifetime of the galaxy. The next significant development occurred during the middle of the 20th century, as scientists became more aware of the processes by which stars themselves must form and acquired a more mature understanding of the behaviour of gases under astrophysical conditions. This perspective led to the realization that hot gases stripped from a stellar atmosphere would simply dissipate in space; they would not condense to form planets. Hence the basic idea of solar system formation through stellar encounters was physically impossible. Furthermore, the growth in knowledge about the interstellar mediumthe gas and dust distributed in the space separating the starsindicated that large clouds of such matter exist and that stars form in these clouds. Planets must somehow be created in the process that forms the stars themselves. This awareness prompted scientists to reconsider certain basic processes that resembled some of theearlier notions of Kant and Laplace. Modern ideas: The current approach is to treat the origin of the solar system as part of the general problem of star formation. A steadily increasing amount of observational data is available to constrain models for this process. This information ranges from observations of star-forming regions in giant interstellar clouds to subtle clues revealed in the existing chemical composition of the objects present in the solar system. The current paradigm for solar system origin suggests that its formation began with the collapse of part of an interstellar cloud of gas and dust, with an initial mass only 10 to 20 percent larger than the present mass of the Sun. This collapse could be initiatedby random fluctuations of density within the cloud, one or more of which might result in the accumulation of enough material to cause the cloud to collapse. The initial cloud would have to be roughly spherical in shape. Because it is revolving around the centre of the galaxy, the outer edge of the cloud (i.e., the one farthest from the galactic centre) moves more slowly than the inner part. Hence the collapse of the cloud would cause it to rotate, and in order to conserve angular momentum the speed ofrotation would increase as the cloud contracts. As the contraction continues, the cloud flattens, as it is easier for matterto follow the attraction of gravity along the axis of rotation than perpendicular to it, where the opposing

centrifugal force is greatest. Thus a flattened disk is formed around a central condensation (as in the model of Laplace). This configuration, commonly referred to as the solar nebula, would resemble the shape of a typical spiral galaxy on an enormously reduced scale. As gas and dust are pulled in toward the central condensation, their potential energy is converted to kinetic energy and the temperature of the material rises. Ultimately the temperature becomes great enough in the interior of the condensation for nuclear reactions to begin, thereby giving birth to a star.

Comet
Comet (Latin stella cometa, hairy star) is relatively small, icy celestial body revolving around the Sun. When a comet nears the Sun, some of the ice in the comet turns into gas. The gas and loose dust freed from the ice create a long, luminous tail that streams behind the comet.

Natural Satellite
Natural Satellite is a celestial body that orbits a larger celestial body. The larger body is referred to as the satellites primary. Natural satellites that orbit planets are often called moons. The best-known natural satellite is Earth's Moon. The Moon is unusually large relative to the size of its primary (Earth); in fact, it is significantly larger than the planet Pluto. The Moons surface, like the surfaces of most of the natural satellites in the solar system, is heavily cratered and geologically inactive.

Asteroid(Mnvby)
Asteroid is one of the many small or minor rocky planetoids that are members of the solar system and that move in elliptical orbits primarily between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Asteroid 243 Ida Asteroids are chunks of rock and metal too small to be considered planets. They orbit the Sun and are situated primarily between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Asteroid 433 Eros In February 2000, the Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) Shoemaker spacecraft reached the asteroid 433 Eros and began transmitting images back to scientists on Earth. This image, taken on February 14, is detailed enough to show the boulders and craters that dot Eross surface.Asteroid Collision with Earth Many scientists believe that a large asteroid or comet struck Earth about 65 million years ago, changing the Earths climate enough to kill off the dinosaurs.

Gaspra, an asteroid of the main belt, in a composite of two images taken by the Galileo spacecraft during its flyby on October 29, 1991. Pocked with numerous small craters, Gaspra measures about 20 km in its longest dimension. Its irregular shape and groovelike linear markings suggest that it was once part of a larger body that experienced one or more shattering collisions. Colours in the composite image have been enhanced by computer to highlight subtle variations in reflectivity and other surface characteristics.

NASA/JPL/Caltech

Meteorite( Dv)
Meteorite, meteor that reaches the surface of Earth or of another planet before it is entirely consumed. Meteorites found on Earth are classified into types, depending on their composition: irons, those composed chiefly of iron, a small percentage of nickel, and traces of other metals such as cobalt; stones, stony meteors consisting of silicates; and stony irons, containing varying proportions of both iron and stone.
Characteristic
Equatorial radius (Earth radii) Equatorial inclination (degrees) Mass (Earth masses) Average density (g/cm ) Rotational period (days) Orbital period (years) Orbital eccentricity (ratio) Orbital inclination (degrees) Moons (number) Planet's radius
3

