The Universe - The Cosmos

Timeline of our Universe

13.7 Billion years ago

After 250 or 400 Million years later

After 9 Billion years

4.5 Billion years ago

4 Billion years ago

3.5 Billion years ago

orange

green

3.2 Billion years ago

Free oxygen

3 Billion years ago

Over 2 Billion Years go by

700 - 550 million years ago

600 Million years ago

500 Million years ago

450 Million years ago

400 Million years ago

250 Million years ago

Earth took up to 10 million years to recover

230 million years ago,

200 Million years ago

125 Million years ago



100 million years ago



65 Million years ago

55 million years ago



50 million years ago

2.6 million years ago

1.5 million years BP

2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago

600,000 years ago

500,000 years ago

two million years ago

400,000 years ago



250,000 years before the present

100,000 years ago

75,000 years ago

23,000 years ago

22,000 years ago

14,000 years ago

13,000 years ago

11,000 years ago

393 feet

rise of land masses

10,000 to 5,000 BC

the world's oldest known megaliths

The MacCready explosion

6,000 and 10,000 years ago

4,500 and 2,000 BC

3000 BC

Today - 2020

99.9 Percent of all Species that have existed on Earth, are now Extinct.

And after all that, here you are today....

My Earth Time Scale

If you look at the human species as a whole,

Time - Measuring Time

BCE

Before Christ

CE

AD

After Death

We did not invent time

Measuring the Age of Objects - How Old is That?

determining the age of an object

When the animal or plant dies, it stops exchanging carbon with its environment

We can't date the Bones

gaps in time

tree rings

growth rings

tree rings

Pyramid of Complexity

Solar System

True Scale of our Solar System

Jovian Planet

Orbiting - Round and Round We Go - Everything is Spinning

curved path of an object about a point in space

Ecliptic

Wobble

wobbling top

26,000 years

precessional rotation

26,000-year period of precession

Not only does every planet go around the sun in the same counter-clockwise direction

Note

Planets of our solar system rotate around the sun at different speeds

2014 QZ224 Dwarf Planet

1,100 years to complete one orbit

Galaxies

828,000 km/hr

We have estimated the size of our galaxy

enough dust and gas to make billions more

If Light from a Galaxy is 14 Billon years old

The Center of the Milky Way Tastes Like Raspberries

small galaxy composed of up to several billion stars

The photo on the right

There are about 50 Galaxies that we know of Circling the Milky way

an estimated 694 stars

26 have a good probability to come within 1.0 parsec (3.3 light-years) and another 7 within 0.5 parsecs (1.6 light-years).

Astronomy - Universe Studies

Astronomical

group of stars

Celestial

Universe

Stupendous

Big

Universe Photos

Telescopes - Space Observation Tools

Telescope

Photo on the Right

The Universe Looks like One Large Experiment

1543

Starry Messenger,

1610

1630

Light Pollution - I Can't See all the Stars

Seeing Stars

It seems that we see the same Stars every Night, well almost

Apps for Star Names and Locations

Star Location Resources

a curtain arcing across at least 700 million light-years of space

Earth

Beneath the Surface of Planet Earth

Earths inner core rotates in the same direction as the Earth and slightly faster

outermost shell

outermost layer

Interesting information about the Earth

Seasons - Solstice - Equinox

seasons of the year are directly connected to both the solstices and the equinoxes

spring equinox

fall equinox

365.24 days

Atmosphere

Earth's upper atmosphere

O2

There is more oxygen in forests and in green areas then there is in deserts and in cities

to choke

Weather - Climate

long-term average of weather

period of 30 years

study of ancient climates

Climate differs from weather

weather only describes the short-term conditions

The lowest natural temperature ever directly recorded at ground level on Earth

Weather Measurements

gaseous state of water





Condense

Barometric Pressure

As air warms

ascends

low pressure

As air cools

descends

high pressure

Low-Pressure

High-Pressure

air pressure decreases because there are fewer air molecules pressing down from above

Normal air pressure at sea level is 1013.2 mb, or 29.92 in

When gas molecules cool

move more slowly

Factors that determine the UV Index:

elevation

optical density

optical depth

The ozone layer continues to thin.

Wind

wind direction

Atmospheric circulation

Latitudinal circulation

Longitudinal circulation

Polar Jets

doughnut-shaped air vortices

smoke rings

Clouds

minute liquid droplets

formed as a result of saturation of the air when it is cooled

Nephology

Droplet

Rain

Being born in 1960 was extremely lucky

Lightning

8.6 Million

Lightning

Scintillate

Spark

Flash

Twinkle

Flicker

The bulk of lightning events are intra-cloud (IC) or cloud to cloud (CC), where discharges only occur high in the atmosphere

Step Potential is the Step Voltage

Positive Lightning

Superbolt

charged negatively

positively charged

Storms

northern hemisphere rotate counterclockwise

counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere

The most extreme tornadoes can attain wind speeds of more than 300 miles per hour (480 km/h)

Red Sky at Night, Sailors' Delight

generally not correct at lower latitudes

Earth Quakes

seismologists

Sand-Tracing Pendulum

Fault

Volcanoes

90% of all Earthquakes

75% of all active Volcanoes on Earth

Divergent boundaries are the site of seafloor spreading and rift valleys

Alaska contains over 130 volcanoes

Oceans

Earths Deepest Part of the Ocean

7 Miles Deep

The Oceans contain 99% of the living space on the planet

found under the ocean surface

warm ocean current

cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures

Ocean Surface Current

Deep Ocean Currents

Coriolis effect

AMOC

Ocean Conveyor Belt

Fire

Smoke

50–80% of fire deaths are the result of smoke inhalation

Magnetosphere - Earths Magnetic Field

So why doesn't the Moon get pulled into the earth by its gravitational Pull?

The flip takes around a hundred to a few thousand years to complete

55 km per Year

Earth's Magnetic Field Is Weakening 10 Times Faster Now.

Aurora Borealis

Different gases give off different colors

Solar Eclipse

Why the Sun and the Moon look like they're the Same Size

Navigation

Coordinate

run east–west

Horizontal

lines running from the North Pole to the South Pole

Vertical

My Home in Danbury, Ct

Date Line

Meridian

Satellites - Orbiting Mechanical Machines

1957

1958

1969

Specific Mechanical Energy

1,419 active satellites

On November 15 2016

launch 4,425 new satellites

Orbit Zones

22,236 mi

22,236 mi

1,243 mi

1,200 mi

uncontrolled entry

controlled entry

Miniature Satellites

650 low Earth orbit satellites

mapped 1.7 billion stars

800,000 images

Space Junk - Orbital Debris

1,300 nonfunctional

20,000 pieces

22,000 artificial satellites

Avoidance Maneuver

Meteorites

Shooting Star

minor planets

Are meteor showers a danger to satellites

Asteroids

No known asteroid poses a significant risk of impact with Earth over the next 100 years.

within 5 million miles of Earth’s orbit

Comets

Hypatia

Moon

natural satellite

238,857 miles from the Earth

two weeks of sunlight

two weeks of night

The Moon's rotation is tidally locked by the Earth's gravity

You Can Fit Every Planet In The Solar System Between Earth And The Moon

Moon Base:

Voyager 1 and 2 Space Probes

August 20, 1977

40,000 mph

million miles a day

Space Shuttle

12 Miles High

Space Station

Experiments in Space

Extraterrestrial Life - ET - Space Aliens

Extraterrestrial

UFO

The Search for Extraterrestrial Life is not about looking outward, it's about looking inward.

The message consists of seven parts that encode the following (from the top down):

Aliens will not come to earth to kill all the humans

The photo on right

amount of brain mass

Don't assume that incredible space crafts could only be operated by aliens from another planet

Could there be Another Planet like Earth?

finding another planet like Earth is mostly just fantasy for now

There is Not One Planet like Earth that is Close Enough to us that we could Reach in One Lifetime

