1.
Orbit
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In physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet about a star or a natural satellite around a planet. Normally, orbit refers to a regularly repeating path around a body, to a close approximation, planets and satellites follow elliptical orbits, with the central mass being orbited at a focal point of the ellipse, as described by Keplers laws of planetary motion. For ease of calculation, in most situations orbital motion is adequately approximated by Newtonian Mechanics, historically, the apparent motions of the planets were described by European and Arabic philosophers using the idea of celestial spheres. This model posited the existence of perfect moving spheres or rings to which the stars and it assumed the heavens were fixed apart from the motion of the spheres, and was developed without any understanding of gravity. After the planets motions were accurately measured, theoretical mechanisms such as deferent. Originally geocentric it was modified by Copernicus to place the sun at the centre to help simplify the model, the model was further challenged during the 16th century, as comets were observed traversing the spheres. The basis for the understanding of orbits was first formulated by Johannes Kepler whose results are summarised in his three laws of planetary motion. Second, he found that the speed of each planet is not constant, as had previously been thought. Third, Kepler found a relationship between the orbital properties of all the planets orbiting the Sun. For the planets, the cubes of their distances from the Sun are proportional to the squares of their orbital periods. Jupiter and Venus, for example, are respectively about 5.2 and 0.723 AU distant from the Sun, their orbital periods respectively about 11.86 and 0.615 years. The proportionality is seen by the fact that the ratio for Jupiter,5. 23/11.862, is equal to that for Venus,0. 7233/0.6152. Idealised orbits meeting these rules are known as Kepler orbits, isaac Newton demonstrated that Keplers laws were derivable from his theory of gravitation and that, in general, the orbits of bodies subject to gravity were conic sections. Newton showed that, for a pair of bodies, the sizes are in inverse proportion to their masses. Where one body is more massive than the other, it is a convenient approximation to take the center of mass as coinciding with the center of the more massive body. Lagrange developed a new approach to Newtonian mechanics emphasizing energy more than force, in a dramatic vindication of classical mechanics, in 1846 le Verrier was able to predict the position of Neptune based on unexplained perturbations in the orbit of Uranus. This led astronomers to recognize that Newtonian mechanics did not provide the highest accuracy in understanding orbits, in relativity theory, orbits follow geodesic trajectories which are usually approximated very well by the Newtonian predictions but the differences are measurable. Essentially all the evidence that can distinguish between the theories agrees with relativity theory to within experimental measurement accuracy
2.
Mars
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Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, after Mercury. Named after the Roman god of war, it is referred to as the Red Planet because the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance. Mars is a planet with a thin atmosphere, having surface features reminiscent both of the impact craters of the Moon and the valleys, deserts, and polar ice caps of Earth. The rotational period and seasonal cycles of Mars are likewise similar to those of Earth, Mars is the site of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and second-highest known mountain in the Solar System, and of Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the Solar System. The smooth Borealis basin in the northern hemisphere covers 40% of the planet, Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, which are small and irregularly shaped. These may be captured asteroids, similar to 5261 Eureka, a Mars trojan, there are ongoing investigations assessing the past habitability potential of Mars, as well as the possibility of extant life. Future astrobiology missions are planned, including the Mars 2020 and ExoMars rovers, liquid water cannot exist on the surface of Mars due to low atmospheric pressure, which is about 6⁄1000 that of the Earths, except at the lowest elevations for short periods. The two polar ice caps appear to be largely of water. The volume of ice in the south polar ice cap, if melted. On November 22,2016, NASA reported finding a large amount of ice in the Utopia Planitia region of Mars. The volume of water detected has been estimated to be equivalent to the volume of water in Lake Superior, Mars can easily be seen from Earth with the naked eye, as can its reddish coloring. Its apparent magnitude reaches −2.91, which is surpassed only by Jupiter, Venus, the Moon, optical ground-based telescopes are typically limited to resolving features about 300 kilometers across when Earth and Mars are closest because of Earths atmosphere. Mars is approximately half the diameter of Earth with an area only slightly less than the total area of Earths dry land. Mars is less dense than Earth, having about 15% of Earths volume and 11% of Earths mass, the red-orange appearance of the Martian surface is caused by iron oxide, or rust. It can look like butterscotch, other common colors include golden, brown, tan. Like Earth, Mars has differentiated into a metallic core overlaid by less dense materials. Current models of its interior imply a core with a radius of about 1,794 ±65 kilometers, consisting primarily of iron and this iron sulfide core is thought to be twice as rich in lighter elements than Earths. The core is surrounded by a mantle that formed many of the tectonic and volcanic features on the planet
3.