Mercury
0.3825 0.01 0.055 5.4 58.6 0.2408 0.206 7 0 expressed as

Venus
0.9488 2.64 0.815 5.2 -240 0.6152 0.7233 0.00674 3.39 0 a

Earth
1 23.5 1 5.5 1 1 1 0.0167 0.0003 1

Mars
25.2 0.107 3.9 1.03 1.881 1.524 1.85 2

Jupiter
3.13 318 1.3 0.414 11.86 5.203 1.30 39 of

Saturn
9.449 26.7 95.2 0.69 0.444 29.46 9.59 0.0576 2.49 32 Earth's

Uranus Neptune
4.007 82.2 14.5 1.3 -0.718 84.01 19.10 0.0497 0.772 27 radius 3.883 28.3 17.1 1.6 0.671 164.8 30 0.00995 1.77 8 (6,378

Pluto
0.1874 57.4 0.002 1.8 -6.4 247.9 39.30 0.248 17.2 1 km)

0.5325 11.21

Average distance from the Sun (AUs) 0.3871

0.0935 0.0489

multiple

Planet's mass expressed as a multiple of Earth's mass (5.971024 kg)

Mercury Mercury is one of the planets in the solar system. Mercury orbits closest to the Sun of all the planets, at an average distance of approximately 58 million km . The planets diameter is 4,879 km, and its volume and mass are about one-eighteenth that of Earth. Mercurys mean density is approximately equal to that of Earth and is higher than that of any of the other planets. The force of gravity on the planet's surface is about one-third of that on Earth's surface or about twice the surface gravity on the Moon.

Venus Venus is one of the planets in the solar system, the second in distance from the Sun. Except for the Sun and the Moon, Venus is the brightest object in the sky. The planet is called the morning star when it appears in the east at sunrise, and the evening star when it is in the west at sunset. In ancient times the evening star was called Hesperus and the morning star Phosphorus or Lucifer. Because of the distances of the orbits of Venus and Earth from the Sun, Venus is never visible more than three hours before sunrise or three hours after sunset. When viewed through a telescope, the planet exhibits phases like the Moon. Maximum brilliance (a stellar magnitude of -4.4, 15 times as bright as the brightest star) is seen in the crescent phase when Venus is closer to Earth. Venuss full phase appears smaller and dimmer because it occurs when the planet is on the far side of the Sun from Earth. The phases and positions of Venus in the sky repeat every 1.6 years . Transits of Venus (when the planet moves across the face of the Sun as seen from Earth) are rare, occurring in pairs at intervals of a little more than a century. The next two transits will be in 2004 and 2012. Earth Earth is one of nine planets in the solar system, the only planet known to harbor life, and the home of human beings. From space Earth resembles a big blue marble with swirling white clouds floating above blue oceans. About 71 percent of Earths surface is covered by water, which is essential to life. The rest is land, mostly in the form of continents that rise above the oceans. Earth An oxygen-rich and protective atmosphere, moderate temperatures, abundant water, and a varied chemical composition enable Earth to support life, the only planet known to harbor life. The planet is composed of rock and metal, which are present in molten form beneath its surface. Earths surface is surrounded by a layer of gases known as the atmosphere, which extends upward from the surface, slowly thinning out into space. Below the surface is a hot interior of rocky material and two core layers composed of the metals nickel and iron in solid and liquid form. Mars Mars is one of the planets in the solar system, it is the fourth planet from the Sun and orbits the Sun at an average distance of about 228 million km . Mars is named for the Roman god of war and is sometimes called the red planet because it appears fiery red in Earths night sky. Mars is a relatively small planet, with about half the diameter of Earth and about one-tenth Earths mass. The force of gravity on the surface of Mars is about one-third of that on Earth. Mars has twice the diameter and twice the surface gravity of Earths Moon. The surface area of Mars is almost exactly the same as the surface area of the dry land on Earth. Mars is believed to be about the same age as Earth, having formed from the same spinning, condensing cloud of gas and dust that formed the Sun and the other planets about 4.6 billion years ago.

Jupiter Jupiter is fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet in the solar system. The fourth brightest object in Earths sky, after the Sun, the Moon, and Venus, Jupiter is more than three times brighter than Sirius, the brightest star. Due to its prominence in the sky, the Romans named the planet for their chief god, Jupiter. Jupiter orbits the Sun at an average distance of 780 million km , which is about five times the distance from Earth to the Sun. Jupiters year, or the time it takes to complete an orbit about the