stable enough

Interferometer

There are a lot of things that are Alien to us

I know that we can create a Heaven right here on Earth

Space Travel

ad astra

1865

Self-Healing Nano-Spacecraft

Making Oxygen - Breathable Air

MOXIE

Propulsion - Thrust - Rockets

rockets work more efficiently in space than in an atmosphere

the first stage is at the bottom

Propelling

stored rocket propellant

Advanced Propulsion Engines

Flight Dynamics

Orbital Refueling

rocket vehicles capable of orbiting spacecraft

Subsonic

Supersonic

Hypersonic

High-Hypersonic

moves faster than the local speed of sound

Gravity Assistance

Slingshot Effect

Wormholes

4.3 light-years away

25 trillion miles

Dream Big, But always have a Backup Plan

Laws in Space

The expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space

NASA needed 14 new astronauts

Sun - Star

4.7 Billion years old

8.3 minutes

5.3 hours to reach Pluto

The Sun Emits

Stellar

10,000 and 170,000 years

Films and Videos about Stars

Our Sun is small when compared to other Stars

The photo on the right is not a Selfie . It is just an Artist rendition of what our galaxy would look like if it were seen from another galaxy. The photo above is not to make you feel insignificant , it is only for reference and scale . Think of it as a scale in your mind. Depending on your field of view , you would have to be around 100,000 light years away to see this Galaxy using the naked human eye. And as you got closer, it would almost disappear because of the tremendous amount of space there is between everything, like with atoms . The Universe is so large that the Earth in comparison is smaller than a grain of sand or a speck of dust. But even with the earth and humans being so tiny, there are things still a lot smaller than us that we can't even see. We are simultaneously really big and really small at the same time. Sizes (nano) - Pyramid of Complexity The Scale of the Universe from Big to Small (youtube) - The Scale of the Universe from Small to Big (youtube) NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) - The Scale of the Universe - Interactive (manual control scale)It is believed that our Universe began. (Not sure if it was the first time or even the beginning of time ?) - Time Line of the Universe Chronology of the Universe (wiki) - Detailed Logarithmic Timeline (wiki) - Shape of the Universe (wiki) - Photo (image) - Seeing the Beginning of Time 4k (youtube) - Big Bang Matter (conservation of mass) - Universe was denser and smoother in the beginning. Low Entropy Stars and Galaxies started to form. Reionization marks the point at which the hydrogen in the Universe became ionized. Ionization is the process by which an atom or a molecule acquires a negative or positive charge by gaining or losing electrons to form ions , often in conjunction with other chemical changes. Ion is an Atom or a molecule in which the total number of electrons is not equal to the total number of protons, giving the atom or molecule a net positive or negative electrical charge. Ions can be created, by either chemical or physical means, via ionization. Galaxies had already formed 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang GN-z11 high-redshift galaxy found in the constellation Ursa Major, and is currently the oldest and most distant known galaxy in the observable universe - 13.4 billion years old. Galaxy z8 GND 5296 is 13.1 billion years old, only about 700 million years younger than the universe. Methuselah Star HD 140283 is one of the oldest stars known. Sun in our Solar System is formed around 4.7 Billion years ago. (Did life start a few billion years before us in another galaxy or in our own galaxy ?) Earth is formed. Earth day then was only 6 hours long. Mostly Molten Rock Theia collided with another planetary-mass object, Gaia (the early Earth) around 4.51 billion years ago. That was when the Moon Formed , the Moon was twice as close then it is now causing 10,000 ft. tides. Age of the Earth is approximately 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years (4.54 × 109 years ± 1%). This dating is based on evidence from radiometric age-dating of meteorite material and is consistent with the radiometric ages of the oldest-known terrestrial and lunar samples. The Earth has over 4 billion years left in its life, but humans only have around a billion years left before we have to find a new home . We might have even less time if we don't start making improvements The lunar cataclysm when Asteroids bombarded the earth and moon. Late Heavy Bombardment (One Billion Years since the Birth of Earth) Micro-Organisms start to form on earth. Stromatolite life from 3.7 billion years ago when Earth’s skies wereand its oceans Timeline of Evolutionary History of Life (wiki) Atmospheric Pressure was about half of what it is today. Oxygen is what makes the sky blue, molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more than they scatter red light. New type of Green Algae produced O2 , which created the Ozone Layer that protected life from damaging UV Rays and gave life a chance to progress.is oxygen that isn't combined with other elements such as carbon or nitrogen. Olivine (wiki) - Organisms Change (1.5 Billion Years since the Birth of Earth) - 2.4 billion years ago, oxygen in the atmosphere suddenly increased by about 10,000 times in just 200 million years. Photosynthesis is the process by which light energy synthesizes sugars from carbon dioxide, releasing oxygen as a waste product. 2.4 – 2.3 billion years ago First rock evidence of atmospheric oxygen. 2.7 billion years ago Cyanobacteria were the first oxygen producers. Ocean organisms and primitive animals start to evolve. Marine Biology ....yada yada yada...and then...., in the late Proterozoic , oxygen levels in the oceans and atmosphere increased dramatically. By 600 million years ago, the oxygen in the atmosphere reached about one-fifth of today’s level (21 percent). Ediacaran period spans 94 million years from the end of the Cryogenian Period 635 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Cambrian Period 541 Mya. It marks the end of the Proterozoic Eon, and the beginning of the Phanerozoic Eon. Snowball Earth is when the Earth's surface became entirely or nearly entirely frozen and was completely covered in ice , sometime earlier than 650 Mya (million years ago) during the Cryogenian period.(3.9 Billion Years since the Birth of Earth, and 2.9 Billion Years since Microorganisms Formed) Multicellular Organisms appear that consist of more than one cell, in contrast to unicellular organisms , which is an organism that consists of only one cell. Cell Division . Multicellularity has evolved independently at least 46 times. Algae Choanoflagellate are a group of free-living unicellular and colonial flagellate eukaryotes considered to be the closest living relatives of the animals. Protein Domain is a conserved part of a given protein sequence and (tertiary) structure that can evolve, function, and exist independently of the rest of the protein chain.Around 600 million years ago, a thin Ozone Layer Formed that was capable of protecting life from harmful wavelengths of UV radiation (wavelengths between 200-300 nm). Cambrian Explosion . Prior to the Cambrian explosion, most organisms were simple, composed of individual cells occasionally organized into colonies. Over the following 70 to 80 million years, the rate of diversification accelerated by an order of magnitude and the diversity of life began to resemble that of today. Almost all the present phyla plants ( Asterids Verbena ) appeared during this period, with the exception of Bryozoa , which are a phylum of aquatic invertebrate animals who made its earliest known appearance later, in the Lower Ordovician. First Plants colonize Earth around 500 million years ago Plants . First land plants occurs in the Ordovician , in the form of fossil spores. Land plants began to diversify in the Late Silurian , from around 430 million years ago, and the results of their diversification are displayed in remarkable detail in an early Devonian fossil assemblage from the Rhynie chert . This chert, formed in volcanic hot springs, preserved several species of early plants in cellular detail by petrification. Paleozoic is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. It is the longest of the Phanerozoic eras, lasting from 541 to 251.902 million years ago, Phanerozoic covers 541 million years to the present. Timeline of Plant Evolution (wiki) - Photosynthesis Horseshoe Crab are marine arthropods invertebrates of the family Limulidae, suborder Xiphosurida, and order Xiphosura. Living Fossil is an extant taxon that closely resembles organisms otherwise known only from the fossil record. As a rule, to be considered a living fossil, the fossil species must be old relative to the time of origin of the extant clade. Carbon Dating (measuring how old things are). Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period 358.9 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, 298.9 Mya. The name Carboniferous means " coal-bearing ". Hangenberg Event is a bioevent that occurred at the end of the Famennian epoch (late Devonian) associated with the Late Devonian extinction (roughly 358.9 ± 0.4 million years ago). Bioevent is an event recognised in a sequence of sedimentary rocks, where there is a significant change in the biota as recorded by assemblages of fossils over a relatively short period of time. It has been defined as "short-term (hours or days to kyrs) locally, regionally, or interregionally pervasive changes in the ecological, biogeographical, and/or evolutionary character of biotas that are isochronous or nearly so throughout their range". Bioevents either relate to diversification of a particular fossil group or a reduction, these may equate to speciation events or extinction events, or may only represent migration. Records of the appearance and disappearance of particular taxa at a single locality are insufficient to define a bioevent. Late Devonian Extinction was one of five major extinction events in the history of the Earth's biota. A major extinction, the Kellwasser event, occurred at the boundary that marks the beginning of the last phase of the Devonian period, the Famennian faunal stage (the Frasnian–Famennian boundary), about 375–360 million years ago. Overall, 19% of all families and 50% of all genera became extinct. A second, distinct mass extinction, the Hangenberg event, closed the Devonian period. Permian Extinction , which caused Extinction of 95% of all living species ? ( Animals Peter Ward: Earth's Mass Extinctions (youtube)(14 °F rise in temperature)A footprint of a reptile-like creature called an Isochirotherium, an ancestor of dinosaurs and crocodiles that roamed the areawas discovered in early April by a person out walking in Olesa de Montserrat, 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Barcelona, Northeastern Catalonia in the Iberian Peninsula. Carnian Pluvial Event 230 million years ago it rained for 2 million years. Extinction Number Six Dinosaurs Evolved and lived for 180 Million years (over 700 types). Dinosaurs are a diverse group of Reptiles of the clade Dinosauria that first appeared during the Triassic period , which was a geologic period and system which spans 50.9 million years from the end of the Permian Period 252.17 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.3 Mya. The Triassic is the first period of the Mesozoic Era . Both the start and end of the period are marked by major extinction events. Earth had 1 Continent , mostly desert, no broad leaf trees , no flowers, Earth spun faster, moon was closer. Pangaea started braking apart about 200 million years ago. Volcanic carbon dioxide emissions helped trigger Triassic climate change 201 million year ago . - Plate Tectonics Flowers Evolve 325 million years after plants evolved. Flowers may have bloomed more than 174 million years ago , 264 specimens of 198 individual flowers preserved on 34 rock slabs from the South Xiangshan Formation. India broke away from the other fragments of Gondwana and began moving north. Gondwana is the name given to an ancient supercontinent. It is believed to have sutured between about 570 and 510 million years ago (Mya), joining East Gondwana to West Gondwana. Gondwana formed prior to Pangaea, and later became part of it. Continental Drift Dinosaurs go extinct. Cretaceous–Paleogene Extinction Event is also known as the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) extinction, was a mass extinction of some three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth that occurred over a geologically short period of time approximately 66 million years ago. With the exception of some ectothermic species like the leatherback sea turtle and crocodiles, no tetrapods weighing more than 25 kilograms (55 lb) survived. It marked the end of the Cretaceous period and with it, the entire Mesozoic Era, opening the Cenozoic Era