Jupiter
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Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a giant planet with a mass one-thousandth that of the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn are gas giants, the other two giant planets, Uranus and Neptune are ice giants. Jupiter has been known to astronomers since antiquity, the Romans named it after their god Jupiter. Jupiter is primarily composed of hydrogen with a quarter of its mass being helium and it may also have a rocky core of heavier elements, but like the other giant planets, Jupiter lacks a well-defined solid surface. Because of its rotation, the planets shape is that of an oblate spheroid. The outer atmosphere is visibly segregated into several bands at different latitudes, resulting in turbulence, a prominent result is the Great Red Spot, a giant storm that is known to have existed since at least the 17th century when it was first seen by telescope. Surrounding Jupiter is a faint planetary ring system and a powerful magnetosphere, Jupiter has at least 67 moons, including the four large Galilean moons discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Ganymede, the largest of these, has a greater than that of the planet Mercury. Jupiter has been explored on several occasions by robotic spacecraft, most notably during the early Pioneer and Voyager flyby missions and later by the Galileo orbiter. In late February 2007, Jupiter was visited by the New Horizons probe, the latest probe to visit the planet is Juno, which entered into orbit around Jupiter on July 4,2016. Future targets for exploration in the Jupiter system include the probable ice-covered liquid ocean of its moon Europa, Earth and its neighbor planets may have formed from fragments of planets after collisions with Jupiter destroyed those super-Earths near the Sun. Astronomers have discovered nearly 500 planetary systems with multiple planets, Jupiter moving out of the inner Solar System would have allowed the formation of inner planets, including Earth. Jupiter is composed primarily of gaseous and liquid matter and it is the largest of the four giant planets in the Solar System and hence its largest planet. It has a diameter of 142,984 km at its equator, the average density of Jupiter,1.326 g/cm3, is the second highest of the giant planets, but lower than those of the four terrestrial planets. Jupiters upper atmosphere is about 88–92% hydrogen and 8–12% helium by percent volume of gas molecules, a helium atom has about four times as much mass as a hydrogen atom, so the composition changes when described as the proportion of mass contributed by different atoms. Thus, Jupiters atmosphere is approximately 75% hydrogen and 24% helium by mass, the atmosphere contains trace amounts of methane, water vapor, ammonia, and silicon-based compounds. There are also traces of carbon, ethane, hydrogen sulfide, neon, oxygen, phosphine, the outermost layer of the atmosphere contains crystals of frozen ammonia. The interior contains denser materials - by mass it is roughly 71% hydrogen, 24% helium, through infrared and ultraviolet measurements, trace amounts of benzene and other hydrocarbons have also been found
4.
