FINAL EXAM ESSAY 1 EARTH IN SPACE

A)Our knowledge of Earths location in the universe has been shaped by 400 years of telescopic observations, and has expanded radically in the last century. Initially, Earth was believed to be the center of the universe, which consisted only of those planets visible with the eye and an outlying sphere of stars. After the acceptance of the heliocentric mofdel in the 17th century observations by william h.and others showed that Earth's Sun lay within a vast, disc-shaped galaxy of stars, later revealed to be suns like our own. By the 20th century, observations of nebula revealed that our galaxy was only one of billions in an growing universe grouped into clusters and superclusters. By the 21 centuary the structure of the visible universe was becoming clearer. Superclusters, filaments and voids are likely the largest coherent structures that exist in the Universe. At still larger scales over 1000 megaparsecs the Universe becomes homogeneous meaning that all its parts have on average the same density, composition and structure.
Since there is believed to be no "center" or "edge" of the universe, there is no particular reference point with which to plot the overall location of the Earth in the universe. It is still undetermined whether the universe is infinate and there is speculation that our universe.
(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_location_in_the_universe

 
 B) Motion. The galaxy is moving away from us, this is known as the Doppler effect. The same effect can be detected in sound. When a police car is speeding towards us the sound waves made by its siren are 'squashed' and the pitch sounds higher. As it passes us and starts to move away the sound waves are 'stretched' and the pitch sounds lower. In the 1920's Edwin Hubble observed that all galaxies (apart from a few local ones attracted towards our own and showing blueshift) show red shift. This indicates that the galaxies are all flying away from us, as in a Big Bang explosion. Expansion of the universe. Einstein's famous equations show that the universe should be expanding, not because the galaxies were moving through space, but because the 'empty' space between them (spacetime) is expanding. This cosmological redshift results because the light from the distant galaxies is stretched by the amount that space expands while the light is en route to us. This also reveals that the Earth is not at the centre of the universe with all the galaxies moving away from us, but that due to the expansion of the universe, all the galaxies are moving away from each other, like painted dots on a balloon moving apart as it is inflated. Gravity. This is also explained by Einstein's general theory. Light moving outwards from a star is moving 'uphill' in the star's gravitational field, and loses energy as a result. Because light cannot slow down - it always travels at the same speed - when it loses energy its wavelength increases, in other words, it is redshifted. It does however, require a very powerful gravitational field for this effect to be measurable, such as created by a white dwarf star.
(2) http://www.thekeyboard.org.uk/The%20Big%20Bang%20Theory.htm



C) Measurements by the WMPA satellite can help resolve this crisis. then the detailed structure of the cosmic microwaves will depend on the current density of the universe, the composition of the universe and its expansion rate. WMAP has been able to determine these parameterswith an accuracy of better than than 3% of the critical density. How does WMAP data enable us to determine the age of the universe is 13.7 billion years you may ask? with an uncertainty of 1% The key to this is that by knowing the composition of matter and energy density in the universe, we can use Einstein's General Relativity to compute how fast the universe has been expanding in the past. With that information, we can turn the clock back and determine when the universe had "zero" size, according to Einstein. The time between then and now is the age of the universe. There is one caveat to keep in mind that affects the certainty of the age determination: we assume that the universe is flat, which is well supported by WMAP and other data.

http://www.theresilientearth.com/files/images/cosmic_rays_hit_earth.jpg

(3) http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_age.html

BIB
(1)
URL- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_location_in_the_universe
Date updated- 10/16/10
Title-Earths location in the universe
Company- wikipedia

(2)
URL-http://www.thekeyboard.org.uk/The%20Big%20Bang%20Theory.htm
Date updated- 5/13/07
Title- The Big Bang Theory
Company-
(3)
URL- http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_age.html
Date updated- 7/19/10
Title- WMAP
Company-  NASA 

FINAL EXAM ESSAY 2 THE SUN

THE SUN
A)Solar flares -Scientific research has shown that the phenomenon of magnetic reconnection is responsible for solar flares. Magnetic reconnection is the name given to the rearrangement of magnetic lines of force when two oppositely directed magnetic fields are brought together. This rearrangement is accompanied with a sudden release of energy stored in the original oppositely directed fields.
On the Sun, magnetic reconnection may happen on solar arcades – a series of closely occurring loops of magnetic lines of force. These lines of force quickly reconnect into a low arcade of loops leaving a helix of magnetic field unconnected to the rest of the arcade. The sudden release of energy in this reconnection causes the solar flare. The unconnected magnetic helical field and the material that it contains may violently expand outwards forming a coronal mass ejection.
This also explains why solar flares typically erupt from what are known as the active regions on the Sun where magnetic fields are much stronger on an average.
  http://dailypostal.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/solar-flare.jpg
B) Satellite solar outages occur because the Sun which is a powerful broadband microwave noise source passes directly behind the satellite when viewed from Earth and the receiver with the beam directed towards the satellite picks up both the satellite signal and the noise from the Sun.