that continues today. Recovery Time after Extinction Iridium is found in meteorites in much higher abundance than in the Earth's crust. Mesozoic Era is an interval of geological time from about 252 to 66 million years ago. It is also called the Age of Reptiles Dinosaurs: Giants of Patagonia (2014) (Argentinosaur, Giganotosaur 11/25/2014 - 40 min. video). Maniraptora is a clade of coelurosaurian dinosaurs that includes the birds and the non-avian dinosaurs that were more closely related to them than to Ornithomimus velox. Earths Early History Dreadnoughtus is a genus of giant titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur containing a single species. Grasses evolved.the land mass known as India today, drifted into Asia, the collision created the Himalayas , and is still moving an inch every year. Table Mountain (30 - 50 million years) - Forbidden Archeology (Michael A. Cremo) - Laetoli Footprints (3.7 million years ago). Paleolithic primitive Stone Tools discovered. Stone Age Begins. Oldowan is the earliest widespread stone tool archaeological industry in prehistory (it is pre-dated by Lomekwian tools at a single site dated to 3.3 million years ago]). Oldowan tools were used during the Lower Paleolithic period, 2.6 million years ago up until 1.7 million years ago, by ancient hominids across much of Africa, South Asia, the Middle East and Europe. This technological industry was followed by the more sophisticated Acheulean industry. Bolas throwing weapon made of weights on the ends of interconnected cords, used to capture animals by entangling their legs. Axe is one of the first stone tools used by humans to shape, split and cut wood, to harvest timber, to dig for roots, and to cut animal skin or used as a weapon, and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol. Before the modern axe, the stone-age hand axe was used fromwithout a handle. It was later fastened to a wooden handle and made of copper, bronze, iron and steel as these technologies developed. Ancient Knowledge Archaeology (culture) - Discovery of Human Antiquity Documentary : Secrets Beneath The Ice In Antarctica HD full (youtube) Evolved , or were Engineered or Created or arrived here from another planet 500 million years ago or 3 billion years ago? The Day We Learned to Think (youtube). Population Bottleneck is believed to occurred among a group of Australopithecina as they transitioned into the species known as Homo erectus. It is believed that additional bottlenecks must have occurred since Homo erectus started walking the Earth, but current archaeological, paleontological, and genetic data is inadequate to give much reliable information about such conjectured bottlenecks. That said, the possibility of a severe recent species-wide bottleneck cannot be ruled out. Recent research shows the extent of climate change was much smaller than believed by proponents of the theory. In addition, coalescence times for Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA have been revised to well above 100,000 years since 2011. Finally, such coalescence would not, in itself, indicate a population bottleneck, because mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA are only a small part of the entire genome, and are atypical in that they are inherited exclusively through the mother or through the father, respectively. Genetic material inherited exclusively from either father or mother can be traced back in time via either matrilineal or patrilineal ancestry. Schöningen Spears , four ancient wooden spears found in an opencast mine near the town (Bamford & Henderson 2003). The spears are about 400,000 years old. Hueyatlaco is an archeological site in the Valsequillo Basin near the city of Puebla, Mexico. After excavations in the 1960s, the site became notorious due to geochronologists' analyses that indicated human habitation at Hueyatlaco. Last Glacial Period occurred from the end of the Eemian interglacial to the end of the Younger Dryas, encompassing the period c. 115,000 – c. 11,700 years ago. This most recent glacial period is part of a larger pattern of glacial and interglacial periods known as the Quaternary glaciation extending from c. 2,588,000 years ago to present. The definition of the Quaternary as beginning 2.58 Ma is based on the formation of the Arctic ice cap. The Antarctic ice sheet began to form earlier, at about 34 Ma, in the mid-Cenozoic (Eocene–Oligocene extinction event). The term Late Cenozoic Ice Age is used to include this early phase. Timeline of Glaciation (wiki) - Middle Pleistocene is a subdivision of the Pleistocene Epoch, from 781,000 to 126,000 years ago (781–126 ka). It is preceded by the Calabrian stage, beginning with the Brunhes–Matuyama reversal, and succeeded by the Tarantian stage (equivalent ot the Late or Upper Pleistocene), taken as beginning with the last interglacial (MIS 5). Climate Change Toba Catastrophe Theory was a supervolcanic eruption that occurred about 75,000 years ago at the site of present-day Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia. It is one of the Earth's largest known eruptions. The Toba catastrophe theory holds that this event caused a global volcanic winter of six to ten years and possibly a 1,000-year-long cooling episode. San People are members of various Khoesān-speaking indigenous hunter-gatherer groups representing the first nation of Southern Africa, whose territories span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and South Africa. Recent African Origin of Modern Humans (wiki) The Last Glacial Maximum , the maximum extent of glaciation within the last glacial period 100,000 years ago. Ice Age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers . Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and greenhouse periods , during which there are no glaciers on the planet. Earth is currently in the Quaternary glaciation, known in popular terminology as the Ice Age. Individual pulses of cold climate within an ice age are termed "glacial periods" (or, alternatively, "glacials", "glaciations", "glacial stages", "stadials", "stades", or colloquially, "ice ages"), and intermittent warm periods within an ice age are called "interglacials" or "interstadials", with both climatic pulses part of the Quaternary or other periods in Earth's history. In the terminology of glaciology, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice sheets in both northern and southern hemispheres. By this definition, we are in an interglacial period—the Holocene. The amount of heat trapping gases emitted into Earth's oceans and atmosphere are predicted to prevent the next glacial period, which otherwise would begin in around 50,000 years, and likely more glacial cycles. History of Agriculture (wiki). Wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 20,000 BC. Sun Solar Wind Humans' arrive in southern South America, first or second time? Pumapunku Tiwanaku (Bolivia).a prehistoric group of hunter-gathers known as the Clovis people lived in Northern America. Ancient stone carvings in Gobekli Tepe Temple in Turkey suggest that a comet struck Earth around 11,000 B.C.. Beringia . The last ice age ended about 11,000 years ago. Next one might be in 100,000 years. Global sea level rose as the vast ice sheets of the last Ice Age melted back, more than 120 meters or. This melt-back lasted from about 19,000 to about 6,000 years ago, meaning that the average rate of sea-level rise was roughly 1 meter per century. Post-Glacial Rebound is theafter the lifting of the huge weight of ice sheets during the last glacial period, which had caused isostatic depression. Domestication of Plants Mesolithic pre-agricultural material in northwest Europe. Gobekli Tepe dates back to the 10th–8th millennium BCE. During the first phase, pre-pottery Neolithic A (PPNA). Circles of massive T-shaped stone pillars were erected,. More than 200 pillars in about 20 circles are currently known through geophysical surveys. Each pillar has a height of up to 6 m (20 ft) and a weight of up to 20 tons. They are fitted into sockets that were hewn out of the bedrock. Archaeological site is atop a mountain ridge "Potbelly Hill" in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of modern-day Turkey.states that 10,000 years ago humans and their pets and livestock made up 0.1% of terrestrial vertebrate biomass, today it's 98%.The OCA2 Gene mutation for Blue Eyes occurred. Before then there were no blue eyes . So we went from having nobody on Earth with blue eyes 10,000 years ago, to now having 20 or 40 percent of Europeans having blue eyes . Blue-eyed humans have a single, common ancestor Neolithic Revolution . More humans went from Hunting and Gathering to one of Agriculture and settlement , allowing the ability to support an increasingly large population.Humans understood that there were patterns and cycles in life , so we created tools to help predict those patterns. Calendars - BC,AD,CE,BCE Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of bronze, proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. Clocks Invented - The Babylonians (Iraq today) divided the day into hours and minutes, at that time man started to notice the sun coming up regularly . That's the earliest recorded 365 day year. Stonehenge is a ring of standing stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the most dense complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred burial mounds. (3000 BC). Indus Valley Civilization 3300–1300 BCE, regions of South Asia, extending from what today is northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and northwest India. Pyramids have been built by civilizations in many parts of the world. For thousands of years, the largest structures on Earth were pyramids, which is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single point at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. Maya Civilization was a Mesoamerican civilization developed by the Maya peoples, and noted for its hieroglyphic script—the only known fully developed writing system of the pre-Columbian Americas—as well as for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical system. The Maya civilization developed in an area that encompasses southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador. This region consists of the northern lowlands encompassing the Yucatán Peninsula, and the highlands of the Sierra Madre, running from the Mexican state of Chiapas, across southern Guatemala and onwards into El Salvador, and the southern lowlands of the Pacific littoral plain. Sumer was the first urban civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia , modern-day southern Iraq , during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze ages, and arguably the first civilization in the world with Ancient Egypt and the Indus Valley. Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, Sumerian farmers were able to grow an abundance of grain and other crops, the surplus of which enabled them to settle in one place. Proto-writing in the prehistory dates back to c. 3000 BC. The earliest texts come from the cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr and date back to 3300 BC; early cuneiform writing emerged in 3000 BC. Modern historians have suggested that Sumer was first permanently settled between c. 5500 and 4000 BC by a West Asian people who spoke the Sumerian language (pointing to the names of cities, rivers, basic occupations, etc., as evidence), an agglutinative language isolate. The Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems Program (ETE) Sparta 900s BC 192 BC. - Agoge was the rigorous education and training program mandated for all male Spartan citizens, except for the firstborn son in the ruling houses, Eurypontid and Agiad. The training involved learning stealth, cultivating loyalty to the Spartan group, military training (e.g., pain tolerance), hunting, dancing, singing, and social (communicating) preparation. The word "agoge" meant rearing in ancient Greek, but in this context generally meant leading, guidance, or training. Roman Empire was the post-Roman Republic period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterized by government headed by emperors and large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, Africa and Asia. 27 BC – 395 AD, 395–480 (Western), 395–1453 (Eastern). Rome (27 BC–330 AD). Byzantine Empire also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire and Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul , which had been founded as Byzantium). It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. Both "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" are historiographical terms created after the end of the realm; its citizens continued to refer to their empire simply as the Roman Empire (Greek: Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων, tr. Basileia Rhōmaiōn; Latin: Imperium Romanum), or Romania (Ῥωμανία), and to themselves as "Romans". Angkor Wat is a temple complex in Cambodia and the largest religious monument in the world, with the site measuring 162.6 hectares (1,626,000 m2; 402 acres). It was originally constructed as a Hindu temple of god Vishnu for the Khmer Empire, gradually transforming into a Buddhist temple toward the end of the 12th century. It was built by the Khmer King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century. Dorset Culture was a Paleo-Eskimo culture (500 BCE–1500 CE) that preceded the Inuit culture in Arctic North America. Norsemen refers to the group of people who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language between the 8th and 11th centuries. The language belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages, and is the earlier form of modern Scandinavian languages. Stone Spheres of Costa Rica dating back to the Aguas Buenas Period (300–800 CE) and Chiriquí Period (800–1550 CE).