Asteroid belt
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The asteroid belt is the circumstellar disc in the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter. It is occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets, the asteroid belt is also termed the main asteroid belt or main belt to distinguish it from other asteroid populations in the Solar System such as near-Earth asteroids and trojan asteroids. About half the mass of the belt is contained in the four largest asteroids, Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, the total mass of the asteroid belt is approximately 4% that of the Moon, or 22% that of Pluto, and roughly twice that of Plutos moon Charon. Ceres, the belts only dwarf planet, is about 950 km in diameter, whereas Vesta, Pallas. The remaining bodies range down to the size of a dust particle, the asteroid material is so thinly distributed that numerous unmanned spacecraft have traversed it without incident. Nonetheless, collisions between large asteroids do occur, and these can form a family whose members have similar orbital characteristics. Individual asteroids within the belt are categorized by their spectra. The asteroid belt formed from the solar nebula as a group of planetesimals. Planetesimals are the precursors of the protoplanets. Between Mars and Jupiter, however, gravitational perturbations from Jupiter imbued the protoplanets with too much energy for them to accrete into a planet. Collisions became too violent, and instead of fusing together, the planetesimals, as a result,99. 9% of the asteroid belts original mass was lost in the first 100 million years of the Solar Systems history. Some fragments eventually found their way into the inner Solar System, Asteroid orbits continue to be appreciably perturbed whenever their period of revolution about the Sun forms an orbital resonance with Jupiter. At these orbital distances, a Kirkwood gap occurs as they are swept into other orbits. Classes of small Solar System bodies in other regions are the objects, the centaurs, the Kuiper belt objects, the scattered disc objects, the sednoids. On 22 January 2014, ESA scientists reported the detection, for the first definitive time, of water vapor on Ceres, the detection was made by using the far-infrared abilities of the Herschel Space Observatory. The finding was unexpected because comets, not asteroids, are considered to sprout jets. According to one of the scientists, The lines are becoming more and more blurred between comets and asteroids. This pattern, now known as the Titius–Bode law, predicted the semi-major axes of the six planets of the provided one allowed for a gap between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter
5.
Helios
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Helios was the personification of the Sun in Greek mythology. He is the son of the Titan Hyperion and the Titaness Theia, also known as Euryphaessa and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn. In the Homeric hymn to Helios, Helios is said to drive a chariot drawn by steeds. Still later, the horses were given related names, Pyrois, Aeos, Aethon. As time passed, Helios was increasingly identified with the god of light, however, in spite of their syncretism, they were also often viewed as two distinct gods/titan. The equivalent of Helios in Roman mythology was Sol, specifically Sol Invictus, the Greek ἥλιος is the inherited word for the Sun, from Proto-Indo-European *sóh₂wl̥, cognate with Latin sol, Sanskrit surya, Old English swegl, Old Norse sól, Welsh haul, etc. The female offspring of Helios were called Heliades, the Greek sun god had various bynames or epithets, which over time in some cases came to be considered separate deities associated with the Sun. Most notably, Helios is closely associated with, and sometimes identified with. Diodorus Siculus of Sicily reported that the Chaldeans called Cronus by the name Helios, or the sun, among these is Hyperion, Elektor, Phaëton the radiant, Hekatos. The best known story involving Helios is that of his son Phaethon, Helios was sometimes characterized with the epithet Panoptes. In the Odyssey, Odysseus and his crew land on Thrinacia, an island sacred to the sun god. There, the red cattle of the Sun were kept, You will now come to the Thrinacian island. There will be seven herds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep and they do not breed, nor do they become fewer in number, and they are tended by the goddesses Phaethusa and Lampetia, who are children of the sun-god Hyperion by Neaera. Their mother when she had them and had done suckling them sent them to the Thrinacian island. Though Odysseus warns his men, when supplies run short they impiously kill, the guardians of the island, Helios daughters, tell their father about this. Helios appeals to Zeus telling them to dispose of Odysseus men or he will take the Sun, Zeus destroys the ship with his lightning bolt, killing all the men except for Odysseus. In one Greek vase painting, Helios appears riding across the sea in the cup of the Delphic tripod which appears to be a solar reference. While Heracles traveled to Erytheia to retrieve the cattle of Geryon, he crossed the Libyan desert and was so frustrated at the heat that he shot an arrow at Helios, Heracles used this golden cup to reach Erytheia
6.
