Meteor Showers

Meteor showers occur when Earth moves through a stream of particales
produced by a decaying comet. This is because comets shed enormous quantities of
material during each orbit. Some of the largest being Comet Halley and Encke.
Meteoroid dust is blown away from the cometary nucleus by gas pressure. Most is
lost when the comet is closet to the Sun. A meteor stream develops along the
comet's orbit and is replenished each time a comet completes another orbit of
the Sun. When the parent comet finally disintergrates,it spells the end for one
particular stream as it is not being replenished regularly and its particles
disperse into space.
As the Earth moves along its orbit aorund the Sun, it regularly moves
through streams of meteoroids. Therefore meteor showers are regular and
predictable events and there are well over 20 per year.

http://www.astronomytoday.com/astronomy/meteors.html

After reading this excerpt from the article, I remember hearing when meteor showers were going to be and staying up till around 3 in the morning to catch a glimpse. I was not able to watch everyone, but the ones I were able to see were amazing to watch. So my question to you is, "Have you ever stayed up through the night just to watch a meteor shower? If so, was it worth your while to stay up that late?".

How to study your Astronomy textbook

1. Review the assignment and gather all the handouts and information from internet.
2. Skim through the chapter by reading titles, subtitles, bold letter words, and graphics.
3. Read SLOWLY to understand the material which you will use in the following chapters.
4. Go back to re-read the material that you did not completely understand.
5. Mark the material that you are confused about and ask your teacher.
6. Build your way of understanding, for example visualize the pictures. Everyone has different styles.
7. It is really helpful to read the material before the lecture, 70% more understanding.

UARS

As many of you may have heard about the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) re-entering into the earth's atmosphere because of no gas and battery supplies. UARS was launched in 1991 and finished its mission in 2005, but it's been orbiting the earth for 20 years. Since it was built long time ago, scientists did not put the technology to control it when it is out of fuel and bring it safe on the earth surface as most of the new satellites work. NASA has predicted the time at which it will hit the surface during Saturday, which cannot be determined accurately because of its velocity, drag forces on it, and orientation. Solar activity was one of the drag force which could have affected the speed of the satellite, but since it passed the thermosphere already, it will not be affected by solar activity. Solar activity is when sun's flares affect changes in the earth's thermosphere. One other drag force which is included and will affect the UARS is caused by the air molecules in the atmosphere. Above all NASA did succeed in changing UARS's orientation and slowed it down. Now we can just wait and watch about what happens next. You can comment about your thoughts on this news.

Kepler's Laws

Just as there are the Newtonian Laws for motion of a particle, there are laws for the motion of planets. These laws were created by Johannes Kepler. Johannes Kepler was raised in a very poor lifestyle, having a father for only the first few years of his life and a mother accused of witchcraft. With him doing well in school, he was able to go to college in the late 1580's to early 1590's and then receive a job teaching at the University of Graz. There he taught mathematics and astronomy, even though he knew little about those, since he studied to be a Lutheran pastor. After a few years teaching, he wrote a book and afterwards became more interested in astronomy. It was at this time he came up with Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion.

I. The orbits of the planets are ellipses with the sun at one focus.

II. A line from a planet to the sun sweeps over equal areas in equal intervals of time

III. A planet's orbital period squared is proportional to its average distance from the sun cubed : Py^2=Dau^3

Now looking at the laws; if a planet has a distance of 13 AU away from the sun, how long would the period for that planet be in years?

Tatooine

Hey guys. This post is about the discovery of a new planet called Tatooine or Kepler-16b. NASA recently found the first ever known circumbinary planet which orbits around two suns about 200 light-years away from us. The planet is told to be very cold, gaseous, and the size of Saturn. It can not carry life according to NASA. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/15/scitech/main20106865.shtml Here is a link to a news article if you are interested. Just imagine having two sunsets, can you talk about the lifestyle changes everyone would have to experience if the earth was orbiting two suns. Here is a link to some videos. http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_18902827 

The discovery of R136 (start cluster) is an amazing find by astronomer Paul Crowther. New discoveries [as this one] provide new and critical information in the respected fields. Also, these discoveries can disprove many theories scientist have had. If you were a scientist, would you like for new discoveries in your field to be found? Remember, new discoveries provide new information but also cancel much information that you already know.

Scientific Notation

As many of you may know in scientific documents, research, and problems some numbers are really big or small to write it in its full form. To avoid mistakes and make it uncomplicated to write such numbers, scientific notation is used. In scientific notation numbers are written in the form, , in which b is an integer and a is any real number. Exponent b is the number of places the decimal should be moved, to the right for a positive value of b and to the left for a negative value of b. Remember not to write leading or trailing zeros for a. Here are few examples: 46600000 = 4.66 x 10^{7 ;} 0.00053 = 5.3 x 10^{-4 ;} 7354 = 7.354 x 10^{3 ;} 0.053 = 5.3 x 10^-2

Here are some practice problems:

5.2 x 10³

1.2 x 10^-3

The Tides

Hey everyone. When most people think about astronomy they think just about outer space, or at least I do. Even though, many things that are taking place outside Earth affect what is happening on Earth. Such is the case with tides. Many know that tides are caused by the gravitational pull from the moon. Some people do not realize how powerful these tides are. In the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick, Canada, the tides fluctuate 40 feet. This is a massive amount of water to oscillate, and it happens twice a day! Living in Florida, closer to the equator, we only experience a 1-2 foot fluctuation each day. These tides occur in the Gulf of Mexico. Larger fluctuations in tides occur (spring tides) when there is a new and full moon, while lower fluctuations occur (neap tides) when there is a first and third quarter moon. Now comes the first problem solving. Given that the tide for the Bay of Fundy happens twice a day, two times in and two out, calculate how much water moves (in volume) in 6 hours. Give a rough estimate. ( Hint : you are already given the depth).