(Diquis Spheres or Stone Balls) Since then , for thousands of years, humans have struggled to survive, with many civilizations failing . Even in the last 2000 years, humans are still struggling to survive. Humans have been suffering from wars, diseases, and all kinds of catastrophes . We have made many improvements, but we still have many problems that we have to solve. Luckily, the Earth during the last 5,000 years has been pretty good to us. Except for the regular outbursts from mother nature , we have had no major extinction events like the previous ones, except for the one we are currently in . It's estimated that 106 Billion Humans Have Lived since the beginning , and as of 2011, 94% are Dead That means over 99 Billion people have lived and died before you were born, So everyone is standing on the Shoulders of Giants , and everyone is Passing the Baton , so please make it a good one. We are now in the 6th Extinction at an extremely fast rate. Holocene 6th Extinction Are Extinctions like a Computer Rebooting , Life hitting the Restart Button?"You have to have something to show for your life, something significant, something relevant, something positive. And don't worry about the time that was wasted, think about the time that you still have. You don't have to finish, you just have to start, someone else will pick up where you left off, pass your baton forward.""It's amazing to know that everyone who has lived before 1901 is dead , and in 120 years everyone alive today will be dead. And that's not just 7 billion people dying, it's all the other deaths that happened in those 120 years. If 55 million people die every year, that's almost another 7 billion people gone. We need to get in touch with this reality. Though our lives are temporary, our actions could continue to do damage long after we have died. But if our actions are positive, then life will continually improve , long after we have gone."Remember that the universe is still young and still evolving. Only eight percent of the potentially habitable planets that will ever form in the universe exist today. So the bulk of possible habitable planets - 92 percent - have yet to be born. We have a very long future ahead us. Historical Geology principles and techniques of geology to reconstruct and understand the geological history of Earth. Paleontology is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene Epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). Time Measuring Palaeogeography is the study of historical geography, generally physical landscapes.There is no such thing as stationary, everything is in constant motion , we are in constant motion even when we sleep. Physical stillness is an illusion, but it's an illusion we sometimes need in order to relax and to find peace. But we have to make sure that we fully understand that nothing can be still, things are either getting better, or things are continually getting worse. And in order to continually improve things, we have take necessary actions, actions that are proven to help things get better, if not, then things will continually get worse. I prefer to have things continually improve and get better, it seems natural, so why not take the path of least resistance , it's life's natural path. And we know from History that if you go off the path, then adaptation is no longer available. And we are off the path on a lot of things in our world. We need to get back on the path, and stay connected to life's natural progression. We need to avoid decline and retrograde. We need to stop devolving , We need to stop making things worse, or bad, or unnatural, or abnormal, or unstable. Those directions are nothing but trouble. Don't be fooled into believing that you have fixed a problem , because you may still be headed towards failure."We are either progressing or retrograding all the while. There is no such thing as remaining stationary in this life." - James Freeman Clarke Since I was Born in 1960. 55 Years and 5 Months as of April 2016.If I were born on the planet Mars I would be 28 years old instead of 55.My Heart has beat over 2 billion times so far.I have traveled 37,094,025,717 miles through space so far I have traveled over 32,496,627,730 miles around the Sun so far. I have traveled over 270,805,235,560 miles through the Milky Way so far.The Earth has had 270 major eruptions so far in my life.A Coast Redwood's Tree growth in my lifetime was 70' 10".Over 2 billion people have died in my lifetime.World Population has increased by 4,378,974,225 in my lifetime.In my life there have been 122 solar eclipses so far. Tectonic plate movement in my lifetime on the East Pacific Rise was 27' 1".1.4 billion lost Acres of Forest were destroyed so far in my lifetime.In 1960 the earths average temp was 57.2 in 2013, it is now 58.3you can clearly see that we are in our teenage years. We're rebellious, we're trying new things, we're wasteful, we make many mistakes, we're irresponsible, and we are clearly not mature enough to move out on our own. Time is a measurement system and a process for learning and a very important tool that helps us plan and predict . Though the timing of cycles rhythms and development are essential for life , try not to spend to much time thinking about time , this is just one of many tools that we have. Time Scale is a duration or quantity of Time. Timeline is a way of displaying a list of events in chronological order , sometimes described as a project artifact Timestamp is a sequence of characters or encoded information identifying when a certain event occurred, usually giving date and time of day, sometimes accurate to a small fraction of a second . The term derives from rubber stamps used in offices to stamp the current date, and sometimes time, in ink on paper documents , to record when the document was received. Computer files contain timestamps that tell when the file was last modified , and digital cameras add timestamps to the pictures they take, recording the date and time the picture was taken. Chronology is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time. History Geologic Time Scale is a system of chronological dating that relates geological strata ( stratigraphy ) to time, and is used by geologists, paleontologists, and other Earth scientists to describe the timing and relationships of events that have occurred during Earth's history. Universe Timeline Geologic Record in stratigraphy, paleontology and other natural sciences refers to the entirety of the layers of rock strata. That is, deposits laid down by volcanism or by deposition of sediment derived from weathering detritus (clays, sands etc.). This includes all its fossil content and the information it yields about the history of the Earth: its past climate, geography, geology and the evolution of life on its surface. According to the law of superposition, sedimentary and volcanic rock layers are deposited on top of each other. They harden over time to become a solidified (competent) rock column, that may be intruded by igneous rocks and disrupted by tectonic events. Period in geology is one of several subdivisions of geologic time enabling cross-referencing of rocks and geologic events from place to place. These periods form elements of a hierarchy of divisions into which geologists have split the Earth's history. Eons and eras are larger subdivisions than periods while periods themselves may be divided into epochs and ages. The rocks formed during a period belong to a stratigraphic unit called a system. Retrospective means to take a look back at events that already have taken place. Time Travel as an abbreviation for "before the Common (or Current) Era". () is a calendar era that is often used as an alternative naming of the Anno Domini era ("in the year of the Lord"), abbreviated. A.D., is used to refer to the years after the birth of Jesus. A.D. used to be "." Before Present years is a time scale used mainly in geology and other scientific disciplines to specify when events in the past occurred. Spacetime is any mathematical model that combines space and time into a single interwoven continuum. Light Time of Flight describes a variety of methods that measure the time that it takes for an object, particle or acoustic, electromagnetic or other wave to travel a distance through a medium. Action Physics , we learned how to understand time and use it to our advantage. Radiocarbon Dating is a method forcontaining organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon (14C), a radioactive isotope of carbon . Carbon-14 dating is based on the fact that radiocarbon is constantly being created in the atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen. The resulting radiocarbon combines with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide, which is incorporated into plants by photosynthesis; animals then acquire 14 C by eating the plants., and from that point onwards the amount of 14 C it contains begins to decrease as the 14 C undergoes radioactive decay. Measuring the amount of 14 C in a sample from a dead plant or animal such as a piece of wood or a fragment of bone provides information that can be used to calculate when the animal or plant died. The older a sample is, the less 14 C there is to be detected, and because the half-life of 14 C (the period of time after which half of a given sample will have decayed ) is about 5,730 years, the oldest dates that can be reliably measured by radiocarbon dating are around 50,000 years ago, although special preparation methods occasionally permit dating of older samples., only the place where they were found. Magnetic fingerprint or Paleomagnetism is the record of the Earth's magnetic field in rocks, sediment, or archeological materials and fossils Radiometric Dating is a technique used to date materials such as rocks or carbon, in which trace radioactive impurities were selectively incorporated when they were formed. The method compares the abundance of a naturally occurring radioactive isotope within the material to the abundance of its decay products, which form at a known constant rate of decay. Archaeomagnetic Dating is the study and interpretation of the signatures of the Earth's Magnetic Field at past times recorded in archaeological materials. These paleomagnetic signatures are fixed when ferromagnetic materials such as magnetite cool below the Curie point, freezing the magnetic moment of the material in the direction of the local magnetic field at that time. The direction and magnitude of the magnetic field of the Earth at a particular location varies with time, and can be used to constrain the age of materials. In conjunction with techniques such as radiometric dating, the technique can be used to construct and calibrate the geomagnetic polarity time scale. This is one of the dating methodologies used for sites within the last 10,000 years. The method has been conceived by E. Thellier in the 1930s and the increased sensitivity of SQUID magnetometers has greatly promoted its use. Potassium–Argon Dating , abbreviated K–Ar dating, is a radiometric dating method used in geochronology and archaeology. It is based on measurement of the product of the radioactive decay of an isotope of potassium (K) into argon (Ar). Potassium is a common element found in many materials, such as micas, clay minerals, tephra, and evaporites. In these materials, the decay product 40Ar is able to escape the liquid (molten) rock, but starts to accumulate when the rock solidifies (recrystallizes). The amount of Argon sublimation that occurs is a function of the purity of the sample, the composition of the mother material, and a number of other factors. These factors introduce error limits on the upper and lower bounds of dating, so that final determination of age is reliant on the environmental factors during formation, melting, and exposure to decreased pressure and/or open-air. Time since recrystallization is calculated by measuring the ratio of the amount of 40Ar accumulated to the amount of 40K remaining. The long half-life of 40K allows the method to be used to calculate the absolute