Greek mythology
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It was a part of the religion in ancient Greece. Greek mythology is explicitly embodied in a collection of narratives. Greek myth attempts to explain the origins of the world, and details the lives and adventures of a variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines. These accounts initially were disseminated in a tradition, today the Greek myths are known primarily from ancient Greek literature. The oldest known Greek literary sources, Homers epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on the Trojan War, archaeological findings provide a principal source of detail about Greek mythology, with gods and heroes featured prominently in the decoration of many artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles, in the succeeding Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has had an influence on the culture, arts. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes, Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from the Geometric period from c. Mythical narration plays an important role in every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless, the only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus and this work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Apollodorus of Athens lived from c, 180–125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed the basis for the collection, however the Library discusses events that occurred long after his death, among the earliest literary sources are Homers two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Other poets completed the cycle, but these later and lesser poems now are lost almost entirely. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no connection with Homer. They are choral hymns from the part of the so-called Lyric age. Hesiods Works and Days, a poem about farming life, also includes the myths of Prometheus, Pandora. The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, lyrical poets often took their subjects from myth, but their treatment became gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar, Bacchylides and Simonides, and bucolic poets such as Theocritus and Bion, additionally, myth was central to classical Athenian drama
7.
Zeus
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Zeus /ˈzjuːs/ is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, who ruled as king of the gods of Mount Olympus. His name is cognate with the first element of his Roman equivalent Jupiter and his mythologies and powers are similar, though not identical, to those of the Indo-European deities such as Indra, Jupiter, Perun, Thor, and Odin. Zeus is the child of Cronus and Rhea, the youngest of his siblings to be born, in most traditions, he is married to Hera, by whom he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Hebe, and Hephaestus. At the oracle of Dodona, his consort was said to be Dione, Zeus was also infamous for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many godly and heroic offspring, including Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, Dionysus, Perseus, Heracles, Helen of Troy, Minos, and the Muses. He was equated with many foreign weather gods, permitting Pausanias to observe That Zeus is king in heaven is a common to all men. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and oak, in addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical cloud-gatherer also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the Ancient Near East, such as the scepter. Zeus is frequently depicted by Greek artists in one of two poses, standing, striding forward with a thunderbolt leveled in his right hand. The gods name in the nominative is Ζεύς Zeús and it is inflected as follows, vocative, Ζεῦ Zeû, accusative, Δία Día, genitive, Διός Diós, dative, Διί Dií. Diogenes Laertius quotes Pherecydes of Syros as spelling the name, Ζάς, Zeus is the Greek continuation of *Di̯ēus, the name of the Proto-Indo-European god of the daytime sky, also called *Dyeus ph2tēr. The god is known under this name in the Rigveda, Latin, Zeus is the only deity in the Olympic pantheon whose name has such a transparent Indo-European etymology. The earliest attested forms of the name are the Mycenaean Greek
8.
3200 Phaethon
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3200 Phaethon, provisional designation 1983 TB, is an Apollo asteroid with an unusual orbit that brings it closer to the Sun than any other named asteroid. For this reason, it was named after the Greek myth of Phaëton, son of the sun god Helios and it is 5.1 ±0.2 km in mean diameter. Phaethon was the first asteroid to be discovered using images from a spacecraft, simon F. Green and John K. Davies discovered it in images from October 11,1983, while searching Infrared Astronomical Satellite data for moving objects. It was formally announced on October 14 in IAUC3878 along with confirmation by Charles T. Kowal. Its provisional designation was 1983 TB, and it received the numerical designation. Phaethon is categorized as an Apollo asteroid, as its axis is greater than that of the Earths. It is also suspected to be a member of the Pallas family of asteroids and its most remarkable distinction is that it approaches the Sun closer than any other named asteroid, its perihelion is only 0.14 AU — less than half of Mercurys perihelial distance. It is a Mercury-, Venus-, Earth-, and Mars-crosser as a result of its orbital eccentricity. Phaethon is an asteroid with unusual characteristics in that its orbit more closely resembles that of a comet than an asteroid. In recent studies performed by NASAs STEREO spacecraft, dust tails have been observed and it is possible that the Suns heat is causing fractures similar to mudcracks in a dry lake bed. Phaethons composition fits the notion of its origin, it is classified as a B-type asteroid because it is composed of dark material. Since its discovery, several objects were found exhibiting mixed cometary and asteroidal features. In other words, Phaethon is the parent body of the Geminids meteor shower of mid-December. Phaethon approached to 0.120895 AU of Earth on December 10,2007, on December 10,2017, it will pass 0.06893 AU from Earth. Then on December 14,2093, it will pass 0.0198 AU from Earth, when Phaethon came to perihelion in July 2009, it was found to be brighter than expected
9.