The degree of interference caused by a satellite solar outage varies from slight signal degradation to complete loss of signal as the down link is swamped by the noise from the Sun. Parameters such as the antenna directivity can make large differences to the amount of time of the solar outage. Antennas with a very wide beamwidth could be affected for as much as half an hour, whereas antennas with higher gain and directivity levels as are more commonly used for satellite reception will be affected for much shorter periods of time. Typically only a few minutes.The effect of the solar noise causing the outage is very marked. Even at times of low solar activity, the effect is very noticeable and can result in noise levels of between 10 and 20 dB above the signals from transponders, dependent upon a host of factors.

 

(1) http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/satellite/solar-effects/sun-solar-outages-basics-tutorial.php

C)

Due to the large amounts of energy released in a supernova explosion, much higher temperatures are reached than stellar temperatures. These higher temperatures allow for an environment where elements up to the atomic mass of 254 are formed, californium being the heaviest known, though it is seen only as a synthetic element on earth. the maximum weight for an element fused is that of iron, reaching an isotope with an atomic mass of 56. Fusion of elements between silicon and iron occurs only in the largest of stars, which end as supernova explosions.

 

BIBS
(1)
URL-http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/satellite/solar-effects/sun-solar-outages-basics-tutorial.php
date updated-
Title- solar outrage
Company- radio electronics
(2)
URL-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova_nucleosynthesis
Date updated- 11/1/10
Title-Supernova
Company- wikipedia

Bad Astronomy Blog

Watching the movie I said that when the astronaut was blinded by the sun it was factual. After looking it up on the Bad Astronomy website I learned that Phil Plait disaggred with me becasue although he didn't know how close the comet actually was to the sun, he said that n.a.s.a. would have given them built in visors or built in a u.v. block to their visors. They did have sun visors the astonaut was just in panic so he couldn't get it over his face in time therefore I disagree wiht Phil. Phil also believes that it is wrong that the sun blinded him becasuse he was only loooking at it for a few seconds but I think it easily would have blinded him considering they seemed to be very close to the sun and he is looking directly into the sun. Also while watching the movie I believed that the comet would have caused a huge wave of water when it landed in the ocean. Phil agreed with me that it would have caused a big wave but he disagrees that the water would have compleatly receded from the beach to be drawn up into the wave. Also the water would have been traveling faster than sound so we wouldn't have heard the huge wave.
I believed that it was wrong for the commet to be making any sound and Phil agreed with me that you have to have a medium for sound to occur and space is a vacum, therefore there would be no sound.
Lastly while watching the movie I believed it was false that the commet weighed 500 billion tons and Phil agrred with me. He says that the commet woul have actually weighed about 1,000 trillion tons!

Misconceptions:
Bad Moon Rising - Can you see the moon during the day?
I think that the moon is ushually on the opisite side of the world when it is day time here wich would explain why we cant see it durning the day. but when its a new moon i think we can see it on our side of the earth because when its a new moon for us the moon is not up? so thats my connection to it.
after reading I was wrong. The moon is always up during the day you just have to know where to look to find it. so i guess its not just when there is a new moon.
The sky at Night - Do all starts look white?
when i look up at the sky i see white tints and orange tints. But when i squezz my eye shut and leave it cracked i can see diffrent colors. After reading I learned that all stars emit all of the colors of the rainbow. He says the best way to find out is to look at the stars in the summertime and look directly above at the brightest stars (Vega and Antares) which will clearly be blue and red orange.
A Step Farther Out - What's your sign? Astrology and the zodiac.
I know that my sign is scorpio because my birthday is in november. There are also 11 other sign for the other months. After reading I learned that there are more than just 11 constellations. There are between 13 and 24, because soom are for rare ecasions and what not, so feel special if u have one of thoose.

GLOBAL ISSUES

What needs to be done? After a family has one child a family will be taxed if they have more kids.

