Project Hyperspace

Introduction
Why are we here?
To teach about the Universe, the Solar System and Space

Who are we?

A group of secondary 2 students from Hwa Chong Institution

How are we going to do so?

Powerpoint presentations and interactive games

Day 1
The Universe Galaxies The Solar System Stars Planets Small Solar System Bodies Deep Space Objects

Terminology
Light Year The distance at which light travels in a year, 9.5 trillion kilometers. Astronomical Unit - 149597870.7 kilometers, or the approximate distance of the Earth to the Sun. Cosmic Year the time it takes for the Sun to travel around the Milky Way Galaxy, approximately 225 million Earth-years

The Universe
Is defined as everything that exists Contains everything that can both be seen and invisible to us 83% of it contains invisible matter, or dark matter The other 17% consists of what we can see matter. The Universe is mostly made up of empty space, hence the name Space

The Universe
The size of the universe is unknown, however, it is expanding at a rate of about 55km per second the Hubble constant When the Universe is 1370 billion years old, about 100 times older than it is now, all the stars will be dead and the galaxies fading The average temperature in space is about -270rC, just 3rC above absolute zero

The Universe
Big Bang The first galaxy is Several hundred thousand years later, the formed around 480 million years after the temperature was about 300 degrees and Big Bang the first atoms were formed 5 billion years ago, the Sun was formed

After 3 minutes, the temperature was 1 billion degrees

The Milky Way begins to form, 2 billion years after the Big Bang

10 seconds after the Big Bang, protons, neutrons and electrons were already formed

The first star was formed about 30 million years after the Big Bang

The Solar System

Dominating the small corner of the Universe is the Sun As it rushes through space, it carries a collection of planets, moons, asteroids, meteoroids, and comets Together, these make up the solar system.

The Solar System

The heat and light from the Sun makes Mercury and Venus hostile planets unable to support life However, the same heat and light breathe life into Earth The Sun was born nearly 5 billion years ago from a cloud of gas and dust Halfway through its life, it will die in 5 billion more years, swallowing up the Earth When this happens, all life on Earth will perish

Our star, the Sun

A globe the size of the Sun would swallow a million Earths The Sun accounts for 99.8% of the mass of the Solar System, Jupiter accounts for more than half of the rest Energy produced in the core of the Sun takes up to a million years to reach the surface The Sun lose 4 metric tons of mass every second. This mass is converted to heat and light energy, through nuclear fusion

The Planets
There are eight planets in the Solar System The first four planets are terrestrial, or rocky planets Mercury, named after the messenger of Gods, is the nearest planet to the Sun Venus, the Goddess of love, is the Earth s sister planet, second from the Sun Earth, our home planet is third Mars, named for the god of war is a reddish planet, the last of the inner rocky planets

Mercury
Mercury was the Roman messenger for the gods. The Greeks named him Hermes Mercury is the smallest planet in the Solar System. It is so small that if you weigh 70 kg on Earth, you would only weigh 27 kg on Mercury Mercury has an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium, however, most of it has been blown away by the solar winds

Mercury
Because of its slow rotation, it can get as cold as -184rC at night and 465rC in the day It has craters and basins like our moon A day on Mercury is about 58.7 Earth days, nearly two Earth months! Because its atmosphere is made up of hydrogen and helium, it is hostile to life

Venus
Venus was the Roman goddess of love and beauty A person weighing 70 kg on Earth would way 63 kg on Venus A hostile planet, Venus s cloud cover makes it impossible to see the surface, thus making the greenhouse effect far greater there than on Earth Venus has the hottest average temperature, hovering around 449rC

Venus
The physical properties are very similar to Earth, hence, scientist call her Earth s Sister Planet An interesting property of Venus is that 1 day is longer than a year! Only one of the two planets without moons, the other planet being Mercury
Venus

Earth
In Greek, Earth was Gaia, the mother of the land formations Earth is the biggest of all terrestrial planets 70% of the Earth is covered in water, the rest of it comprises of land The average temperature of the Earth is 7.2rC The name of our moon is actually Luna

Mars
Mars was the Roman god of war and agriculture The most temperately like Earth, Mars has four seasons too, and polar ice caps Scientists believe that Mars could have harboured life as there could have been liquid water many million years ago.

Mars
Mars has much larger mountains, and far deeper canyons than Earth They make the Grand Canyon look really tiny, imagine a The biggest volcano, Olympus Mons A Martian day is 24 hours and 37 minutes long, making it the closest to Earth s

The Planets
Jupiter is the most massive of all the planets, made entirely out of gas. The first of the outer, or Jovian, planets Saturn - 6th planet from the Sun, the god of agriculture Uranus was the lord of the skies and husband to Earth Neptune, the god of water is the last of the gas giants

Jupiter
The most massive of the planets, Jupiter weigh s more than twice the rest of the planets put together If you weighed 70 kg on Earth, you would weigh an astounding 168 kg on Jupiter! The Great Red Spot is a raging storm on Jupiter that has been going on for the past 300 years, its super hurricanes blow across an area larger than the Earth!

Jupiter
This planet has no solid surface for us to stand on The atmosphere gradually thickens into a sea of liquid hydrogen Despite its enormous size, Jupiter s days only last 10 hours each. For that reason, its middle has been stretched out, it is short and fat rather than round like the other planets Jupiter has rings, albeit ones that are less visible than Saturn s!

