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An Introduction to the Universe

An Introduction to the Universe. And a few numbers and simple mathematical techniques for developing a sense of scale. Let’s start at the planet we call home. Earth. The first lesson in scale…. How many Earth’s would fit side by side between the Earth and the Moon?.

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An Introduction to the Universe

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  1. An Introduction to the Universe And a few numbers and simple mathematical techniques for developing a sense of scale.

  2. Let’s start at the planet we call home Earth

  3. The first lesson in scale…. How many Earth’s would fit side by side between the Earth and the Moon? Image from the Mars Express Spacecraft

  4. Lest we forget… The Universe has a history of violence.

  5. The earliest astronomical models placed the Earth at the center of a celestial giant sphere.

  6. Just 500 years ago, during the Renaissance, philosophers began to re-examine our place in the Universe.

  7. The Sun is now considered to the be the center of our solar system

  8. This image of Saturn backlit by the Sun taken by the Cassini Spacecraft partially illustrates our position in the Universe

  9. Stars are now believed to form in clusters like this one (M45) that still is surrounded by some of the gas and dust that stars form from.

  10. With the invention of the astronomical telescope in the early 1600’s, astronomers were able to see previously unknown objects like this Globular Cluster of stars in the constellation called M13

  11. Galaxies are distributed in clusters

  12. Other galaxies are grouped in rich clusters that may contain upward of 50,000 galaxies. Abell 1689

  13. The Hubble telescope reveals the tru character of rich galaxy cluster Abell 1689

  14. Our own galaxy is believed to be similar in structure to this galaxy called the Whirlpool Galaxy (M58) Note the two supernova

  15. Our own Milky Way Galaxy is part of a poor galaxy cluster called the Local Group.

  16. This map of small variations in the Cosmic Background Radiation has allowed astronomers to pin down the age of the Universe as 13.78 Byr

  17. Evidence for Dark Matter was firmly established by Vera Rubin by measuring the rotation speeds of stars in distant spiral galaxies

  18. Our understanding of the beginnings of our Universe has given rise to a phenomena known as cosmic inflation that explains the current large scale structure of our Universe.

  19. Recent measurements of supernova in distance galaxies has provided evidence that there is an unknown energy that is causing our Universe to accelerate its expansion – Dark Energy

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