age of samples older than a few thousand years. The quickly cooled lavas that make nearly ideal samples for K–Ar dating also preserve a record of the direction and intensity of the local magnetic field as the sample cooled past the Curie temperature of iron. The geomagnetic polarity time scale was calibrated largely using K–Ar dating. Uranium-Lead Dating is one of the oldest and most refined of the radiometric dating schemes. It can be used to date rocks that formed and crystallised from about 1 million years to over 4.5 billion years ago with routine precisions in the 0.1–1 percent range. The dating method is usually performed on the mineral zircon . The mineral incorporates uranium and thorium atoms into its crystal structure, but strongly rejects lead. Therefore, one can assume that the entire lead content of the zircon is radiogenic, i.e. it is produced solely by a process of radioactive decay after the formation of the mineral. Thus the current ratio of lead to uranium in the mineral can be used to determine its age. The method relies on two separate decay chains, the uranium series from 238U to 206Pb, with a half-life of 4.47 billion years and the actinium series from 235U to 207Pb, with a half-life of 710 million years. Radioactive Decay to Lead. Frequently, the quantity of uranium 238 and lead 206 are measured for radiometric determination of the age of rocks. The half-life with which uranium 238 decays to form lead 206 is 4.46 billion years. Relative Dating is the science of determining the relative order of past events (i.e., the age of an object in comparison to another), without necessarily determining their absolute age (i.e. estimated age). In geology, rock or superficial deposits, fossils and lithologies can be used to correlate one stratigraphic column with another. Prior to the discovery of radiometric dating in the early 20th century, which provided a means of absolute dating, archaeologists and geologists used relative dating to determine ages of materials. Though relative dating can only determine the sequential order in which a series of events occurred, not when they occurred, it remains a useful technique. Relative dating by biostratigraphy is the preferred method in paleontology and is, in some respects, more accurate. The Law of Superposition, which states that older layers will be deeper in a site than more recent layers, was the summary outcome of 'relative dating' as observed in geology from the 17th century to the early 20th century. Thermoluminescence Dating is the determination, by means of measuring the accumulated radiation dose, of the time elapsed since material containing crystalline minerals was either heated (lava, ceramics) or exposed to sunlight (sediments). As a crystalline material is heated during measurements, the process of thermoluminescence starts. Thermoluminescence emits a weak light signal that is proportional to the radiation dose absorbed by the material. It is a type of luminescence dating. Thermochronology is the study of the thermal evolution of a region of a planet. Thermochronologists use radiometric dating along with the closure temperatures that represent the temperature of the mineral being studied at the time given by the date recorded to understand the thermal history of a specific rock, mineral, or geologic unit. It is a subfield within geology, and is closely associated with geochronology. A typical thermochronological study will involve the dates of a number of rock samples from different areas in a region, often from a vertical transect along a steep canyon, cliff face, or slope. These samples are then dated. With some knowledge of the subsurface thermal structure, these dates are translated into depths and times at which that particular sample was at the mineral's closure temperature. If the rock is today at the surface, this process gives the exhumation rate of the rock. Common isotopic systems used for thermochronology include fission track dating in zircon, apatite, titanite, natural glasses, and other uranium-rich mineral grains. Others include potassium-argon and argon-argon dating in apatite, and (U-Th)/He dating zircon and apatite. Decay Chain refers to a series of radioactive decays of different radioactive decay products as a sequential series of transformations. It is also known as a "radioactive cascade". Most radioisotopes do not decay directly to a stable state, but rather undergo a series of decays until eventually a stable isotope is reached. Surface Exposure Dating is a collection of geochronological techniques for estimating the length of time that a rock has been exposed at or near Earth's surface. Surface exposure dating is used to date glacial advances and retreats, erosion history, lava flows, meteorite impacts, rock slides, fault scarps, cave development, and other geological events. It is most useful for rocks which have been exposed for between 10 years and 30,000,000 years. Egypt's Pyramids are estimated to be over 10,000 years old using weathering measurements. Weathering is the breaking down of rocks, soil, and minerals as well as wood and artificial materials through contact with the Earth's atmosphere, water, and biological organisms. Weathering occurs in situ (on site), that is, in the same place, with little or no movement, and thus should not be confused with erosion, which involves the movement of rocks and minerals by agents such as water, ice, snow, wind, waves and gravity and then being transported and deposited in other locations. Techniques for measuring rock weathering Unconformity is a buried erosional or non-depositional surface separating two rock masses or strata of different ages, indicating that sediment deposition was not continuous. In general, the older layer was exposed to erosion for an interval of time before deposition of the younger layer, but the term is used to describe any break in the sedimentary geologic record. The significance of angular unconformity was shown by James Hutton, who found examples of Hutton's Unconformity at Jedburgh in 1787 and at Siccar Point in 1788. The rocks above an unconformity are younger than the rocks beneath (unless the sequence has been overturned). An unconformity represents time during which no sediments were preserved in a region. The local record for that time interval is missing and geologists must use other clues to discover that part of the geologic history of that area. The interval of geologic time not represented is called a hiatus. It is a kind of relative dating. Great Unconformity is the many unconformities orthat are observed in geological strata , which is a layer of sedimentary rock or soil, or igneous rock that were formed at the Earth's surface, with internally consistent characteristics that distinguish it from other layers. Hutton's Unconformity is a geological phenomenon that marks the location where rock formations created at different times and by different forces adjoin. The Earth's cycle of supercontinent formation and separation uplifts and erodes incredible extents of rock over long periods of time. And because supercontinent processes, by definition, involve a lot of land, their effects can appear fairly synchronous across the geologic record. However, these processes don't happen simultaneously, as they would in a global event like Snowball Earth. Is the Mystery of Earth's 1.2 Billion Missing Years Solved? | SciShow News (youtube) - Asteroids Beryllium-10 is a radioactive isotope of beryllium. It is formed in the Earth's atmosphere mainly by cosmic ray spallation of nitrogen and oxygen. Beryllium-10 has a half-life of 1.39 × 106 years, and decays by beta decay to stable boron-10 with a maximum energy of 556.2 keV. It decays through the reaction 10Be→10B+e. Light elements in the atmosphere react with high energy galactic cosmic ray particles. New Method for Dating Pottery . A team has developed a new method to date archaeological pottery using fat residues remaining in the pot wall from cooking using molecular and isotopic evidence. The method means prehistoric pottery can be dated with remarkable accuracy, sometimes to the window of a human life span. Pottery found in Shoreditch, London proven to be 5,500 years old and shows the vibrant urban area was once used by established farmers who ate cow, sheep and goat dairy products as a central part of their diet. Dendrochronology is the scientific method of dating(also called) to the exact year they were formed. As well as dating them this can give data for dendroclimatology, the study of climate and atmospheric conditions during different periods in history from wood. Dendroclimatology is the science of determining past climates from trees (primarily properties of the annual). Tree rings are wider when conditions favor growth, narrower when times are difficult. Bristlecone Pine or Pinus longaeva is more than 5,000 years old, making it the oldest known individual of any species. Solar System is the gravitationally bound system comprising the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of those objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest eight are the planets , with the remainder being significantly smaller objects, such as dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies . Of the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly, the moons, two are larger than the smallest planet , Mercury. Our Solar System is located in the Orion Arm , 26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way galaxy . The name of our solar system is solar system or Sol System. The formation and evolution of our Solar System began 4.6 billion years ago with the gravitational collapse of a small part of a giant molecular cloud. Most of the collapsing mass collected in the center, forming the Sun , while the rest flattened into a protoplanetary disk out of which the planets, moons, asteroids, and other small Solar System bodies formed. Scale of the Solar System Protoplanetary Disk is a rotating circumstellar disk of dense gas and dust surrounding a young newly formed star, a T Tauri star, or Herbig Ae/Be star. The protoplanetary disk may also be considered an accretion disk for the star itself, because gases or other material may be falling from the inner edge of the disk onto the surface of the star. This process should not be confused with the accretion process thought to build up the planets themselves. Externally illuminated photo-evaporating protoplanetary disks are called proplyds. How newborn stars prepare for the birth of planets . Very young stars, also called protostars , form in clouds of gas and dust in space. The first step in the formation of a star is when these dense clouds collapse due to gravity. As the cloud collapses, it begins to spin -- forming a flattened disk around the protostar. Material from the disk continues to feed the star and make it grow. Eventually, the left-over material in the disk is expected to form planets. Pebble Accretion is the accretion of objects ranging from centimeters up to meters in diameter onto planetesimals in a protoplanetary disk is enhanced by aerodynamic drag. This drag reduces the relative velocity of pebbles as they pass by larger bodies, preventing some from escaping the body's gravity. These pebbles are then accreted by the body after spiraling or settling toward its surface. This process increases the cross section over which the large bodies can accrete material, accelerating their growth. The rapid growth of the planetesimals via pebble accretion allows for the formation of giant planet cores in the outer Solar System before the dispersal of the gas disk. A reduction in the size of pebbles as they lose water ice after crossing the ice line and a declining density of gas with distance from the sun slow the rates of pebble accretion in the inner Solar System resulting in smaller terrestrial planets, a small mass of Mars and a low mass asteroid belt. Formation of the Planets . The various planets are thought to have formed from the solar nebula, the disc-shaped cloud of gas and dust left over from the Sun's formation. The currently accepted method by which the planets formed is accretion, in which the planets began as dust grains in orbit around the central protostar. Through direct contact, these grains formed into clumps up to 200 metres in diameter, which in turn collided to form larger bodies (planetesimals) of ~10 kilometres (km) in size. These gradually increased through further collisions, growing at the rate of centimetres per year over the course of the next few million years. The inner Solar System, the region of the Solar System inside 4 AU, was too warm for volatile molecules like water and methane to condense, so the planetesimals that formed there could only form from compounds with high melting points, such as metals (like iron, nickel, and aluminium) and rocky silicates. These rocky bodies would become the terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth , and Mars). These