Saturn
The most magnificent of the planets, Saturn has beautiful rings that are visible through a telescope Once thought the furthest planet, Saturn is twice as far from the Sun as Jupiter Saturn is the god of agriculture and once the king of gods, he overthrew his own father Uranus but was overthrown by his son, Jupiter

Saturn
Saturn has several hundred rings made up of dust, rocks, and icy boulders Saturn has a surface like Jupiter s. Under the clouds of methane and helium, the sky gradually turns into an ocean Saturn has a relative density of only 0.7, making it the lightest of all planets, if placed on a gigantic ocean, Saturn would float.

Uranus
Uranus was discovered in 1781, the astronomer who discovered it originally thought it was a comet It lies twice as far from the Sun as Saturn, nearly 3 billion km away Uranus is unusual among the planets because its axis is tilted at 98r This means that it spins roughly on its side

Uranus
Information gathered by the Voyager 2 space probe seemed to show that there could be an ocean of water beneath Uranus s surface and possibly trillions of large diamonds Uranus has 21 moons, at least 16 of them are captured asteroids or comets Uranus was the lord of the skies and husband of Earth, he was the king of the gods till Saturn, his son overthrew him

Neptune
The god of water, Neptune s Greek counterpart is Poseidon There is a large storm on Neptune, much like the storm on Jupiter. This is often called The Great Dark Spot Like Uranus, scientist think that there is a very large ocean of water under Neptune s clouds

Neptune
Neptune takes 165 years to revolve around the Sun Not unlike Uranus, Neptune has a very faint ring system Neptune s largest moon is Triton. Triton has an atmosphere mostly made up of nitrogen, making it very similar in composition to Earth

Moons
All the planets except Venus and Mercury have moons orbiting them All these moons are tiny worlds, each different from one other Some are rugged and heavily cratered, others have surfaces of ice Some shine brightly, others are dull and dark Most are dead worlds, but at least one, Io, is alive with volcanoes

Interior moons
Luna, Earth s moon, is the sixth larges satellite in the Solar System A new mineral there was named armalcolite, for the three astronauts who took part in the first moon landing, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins Ever wondered why there are tides on Earth? Tides are caused by the Moon s gravity pulling on water bodies on the Earth

Interior moons
The two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, are rocky bodies of irregular shape, they were probably captured asteroids Phobos orbits so close to Mars that it will one day crash into it Phobos is rotates much faster than the planet, at only 7.5 hours From the surface, Phobos would appear to move from east to west

Titan

Exterior moons
Exterior moons are the moons of the gas giants They are abundant in number, most of them cold, icy worlds Jupiter has the largest number of moons 64 The most massive of them, the Galilean Moons, were discovered by Galileo Galilei These four large moons are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto

Exterior Moons

Io

Europa and Io are about the size of the moon, but they look totally different Europa has a very smooth icy surface, crisscrossed with network of lines Lo is vivid orange-yellow and is volcanically active. It is the only other location in the Solar System with active volcanoes Saturn s largest moon, Titan, is believed to have oceans of methane and ethane, there may even be primitive life forms there!

Callisto

Exterior Moons
Most moons of the gas giants are captured asteroids as the gravity well of these planets are extremely strong Callisto has an ancient crust, completely covered with craters Voyager s close up view of Triton showed a fascinating world tinged with pink, one of the coldest

Shepherd Moons
Shepherd moons are moons located within the ring systems of the gas giants, thought to keep the rings in place with gravity Shepherd moons sometimes cause rings to clump together around it, therefore making it hard to determine whether there is a shepherd moon or not
Shepherd moon .

Interplanetary objects
As well as planets and their moons, the solar system contains many smaller bodies Those called asteroids circle the Sun in a broad belt, but are too small and far to be seen from the Earth with the naked eye Other bodies comets, make a spectacular sight, sprouting a flaming head and a long glowing tail

Interplanetary objects
Smaller bits of rocky matter get trapped by Earth s gravity and burn up when they plunge through the atmosphere They leave fiery trails in their wake, creating meteors or shooting stars Some asteroids are part of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, others from the Kuiper belt beyond the orbit of Neptune

Asteroids & Comets

Asteroids are rocky bodies while comets are icy bodies Most comets stay in the depths of the Solar System, from time to time however, they wander into the inner Solar System where the Sun s heat melt the ice and creates a gas cloud around them

Meteoroids
Meteoroids are rocky objects in space, ranging from small objects the size of microscopic flecks to huge boulders Meteoroids travel in orbit around the Sun, just like the Earth When they approach the Earth, they are attracted by the gravity and plunge through our atmosphere We see these falling meteoroids as shooting stars

Meteoroids
Most meteoroids are small enough such that they burn up completely Others turn to dust and settle to the ground The biggest ones survive their journey and crash onto the Earth s surface, creating a large crater and dust plumes if it lands on land

Meteoroids
Which is a meteoroid and which is not?

Meteoroid

Earth Rock

Meteoroids
How do you differentiate meteoroids?
Meteoroids
Fusion crust

Earth Rock
No fusion crust

Chondrites(Grain-like structures) containing chondrules More likely to be magnetic and heavier

No Chondrites

Very rarely magnetic

Meteoroids
Lets look at the rocks again

Meteoroid Chondrites Fusion crust

Earth Rock