Mercury-crosser asteroid
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A Mercury crosser is an asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Mercury. All have semi-major axes larger than Mercurys, and hence there are no inner grazers, Mercury crossers proper have aphelia outside Mercurys and perihelia inside Mercurys. As of 2 February 2016, there are 255 Mercury crossers known, most values have been rounded to three decimals. All Mercury grazers have semi-major axes larger than Mercurys, and hence are outer grazers, i. e. have perihelia within Mercurys aphelion, as of February 2016, there are 561 Mercury grazers known. Values have been rounded to three decimals
10.
Earth-crosser asteroid
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An Earth-crosser is a near-Earth asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Earth as observed from the ecliptic pole of Earths orbit. The known numbered Earth-crossers are listed here and those Earth-crossers whose semi-major axes are smaller than Earths are Aten asteroids, the remaining ones are Apollo asteroids. An asteroid with an Earth-crossing orbit is not necessarily in danger of colliding with Earth, the orbit of an Earth-crossing asteroid may not even intersect with that of Earth. This apparent contradiction arises because many asteroids have highly inclined orbits, so although they may have a less than that of Earth. An asteroid for which there is possibility of a collision with Earth at a future date. Specifically, an asteroid is a PHA if its Earth minimum orbital intersection distance is <0.05 AU, the concept of PHA is intended to replace the now abandoned strict definition of ECA which existed for a few years. Having a small MOID is not a guarantee of a collision, on the other hand, small gravitational perturbations of the asteroid around its orbit from planets that it passes can significantly alter its path. For instance,99942 Apophis will approach Earth so closely in 2029 that it will get under the orbit of the Earths geostationary satellites, the Earth will change the trajectory of Apophis and the result may be an even closer approach in the future, possibly 2036. Of the Earth-crossing asteroids,3753 Cruithne is notable for having an orbit that has the period as Earths.2 AU
11.
Mars-crosser asteroid
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A Mars-crosser is an asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Mars. The known numbered Mars-crossers are listed here and they include the two numbered Mars trojans 5261 Eureka and 1998 VF31. Many databases, for instance the JPL Small-Body Database, only list asteroids with a greater than 1.3 AU as Mars-crossers. An asteroid with a less than this is classed as a near-Earth object even though it is crossing the orbit of Mars as well as crossing that of Earth. Nevertheless, these objects are listed on this page, a grazer is an object with a perihelion below the aphelion of Mars but above the Martian perihelion. The JPL SBDB lists 13,500 Mars-crossing asteroids, only 18 MCAs are brighter than absolute magnitude 12.5, which typically makes these asteroids with H<12.5 more than 13 km in diameter depending on the albedo. The smallest known MCAs have a magnitude of around 24 and are typically less than 100 meters in diameter. Instead, they are categorized as Near Earth Objects
12.