compounds are quite rare in the Universe, comprising only 0.6% of the mass of the nebula, so the terrestrial planets could not grow very large. The terrestrial embryos grew to about 0.05 Earth masses (M⊕) and ceased accumulating matter about 100,000 years after the formation of the Sun; subsequent collisions and mergers between these planet-sized bodies allowed terrestrial planets to grow to their present sizes (see Terrestrial planets below). When the terrestrial planets were forming, they remained immersed in a disk of gas and dust. The gas was partially supported by pressure and so did not orbit the Sun as rapidly as the planets. The resulting drag and, more importantly, gravitational interactions with the surrounding material caused a transfer of angular momentum, and as a result the planets gradually migrated to new orbits. Models show that density and temperature variations in the disk governed this rate of migration, but the net trend was for the inner planets to migrate inward as the disk dissipated, leaving the planets in their current orbits. The giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) formed further out, beyond the frost line, which is the point between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter where the material is cool enough for volatile icy compounds to remain solid. The ices that formed the Jovian planets were more abundant than the metals and silicates that formed the terrestrial planets, allowing the giant planets to grow massive enough to capture hydrogen and helium, the lightest and most abundant elements. Planetesimals beyond the frost line accumulated up to 4 M within about 3 million years. Today, the four giant planets comprise just under 99% of all the mass orbiting the Sun. Theorists believe it is no accident that Jupiter lies just beyond the frost line. Because the frost line accumulated large amounts of water via evaporation from infalling icy material, it created a region of lower pressure that increased the speed of orbiting dust particles and halted their motion toward the Sun. In effect, the frost line acted as a barrier that caused material to accumulate rapidly at ~5 AU from the Sun. This excess material coalesced into a large embryo (or core) on the order of 10 M⊕, which began to accumulate an envelope via accretion of gas from the surrounding disc at an ever-increasing rate. Once the envelope mass became about equal to the solid core mass, growth proceeded very rapidly, reaching about 150 Earth masses ~105 years thereafter and finally topping out at 318 M⊕. Saturn may owe its substantially lower mass simply to having formed a few million years after Jupiter, when there was less gas available to consume. Inner Core Birth of a Planet is witnessed by ESO Telescope that sees signs of planet birth. The new images feature a stunning spiral of dust and gas around AB Aurigae, located 520 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Auriga (The Charioteer). Scientists may have figured out how dust particles can stick together to form planets . In homes, adhesion on contact can cause fine particles to form dust bunnies. Particles under microgravity develop strong electrical charges spontaneously and stick together, forming large aggregates. Although like charges repel, like-charged aggregates form nevertheless, apparently because the charges are so strong that they polarize one another and therefore act like magnets. Planetary System is a set of gravitationally bound non-stellar objects in or out of orbit around a star or star system. Generally speaking, systems with one or more planets constitute a planetary system, although such systems may also consist of bodies such as dwarf planets, asteroids, natural satellites, meteoroids, comets, planetesimals and circumstellar disks. The Sun together with its planetary system, which includes Earth, is known as the Solar System. The term exoplanetary system is sometimes used in reference to other planetary systems. As of 1 February 2019, there are 3,976 confirmed planets in 2,971 systems, with 653 systems having more than one planet. Debris disks are also known to be common, though other objects are more difficult to observe. Of particular interest to astrobiology is the habitable zone of planetary systems where planets could have surface liquid water, and thus the capacity to harbor Earth-like life Planetary Science s the scientific study of planets (including Earth), moons, and planetary systems (in particular those of the Solar System) and the processes that form them. It studies objects ranging in size from micrometeoroids to gas giants, aiming to determine their composition, dynamics, formation, interrelations and history. It is a strongly interdisciplinary field, originally growing from astronomy and earth science, but which now incorporates many disciplines, including planetary geology (together with geochemistry and geophysics), cosmochemistry, atmospheric science , oceanography, hydrology, theoretical planetary science, glaciology, and exoplanetology. Allied disciplines include space physics, when concerned with the effects of the Sun on the bodies of the Solar System, and astrobiology. If the Sun were the size of a Basketball , the Earth would be the size of a Sesame Seed . If the Earth were shrunk down to the size of a Basketball ( Radius : 4.69 inches), the Moon would be the size of a Tennis Ball (Radius: 1.2768 inches, to be exact) and 23.5 feet away (238,855.086 miles). The Sun would be a 42.6-foot sphere (source) and located 1.7 miles away (92 million miles). (figure out the math involved). Scaling To Scale: The Solar System (vimeo) - The Solar System to Scale on a dry lakebed in Nevada (youtube) Latest view of Jupiter from NASA’s Juno spacecraft (youtube) The Year of Pluto - NASA New Horizons (youtube) - Pluto Photos Curiosity Mars Rover Snaps 1.8 Billion-Pixel Panorama (narrated video) (youtube) - Composed of more than 1,000 images and carefully assembled over the ensuing months, the larger version of this composite contains nearly 1.8 billion pixels of Martian landscape. NASA Curiosity Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada guides this tour of the rover's view of the Martian surface. This panorama showcases "Glen Torridon," a region on the side of Mount Sharp that Curiosity is exploring. The panorama was taken between Nov. 24 and Dec. 1, 2019. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Planet is an astronomical body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals. Tallest Mountains in the Solar System (wiki) Gas Giant is a giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants of the Solar System. Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune are the three immense gas giants in the outer solar system, all have atmospheres made up of mostly hydrogen. A gas giant means that it is comprised almost entirely of gas with a liquid core of heavy metals. Since none of the gas giants has a solid surface, you cannot stand on any of these planets, nor can spacecraft land on them. They do have a small rocky and metallic core, but it is buried deep in the core planet. Jupiter is called a failed star because it is made of the same elements (hydrogen and helium) as is the Sun, but it is not massive enough to have the internal pressure and temperature necessary to cause hydrogen to fuse to helium, the energy source that powers the sun and most other stars.is also called a giant planet, large gaseous planet like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune. Giant Planet is any massive planet. They are usually primarily composed of low-boiling-point materials (gases or ices), rather than rock or other solid matter, but massive solid planets can also exist. There are four known giant planets in the Solar System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Many extrasolar giant planets have been identified orbiting other stars. Giant planets are also sometimes called jovian planets, after Jupiter. They are also sometimes known as gas giants. However, many astronomers apply the latter term only to Jupiter and Saturn, classifying Uranus and Neptune, which have different compositions, as ice giants. Both names are potentially misleading: all of the giant planets consist primarily of fluids above their critical points, where distinct gas and liquid phases do not exist. The principal components are hydrogen and helium in the case of Jupiter and Saturn, and water, ammonia and methane in the case of Uranus and Neptune. The defining differences between a very low-mass brown dwarf and a gas giant (~13 MJ) are debated. One school of thought is based on formation; the other, on the physics of the interior. Part of the debate concerns whether "brown dwarfs" must, by definition, have experienced nuclear fusion at some point in their history. Star Date is the public education and outreach arm of the University of Texas McDonald Observatory. Our radio program airs daily on more than 300 stations, and our popular bimonthly astronomy magazine is the perfect sky watching companion for amateur astronomers or anyone interested in celestial events and space exploration. We also offer astronomy resources to teachers, the media, and the public. Orbit is the gravitationally, for example the orbit of a planet about a star or a natural satellite around a planet. Orbits of planets are typically elliptical, and the central mass being orbited is at a focal point of the ellipse. Foucault Pendulum is a simple device conceived in 1851 as an experiment to demonstrate the Earth's rotation. Cycles Earth's orbit speed around the sun is 19 miles per second. Rotate is to turn on or around an axis or a center. - Spinning Motion (action physics) - Angular Momentum Atomic Orbital is a mathematical function that describes the wave-like behavior of either one electron or a pair of electrons in an atom. Elliptic Orbit not centered, rounded like an egg. - Orbiting Satellites Ecliptic is the mean plane of the apparent path in the Earth's sky that the Sun follows over the course of one year; it is the basis of the ecliptic coordinate system. This plane of reference is coplanar with Earth's orbit around the Sun (and hence the Sun's apparent path around Earth). The ecliptic is not normally noticeable from Earth's surface because the planet's rotation carries the observer through the daily cycles of sunrise and sunset, which obscure the Sun's apparent motion against the background of stars during the year.is the great circle representing the apparent annual path of the sun. The plane of the Earth's orbit around the sun, which makes an angle of about 23 degrees with the equator. North Pole Solar System's Motion through Space : The Resonance Project / Nassim Haramein (youtube) - Interesting Theory's The Helical Model - Our Solar System is a Vortex (youtube) The Helical Model - our Galaxy is a Vortex (youtube)The above videos are not totally accurate, but for all intensive purposes , it's good enough for now. Torus Spacetime Manifold (youtube) Helix is a type of smooth space curve, i.e. a curve in three-dimensional space. It has the property that the tangent line at any point makes a constant angle with a fixed line called the axis. Vortex Deferent and Epicycle meaning circle moving on another circle, was a geometric model used to explain the variations in speed and direction of the apparent motion of the Moon, Sun, and planets. In particular it explained the apparent retrograde motion of the five planets known at the time. Secondarily, it also explained changes in the apparent distances of the planets from Earth Light will reach Pluto at different times in its orbit. At perihelion: 14,800 seconds (4 hours, 6 minutes, 40 sec). At aphelion: 24,617 seconds (6 hours, 50 minutes, 17 sec). Average: 19,680 seconds (5 hours, 28 minutes). Circular Orbit is the orbit at a fixed distance around any point by an object rotating around a fixed axis Orbital Mechanics is the application of ballistics and celestial mechanics to the practical problems concerning the motion of rockets and other spacecraft Orbital Inclination is the acute (smaller) angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of an object in orbit around another object. Centrifugal Force (action physics) Orbital Resonance occurs when two orbiting bodies exert a regular, periodic gravitational influence on each other, usually because their orbital periods are related by a ratio of two small integers. The physics principle behind orbital resonance is similar in concept to pushing a child on a swing, where the orbit and the swing both have a natural frequency, and the other body doing the "pushing" will act in periodic repetition to have a cumulative effect on the motion . Orbital resonances greatly enhance the mutual gravitational influence of the bodies, i.e., their ability to alter or constrain each other's orbits. Orbital Decay is a process that leads to gradual decrease of the distance between two orbiting bodies at