How do u plan to accomplish it? We will allow the countries governments to kepp the tax money so they will be more likely to except the law

Who will be responsible for oversight? The UNFPA will be responsible for for over seight 

http://www.populationaction.org/Publications/Fact_Sheets/FS3/Summary.shtml

How will the solution be funded? We will make the familys pay there governments if they have more than one kid

The solution will be monitored by seeing how much tax money each government gets and dividing it by how much each taxed kid costs so we can see if berth rates are reducing

The consequences for non-compliance will be taxation and if the familys cant offord to pay for the children they had it will be sent into foster care

Climate Inquiry

1. The atmosphere has a natural supply of "greenhouse gases." They capture heat and keep the surface of the Earth warm enough for us to live on. Without the greenhouse effect, the planet would be an uninhabitable, frozen wasteland. Industry took off in the mid-1700s, and people started emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases. Fossil fuels were burned more and more to run our cars, trucks, factories, planes and power plants, adding to the natural supply of greenhouse gases. The gases—which can stay in the atmosphere for at least fifty years and up to centuries—are building up beyond the Earth's capacity to remove them and, in effect, creating an extra-thick heat blanket around the Earth.

The result is that the globe has heated up by about one degree Fahrenheit over the past century—and it has heated up more intensely over the past two decades. Already, people have increased the amount of CO2, the chief global warming pollutant, in the atmosphere to 31 percent above pre-industrial levels. There is more CO2 in the atmosphere now than at any time in the last 650,000 years. Studies of the Earth’s climate history show that even small changes in CO2 levels generally have come with significant shifts in the global average temperature. 

-The basics of global warming

-Updated last january 9,2009

-http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=35215&source=ggadgw35215&gclid=CIvdpfml2qQCFcT75wodqRDuJQ

-Enviromental Defense Foundation

Earth's water cycle has been pushed to its limit. The amount of water evaporating off the land and into the atmosphere hit a maximum 12 years ago and is now in decline, new calculations show.

Martin Jung of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, and colleagues calculated trends in evapotranspiration – the amount of water vapour that entered the atmosphere – between 1982 and 2008. This moisture is either evaporated off the land by the sun's heat or released by plants.

They found that evapotranspiration rose steadily until 1998, as would be expected in a warming global climate. But the trend reversed in 1998, and the amount of moisture being cycled into the atmosphere began to drop.

Team member Steven Running of the University of Montana in Missoula says that in some regions, rising temperatures have sucked all the available water out of the ground. Though that moisture returns to the ground as rain, most of it falls elsewhere, leaving dry regions like Australia parched.

- Water Cycle Goes Bust As The World Gets Warmer

-October 10, 2010

-Michael Marshall

-http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19565-water-cycle-goes-bust-as-the-world-gets-warmer.html

1. i learned alot about the sewer treatment plant this last week when i visited it. i learned that there are several steps to sanitize or water that comes from all the city toilets and sinks. The trash and garbage that comes from the garbage disposal is all cought in a big machine and broken down. a fun fact for you is that 99.9% of the water that comes to the plant is already clean, its that .1 percent that has poop and garbage in it. another thing is the water is put into a big tank that pumps oxygen in to it. this allows for the healthy microrganisms to eat the dirty junk in the water that dosnt need to be there. then the water goes into another tank wich allows the solids to settle to the bottom and be takin out.

 2. recycling is important, if we bought a 24 pack of pop and threw all the cans away that would be dumb, so why not recycle them and make 24 new cans. you can also recycle medals and and plastics. so instead of us keep taking raw materials out of the earth we can keep recycling and save the earth! i will continue to receycle because because i like getting money after i have alot of cans, and its good for our enviroment.

City talk

1. Her name was Mrs byerly. She worked for the city of eaton rapids, and she came and talked to our class.

2. The city upgraded the sewer water treatment system by putting in bigger storm drains and rain gardens to help prevent stuff from getting into the river when it rains. Wich well help with a good chunck of pollution because the rain water will take all the debre from the streets and it will go rite into our river.

3. Adding the storm drain and the rain gardens will help the river alot. It will keep chemicals like oil and metals that come off of our cars and into the environment. exspecially the roadways and parking lots the improvments should keep our river cleaner.
4. My group was responsible for the temperature of the river. the improvments wont really help with the tempature of the water but it will help with other things wich is still good.

5.  The thing i found the most interesting was the irony. because with putting these new roads in and all the chemicles and debre coming from the heavey equipent then it going into our river and polluting it. so when the construction is gone our river will become a little cleaner.

6. my bio bottle is improving dailey. our grass is getting tall and our peas our getting bigger. some of the plastic in one of our expirments is keeping the grass and peas from growing. wich is proving that plastic is bad for our enviroment so our bio bottle lab is pretty sucsessfull.

7. As a group we havnt really gave eachother rolls yet, but we will each be contibuting.

8. We have not started our lexus power point yet because we still gathering data