Sun, is 11.9 Earth years, and its day, or the time it takes to rotate on its axis, is about 9.9 hours, less than half an Earth day. Unlike the rocky inner planets of the solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars), Jupiter is a ball of dense gas and has no solid surface. Jupiter may have a core composed of rock-forming minerals like those trapped in comet ices, but the core makes up less than 5 percent of the planets mass. The force of gravity at the level of the highest clouds in Jupiters atmosphere is about 2.5 times the force of gravity at Earths surface. . Jupiter, encircled by at least 61 satellites and a series of thin rings, is similar to a miniature solar system. For this reason, Jupiter is of great interest to planetary scientists and others who are concerned with the formation of planetary systems. Sixteen of Jupiter's moons are discussed in this section; the remaining 45 are relatively recent discoveries and have not yet been extensively studied. Eleven of these newly discovered moons have been named: Themisto, Iocaste, Harpalyke, Praxidike, Taygete, Chalden, Kalyke, Callirrhoe, Megaclite, Isonoe, and Erinome. The rest are referred to by numbers that reflect the year and order in which they were discovered. Saturn Saturn , sixth planet in order of distance from the Sun, and the second largest in the solar system. Saturn's most distinctive feature is its ring system, which was first seen in 1610 by Italian scientist Galileo, using one of the first telescopes. He did not understand that the rings were separate from the body of the planet, so he described them as handles (ansae). The Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens was the first to describe the rings correctly. In 1655, desiring further time to verify his explanation without losing his claim to priority, Huygens wrote a series of letters in code, which when properly arranged formed a Latin sentence that read in translation, It is girdled by a thin flat ring, nowhere touching, inclined to the ecliptic. The rings are named in order of their discovery, and from the planet outward they are known as the D, C, B, A, F, G, and E rings. These rings are now known to comprise more than 100,000 individual ringlets, each of which circles the planet. As seen from Earth, Saturn appears as a yellowish objectone of the brightest in the night sky. Observed through a telescope, the A and B rings are easily visible, whereas only under optimal conditions can the D and E rings be seen. Sensitive Earth-based telescopes have detected nine satellites, and in the haze of Saturn's gaseous envelope, pale belts and zones parallel to the equator can be distinguished. Saturn has 18 confirmed moons and as many as 14 proposed new, unconfirmed moons. In the past many proposed new moons have turned out to be just dense spots in Saturn's rings, but the Cassini spacecraft should be able to definitively catalog Saturn's moons. The diameters of Saturn's satellites range from 20 to 5,150 km Uranus Uranus is a major planet in the solar system, seventh planet from the Sun. Uranus revolves outside the orbit of Saturn and inside the orbit of Neptune . The average distance from Uranus to the Sun is 2.87 billion km. Uranus has an inner rocky core that is surrounded by a vast ocean of water mixed with rocky material. From the core, this ocean extends upward until it meets an atmosphere of hydrogen, helium, and methane. Uranus has 11 known rings and 27 confirmed moons. The mass of Uranus is 14.5 times greater than the mass of Earth, and its volume is 67 times greater than that of Earth. The force of gravity at the surface of Uranus is 1.17 times the force of gravity on Earth. Because of its great size and mass, scientists classify Uranus as one of the giant or Jovian (like Jupiter) planetsalong with Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune. Uranus was the first planet that people discovered by using a telescope. Sir William Herschel, a German-born British musician and astronomer, discovered the planet in 1781.

Neptune Neptune is major planet in the solar system, eighth planet from the Sun and fourth largest in diameter. Neptune maintains an almost constant distance, about 4.5 billion km, from the Sun. Neptune revolves outside the orbit of Uranus and for most of its orbit moves inside the elliptical path of the outermost planet Pluto . Every 248 years, Plutos elliptical orbit brings the planet inside Neptunes nearly circular orbit for about 20 years, temporarily making Neptune the farthest planet from the Sun. The last time Plutos orbit brought it inside Neptunes orbit was in 1979. In 1999 Plutos orbit carried it back outside Neptunes orbit.

Pluto Pluto is ninth planet from the Sun and outermost known planet of the solar system. Pluto revolves about the Sun once in 247.7 Earth years at an average distance of 5.91 billion km . The planets orbit is so eccentric that at certain points along its path Pluto is slightly closer to the Sun than is Neptune. Pluto is about 2,360 km in diameter, about two-thirds the size of Earth's moon. Discovered in 1930, Pluto is the most recent planet in the solar system to be detected. Pluto is far away from Earth, and no spacecraft has yet been sent to the planet. All the information astronomers have on Pluto comes from observation through large telescopes. Pluto was discovered as the result of a telescopic search inaugurated in 1905 by American astronomer Percival Lowell, who postulated the existence of a distant planet beyond Neptune as the cause of slight irregularities in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. Continued after Lowells death by members of the Lowell Observatory staff, the search ended successfully in 1930, when American astronomer Clyde William Tombaugh found Pluto.

The planets of the solar system, in a montage of images scaled to show the approximate sizes of the bodies relative to one another. Outward from the Sun, which is represented to scale by the yellow segment at the extreme left, are the four rocky terrestrial planetsMercury, Venus, Earth, and Marsthe four hydrogen-rich giant planetsJupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptuneand the icy, comparatively tiny Pluto. NASA/Lunar and Planetary Laboratory

Supernova 1987A The Hubble Space Telescope took this photo of the aftermath of the 1987A supernova in 1994, seven years after the light from the exploding star first reached Earth. The supernova occurred in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. Scientists do not yet agree on the mechanism that created the rings surrounding the remnants of the star. NASA

Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2005. 1993-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.