their closest approach (the periapsis) over many orbital periods. These orbiting bodies can be a planet and its satellite, a star and any object orbiting it, or components of any binary system. Orbits do not decay without some friction-like mechanism which robs energy from the orbital motion. This can be any of a number of mechanical, gravitational, or electromagnetic effects. For bodies in a low Earth orbit, the most significant effect is the atmospheric drag. If left unchecked, the decay eventually results in termination of the orbit when the smaller object strikes the surface of the primary; or for objects where the primary has an atmosphere, the smaller object burns, explodes, or otherwise breaks up in the larger object's atmosphere; or for objects where the primary is a star, ends with incineration by the star's radiation (such as for comets), and so on. Collisions and mergers of two stellar-mass objects usually produce cataclysmic effects; see stellar collision and gamma-ray burst. Due to atmospheric drag, the lowest altitude above the Earth at which an object in a circular orbit can complete at least one full revolution without propulsion is approximately 150 km (90 mi). Satellites Spin-Orbit Interaction is an interaction of a particle's spin with its motion . The first and best known example of this is that spin–orbit interaction causes shifts in an electron's atomic energy levels due to electromagnetic interaction between the electron's spin and the magnetic field generated by the electron's orbit around the nucleus. This is detectable as a splitting of spectral lines, which can be thought of as a Zeeman Effect due to the internal field. A similar effect, due to the relationship between angular momentum and the strong nuclear force, occurs for protons and neutrons moving inside the nucleus, leading to a shift in their energy levels in the nucleus shell model. In the field of spintronics, spin–orbit effects for electrons in semiconductors and other materials are explored for technological applications. The spin–orbit interaction is one cause of magnetocrystalline anisotropy. Axial Tilt also known as obliquity, is the angle between an object's rotational axis and its orbital axis, or, equivalently, the angle between its equatorial plane and orbital plane. It differs from orbital inclination. Earth Axial Precession is a gravity-induced, slow, and continuous change in the orientation of an astronomical body's rotational axis . In particular, it can refer to the gradual shift in the orientation of Earth's axis of rotation, which, similar to a, traces out a pair of cones joined at their apices in a cycle of approximately. Through each 26,000-year cycle, the direction in the sky to which the Earth's axis points goes around a big circle. The period of one complete cycle of the equinoxes around the ecliptic, or about 25,800 years". A more precise figure of 25,772 years is currently accepted. Great Year is the period of one complete cycle of the equinoxes around the ecliptic, or about 25,800 years. Binary Star Precession is a change in the orientation of the rotational axis of a rotating body. In an appropriate reference frame it can be defined as a change in the first Euler angle, whereas the third Euler angle defines the rotation itself. Momentum Age of Aquarius is an astrological term denoting either the current or forthcoming astrological age, depending on the method of calculation. Astrologers maintain that an astrological age is a product of the earth's slowand lasts for 2,160 years, on average ( 12 zodiac signs = 2,160 years). There are various methods of calculating the length of an astrological age. In sun-sign astrology, the first sign is Aries, followed by Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces, whereupon the cycle returns to Aries and through the zodiacal signs again. Astrological ages, however, proceed in the opposite direction ("retrograde" in astronomy). Therefore, the Age of Aquarius follows the Age of Pisces. The 5th Dimension - Age of Aquarius - 1969 (youtube). Heliocentrism is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun at the center of the Solar System. Copernican Heliocentrism (wiki) - Momentum , but upwards of 99% of Asteroids and other small features do too. The Earth also rotates on its axis in a counter-clockwise direction. And the Earth revolves around the Sun in an counter-clockwise direction. The Sun rotates counter-clockwise. All the other major planets, and most of the minor planets (asteroids) also orbit the Sun in an counter-clockwise direction.that this plane of rotation in our solar system does not match up with the overall plane of galactic rotation , which is clockwise. The direction of rotation within individual star systems is largely unaffected by the galaxy, but the systems themselves do all orbit the galactic core in one clockwise direction? Scientists believe that on large scales the Universe is isotropic (the same in all directions). Thus, from our perspective , half of all spiral galaxies should spin clockwise, and half counter-clockwise. A recent analysis of the spin of spiral galaxies confirms this. The public classified over 35,000 spiral galaxies with spins both clockwise and counter-clockwise in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey as part of the Galaxy Zoo project. Scientists published the results in a recent paper and found that the Universe is indeed isotropic - we see the same number of clockwise as counter-clockwise spirals (within the uncertainties). Proper Motion is the astronomical measure of the observed changes in apparent positions of stars in the sky as seen from the center of mass of the Solar System compared to the imaginary fixed background of the more distant stars. Earth and Venus Orbit (image) Apparent Retrograde Motion is the apparent motion of a planet in a direction opposite to that of other bodies within its system, as observed from a particular vantage point. Direct motion or prograde motion is motion in the same direction as other bodies. Retrograde and Prograde Motion is motion in the direction opposite to the movement of something else and the contrary of direct or prograde motion. This motion can be the orbit of one body about another body or about some other point, or the rotation of a single body about its axis, or other phenomena such as precession or nutation of the axis. In reference to celestial systems, retrograde motion usually means motion which is contrary to the rotation of the primary, that is, the object which forms the system's hub. Planetary Migration occurs when a planet or other stellar satellite interacts with a disk of gas or planetesimals, resulting in the alteration of the satellite's orbital parameters, especially its semi-major axis. Planetary migration is the most likely explanation for hot Jupiters, extrasolar planets with jovian masses, but orbits of only a few days. Thunderbolts of the Gods (youtube) Episode 2 Symbols of an Alien Sky: The Lightning Scarred Planet, Mars (youtube)on the right is about 330 miles across and some 8.5 billion miles from the sun. It takes. Sedna, Eris and Makemake have all been discovered in the past decade or so. Add to that Pluto. Occultation is an event that occurs when one object is hidden by another object that passes between it and the observer. The term is often used in astronomy, but can also refer to any situation in which an object in the foreground blocks from view (occults) an object in the background. In this general sense, occultation applies to the visual scene observed from low-flying aircraft (or computer-generated imagery) when foreground objects obscure distant objects dynamically, as the scene changes over time.Planets that have no stars are called Rogue Planets , there may be billions of rogue planets in the Milky Way Oort Cloud is an extended shell of icy objects that exist in the outermost reaches of the solar system. A theoretical cloud of predominantly icy planetesimals proposed to surround the Sun at distances ranging from 50,000 to 200,000 AU (0.8 to 3.2 ly). It is divided into two regions: a disc-shaped inner Oort cloud (or Hills cloud) and a spherical outer Oort cloud. Both regions lie beyond the heliosphere and in interstellar space. The Kuiper Belt and the scattered disc, the other two reservoirs of trans-Neptunian objects, are less than one thousandth as far from the Sun as the Oort cloud. Voyager 1&2 Galaxy is a gravitationally bound system of stars , stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter in the Universe . There are at least 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe. Satellites Galaxy Zoo helps to classify Galaxies - The Zooniverse is a collection of web-based Citizen Science projects that use the efforts and abilities of volunteers to help researchers deal with the flood of data that confronts them. Locating Planets Milky Way is the galaxy that contains our Solar System . The Milky Way is a combination of smaller galaxies. Our galaxy contains 200–400 billion Stars , with at least 50 billion Planets , 500 million of which could be located in the Habitable Zone of their parent star . Our solar system orbits around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy at an average velocity of. But even at that high rate, it still takes us about 230 million years to make one complete orbit around the Milky Way. Is the Milky Way an ‘outlier’ galaxy? Studying its ‘siblings’ for clues The Milky Way is a Barred Spiral Galaxy , and is estimated to be about 13.2 billion years old The Milky Way's black hole is 26,000 light years away. Space to be around 125,000 Light Years in Diameter . But the latest evidence may bring that size to almost 150,000 light-years in size. The Milky Way Churns Out Seven New Stars Per Year, Scientists Say with Star Formation burst in the Milky Way 2-3 billion years ago . More than 50 percent of the stars that created the galactic disc may have been born. The Milky Way has Satellite Galaxies with their own Satellites . Drawing from data on those galactic neighbors, a new model suggests the Milky Way should have an additional 100 or so very faint satellite galaxies awaiting discovery. Satellite Galaxy is a smaller companion galaxy that travels on bound orbits within the gravitational potential of a more massive and luminous host galaxy (also known as the primary galaxy). Satellite galaxies and their constituents are bound to their host galaxy, in the same way that planets within our own solar system are gravitationally bound to the Sun. While most satellite galaxies are dwarf galaxies, satellite galaxies of large galaxy clusters can be much more massive. The Milky Way is orbited by about fifty satellite galaxies, the largest of which is the Large Magellanic Cloud Massive Galaxies are Still Forming . NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer has spotted what appear to be massive “baby” galaxies in our corner of the universe. Previously, astronomers thought the universe’s birth rate had dramatically declined and only small galaxies were forming. If these galaxies are indeed newly formed, then this implies parts of the universe are still hotbeds of galaxy birth. There are three-dozen bright, compact galaxies that greatly resemble the youthful galaxies of more than 10 billions years ago. These new galaxies are relatively close to us, ranging from two to four billion light-years away. They may be as young as 100 million to one billion years old. The Milky Way is approximately 10 billion years old. NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer is an orbiting ultraviolet space telescope launched on April 28, 2003, and operated until early 2012. Galaxy Formation and Evolution is concerned with the processes that formed a heterogeneous universe from a homogeneous beginning, the formation of the first galaxies, the way galaxies change over time, and the processes that have generated the variety of structures observed in nearby galaxies. Galaxy formation is hypothesized to occur from structure formation theories, as a result of tiny quantum fluctuations in the aftermath of the Big Bang. The simplest model in general agreement with observed phenomena is the Lambda-CDM model—that is, that clustering and merging allows galaxies to accumulate mass, determining both their shape and structure., that means if you go there now, it may not be there. It's been traveling for 14 billion years and it will not be in the same place or even look the same as it did 14 billon years ago. Space Time Supernovas or a Star Explodes in the Milky Way Galaxy about once every 50 years.But what Shuts Down Star Formation in Galaxies? Galaxies originally form when large clouds of hydrogen gas collapse and are converted into stars, if you remove that gas, the galaxy cannot grow further Catching a GLIMPSE of the Milky Way (youtube) - Huelux (video) The Milky Way as You’ve Never Seen It Before – AMNH SciCafe (youtube)Is the Milky Way Galaxy the center of the Universe . Astronomers reported that Sagittarius B2, a dust cloud at the center of the Milky Way, includes the molecule ethyl formate , which is one of the compounds behind the flavor of raspberries and the scent of rum.The Milky Way is moving at a rate of 552 to 630 km per second, being pushed away from the Local Void at 600,000 mph with respect to this local co-moving frame of reference sideways stellar motion. Monoceros Ring is a long, complex, ringlike filament of stars that wraps around the Milky Way three times.Our Solar System travels at 447,000 MPH and takes 250 Million years to complete one Galactic Rotation. Galaxy Rotation Curve of a disc galaxy (also called a velocity curve) is a plot of the orbital speeds of visible stars or gas in that galaxy versus their radial distance from that galaxy's centre. Galactic Year . is the duration of time required for the Sun to orbit once around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Estimates of the length of one orbit range from 225 to 250 million terrestrial years. The Solar System is traveling at an average speed of 828,000 km/h (230 km/s) or 514,000 mph (143 mi/s) within its trajectory around the galactic center, a speed at which an object could circumnavigate the Earth's equator in 2 minutes and 54 seconds; that speed corresponds to approximately one 1300th of the speed of light. Shedding light on Galaxies’ Rotation Secrets The Earth takes one day to rotate, spins 1,050 MPH and travels 67,000 miles per hour. Earth orbits the Sun once every 366.26 times it rotates about its own axis, which is equal to 365.26 Solar Days . The Sun is moving 486,000 Mph. Halo Stars or outer disk stars, are the stars bordering the outer reaches of Segmentum Obscurus. Galactic Halo extends beyond the main, visible component. Great Attractor is a gravitational anomaly in intergalactic space at the center of the Laniakea Supercluster that reveals the existence of a localised concentration of mass tens of thousands of times more massive than the Milky Way. Higgs Boson (Hadron Collider) Galaxy Rotation Curve is a plot of the orbital speeds of visible stars or gas in that galaxy versus their radial distance from that galaxy's centre. It is typically rendered graphically as a plot. Dwarf Galaxy is a, a small number compared to the Milky Way's 200–400 billion stars. Antlia 2 Antlia 2 (Ant 2) is a low-surface-brightness dwarf satellite galaxy of the Milky Way at a galactic latitude of 11.2°. It spans 1.26° in the sky just southeast of Epsilon Antliae. The galaxy is similar in size to the Large Magellanic Cloud, despite being 10,000 times fainter. Antlia 2 has the lowest surface brightness of any galaxy discovered and is ~ 100 times more diffuse than any known ultra diffuse galaxy. It was discovered by the European Space Agency's Gaia spacecraft in November 2018. It has an extremely low density as well as a perfect hiding place in the Zone of Avoidance, behind the shroud of the Milky Way’s disc–a region full of dust and an overabundance of bright stars near the galactic center. This is what we call a ghost of a galaxy. Oddball Galaxy NGC 1052-DF2, doesn't have a noticeable central region, or even spiral arms and a disk, typical features of a spiral galaxy., in about 4 Billion years from now, the Galaxy Andromeda and the Milky Way will come in contact with each other to form one big Galaxy. But the chance of even two stars colliding is negligible because of the huge distances between the stars. The Andromeda Galaxy , 2.5 million light-years from Earth, contains about 1 trillion stars and the Milky Way contains about 300 billion. In order to see this image above would mean that Andromeda Galaxy is still around 100,000 light years away. Andromeda and Milky Way Collision (wiki) - Motion Gif of Galaxies Colliding Laniakea Supercluster is the galaxy supercluster that is home to the Milky Way and approximately 100,000 other nearby galaxies. Supercluster is a large group of smaller galaxy clusters or galaxy groups, which is among the largest-known structures of the cosmos. The Milky Way is part of the Local Group galaxy cluster (that contains more than 54 galaxies), which in turn is part of the Laniakea Supercluster with approximately 100,000 other nearby galaxies. This supercluster spans over 500 million light-years, while the Local Group spans over 10 million light-years. The number of superclusters in the observable universe is estimated to be 10 million. Virgo Supercluster (wiki). Great Attractor is an apparent gravitational anomaly in intergalactic space at the center of the local Laniakea Supercluster , in which the Milky Way is located, in the so-called Zone of Avoidance that is very difficult to observe in visible wavelengths due to the obscuring effects of our own galactic plane. This anomaly suggests a localized concentration of mass thousands of times more massive than the Milky Way . The anomaly is observable by its effect on the motion of galaxies and their associated clusters over a region hundreds of millions of light-years across. These galaxies are all redshifted , in accordance with the Hubble Flow , indicating that they are receding relative to us and to each other, but the variations in their redshift are sufficient to reveal the existence of the anomaly. The variations in their redshifts are known as peculiar velocities, and cover a range from about +700 km/s to −700 km/s, depending on the angular deviation from the direction to the Great Attractor. The Great Attractor is moving towards the Shapley Supercluster . Recent astronomical studies by a team of South African astrophysicists revealed a supercluster of galaxies, termed the Vela Supercluster , in the Great Attractor's theorized location. Coma Cluster is a large cluster of galaxies that contains over 1,000 identified galaxies. Globular Cluster is a spherical collection of stars that orbits a galactic core as a satellite. Globular clusters are very tightly bound by gravity, which gives them their spherical shapes and relatively high stellar densities toward their centers. Globular clusters, which are found in the halo of a galaxy, contain considerably more stars and are much older than the less dense galactic, or open clusters, which are found in the disk. The galactic halo is an extended, roughly spherical component of a galaxy which extends beyond the main, visible component. Several distinct components of galaxies comprise the halo: the galactic spheroid (stars). the galactic corona (hot gas, i.e. a plasma). the dark matter halo. The distinction between the halo and the main body of the galaxy is clearest in spiral galaxies, where the spherical shape of the halo contrasts with the flat disc. In an elliptical galaxy, there is no sharp transition between the body of the galaxy and the halo. Magellanic Clouds are two irregular dwarf galaxies visible from the southern hemisphere; they are members of the Local Group and are orbiting the Milky Way galaxy. Because they both show signs of a bar structure, they are often reclassified as Magellanic spiral galaxies. The two galaxies are: Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), approximately 160,000 light-years away. Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), approximately 200,000 light years away. Close look at the ATLASGAL image of the plane of the Milky Way (youtube)In around 1.2 million years from now a star will come close to ours There are 52 stellar systems beyond our own Solar system that currently lie within 5.0 parsecs (16.3 light-years) of the Sun . These systems contain a total of 63 stars, of which 50 are red dwarfs, by far the most common type of star in the Milky Way. Much more massive stars, such as our own, make up the remaining 13. In addition to these "true" stars, there are 11 brown dwarfs (objects not quite massive enough to fuse hydrogen), and 4 white dwarfs (extremely dense objects that remain after stars such as our Sun exhaust all fusable hydrogen in their core and slowly shed their outer layers while only the collapsed core remains). Despite the relative proximity of these objects to Earth, only nine (not including the Sun) are brighter than 6.5 apparent magnitude, the dimmest magnitude visible to the naked eye from Earth. All of these objects are located in the Local Bubble, a region within the Orion–Cygnus Arm of the Milky Way. Based on results from the Gaia telescope's second data release from April 2018,will possibly approach the Solar system to less than 5.0 parsecs (16 light-years) over the next 15 million years. Of these,This number is likely much higher, due to the sheer number of stars needed to be surveyed; a star approaching the Solar System 10 million years ago, moving at a typical Sun-relative 20–200 kilometers per second, would be 600–6,000 light years from the Sun at present day, with millions of stars closer to the Sun. The closest encounter to the Sun so far predicted is the low-mass orange dwarf star Gliese 710 / HIP 89825 with roughly 60% the mass of the Sun. It is currently predicted to pass 19,300 ± 3,200 astronomical units (0.305 ± 0.051 light-years) from the Sun in 1.280+0.041−0.039 million years from the present, close enough to significantly disturb our Solar System's Oort cloud. The easiest way to determine stellar distance to the Sun for objects at these distances is parallax, which measures how much stars appear to move against background objects over the course of Earth's orbit around the Sun. As a parsec (parallax-second) is defined by the distance of an object that would appear to move exactly one second of arc against background objects, stars less than 5 parsecs away will have measured parallaxes of over 0.2 arcseconds, or 200 milliarcseconds. Determining past and future positions relies on accurate astrometric measurements of their parallax and total proper motions (how far they move across the sky due to their actual velocity relative to the Sun), along with spectroscopically determined radial velocities (their speed directly towards or away from us, which combined with proper motion defines their true movement through the sky relative to the Sun). Both of these measurements are subject to increasing and significant errors over very long time spans, especially over the several thousand-year time spans it takes for stars to noticeably move relative to each other. Quantum Fluctuation is the temporary change in the amount of energy in a point in space. This allows the creation of particle-antiparticle pairs of virtual particles."I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever. A vision of the universe." Quote from the 1997 Film "Contact" Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It applies mathematics physics , and chemistry , in an effort to explain the origin of those objects and phenomena and their evolution. The objects of interest include planets galaxies , and comets ; while the phenomena include supernovae explosions, gamma ray bursts, and cosmic microwave background radiation. More generally all astronomical phenomena that originate outside Earth's atmosphere is within the preview of astronomy. A related but distinct subject, physical cosmology, is concerned with the study of the Universe as a whole. Ask an Astronomer at Cornell University is something that relates to the science of astronomy. Something inconceivably large Astrometry is the branch of astronomy that involves precise measurements of the positions and movements of stars and other celestial bodies . The information obtained by astrometric measurements provides information on the kinematics and physical origin of the solar system and our galaxy, the Milky Way . - Telescopes Observational Astronomy is a division of astronomy that is concerned with recording data about the observable universe , in contrast with theoretical astronomy, which is mainly concerned with calculating the measurable implications of physical models. It is the practice and study of observing celestial objects with the use of telescopes and other astronomical instruments. As a science, the study of astronomy is somewhat hindered in that direct experiments with the properties of the distant universe are not possible. However, this is partly compensated by the fact that astronomers have a vast number of visible examples of stellar phenomena that can be examined. This allows for observational data to be plotted on graphs, and general trends recorded. Nearby examples of specific phenomena, such as variable stars, can then be used to infer the behavior of more distant representatives. Those distant yardsticks can then be employed to measure other phenomena in that neighborhood, including the distance to a galaxy. Galileo Galilei turned a telescope to the heavens and recorded what he saw. Since that time, observational astronomy has made steady advances with each improvement in telescope technology. Astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either observational (by analyzing the data) or theoretical astronomy.