Apollo asteroid
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The Apollo asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after 1862 Apollo, discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s. They are Earth crossing asteroids that have an orbital semi-major axis greater than that of the Earth, as of November 2016, the steadily growing number of known Apollo asteroids has reached a total of 8,180 members. It is by far the largest group of objects, compared to the Aten, Amor. Currently, there are 1,133 numbered Apollos, asteroids are not numbered until they have been observed at two or more oppositions. There are also 1,472 Apollo asteroids that are enough. The closer their semi-major axis is to Earths, the eccentricity is needed for the orbits to cross. The largest known Apollo asteroid is 1866 Sisyphus, with a diameter of about 8.5 km, examples of known Apollo asteroids include, Apollo asteroids Apollo asteroid records List of Apollo minor planets
13.
Johann Daniel Titius
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Johann Daniel Titius born Johann Daniel Tietz was a German astronomer and a professor at Wittenberg. Titius was born in Konitz, Royal Prussia to Jakob Tietz, a merchant and council member from Konitz and his original name was Johann Tietz, but as was customary in the 18th century, when he became a university professor, he Latinized his surname to Titius. Tietz attended school in Danzig and studied at the University of Leipzig and he died in Wittenberg, Electorate of Saxony. He is best known for formulating the Titius–Bode law, and for using this rule to predict the existence of an object at 2.8 AU from the sun. This happened in 1766, when he inserted his observation on planetary distances into a German translation of Charles Bonnets book Contemplation de la Nature. His suggestion that the object would necessarily be small was later superseded by the claim of Johann Elert Bode for a planet-like object, in part because of the Titius-Bode law, the first four minor planets were at first labeled full-fledged planets. After a fifteen-year hiatus, other minor planets started to be discovered at steadily increasing rates, because of its spherical shape, Ceres was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. The asteroid 1998 Titius and the crater Titius on the Moon are named in his honour, Titius published a number of works on other areas in Physics, such as a set of conditions and rules for performing experiments, and he was particularly focused in thermometry. In 1765 he presented a survey of thermometry up to that date and he wrote about the metallic thermometer constructed by Hanns Loeser. In his treatises on both theoretical and experimental physics, he incorporated the findings of scientists, such as the descriptions of experiments written by Georg Wolfgang Kraft in 1738. Titius was also active in Biology, particularly in classification of organisms and his biological work was influenced by Linnaeus. Daniel Titius Plants and Planets, The Law of Titius-Bode explained by H. J. R, perdijk Johann Daniel Titius, Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie,38, Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot,1894, pp. 380–
14.
Johann Elert Bode
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Johann Elert Bode was a German astronomer known for his reformulation and popularization of the Titius–Bode law. Bode determined the orbit of Uranus and suggested the planets name, as a youth, he suffered from a serious eye disease which particularly damaged his right eye, he continued to have trouble with his eyes throughout his life. His early promise in mathematics brought him to the attention of Johann Georg Büsch and he began his career with the publication of a short work on the solar eclipse of 5 August 1766. There he founded, in 1774, the well-known Astronomisches Jahrbuch,51 yearly volumes of which he compiled and issued and he became director of the Berlin Observatory in 1786, from which he retired in 1825. The Uranographia marks the climax of an epoch of artistic representation of the constellations, later atlases showed fewer and fewer elaborate figures until they were no longer printed on such tables. Bode also published another small star atlas, intended for astronomical amateurs and he is credited with the discovery of Bodes Galaxy. Comet Bode is named after him, its orbit was calculated by Erik Prosperin and his name became attached to the law discovered by Johann Daniel Titius in 1766. This law attempts to explain the distances of the planets from the Sun in a formula although ironically it breaks down for the planet Neptune which was discovered in Berlin. It was the discovery of Uranus at a position predicted by the law which aroused great interest in it. There was actually a gap between Mars and Jupiter, and Bode urged a search for a planet in this region which culminated in a group formed for this purpose, the so-called Celestial Police. However before the group initiated a search, they were trumped by the discovery of the asteroid Ceres by Giuseppe Piazzi from Palermo in 1801, at Bodes predicted position. Latterly, the law out of favor when it was realised that Ceres was only one of a small number of asteroids. The discovery of planets around other stars has brought the law back into discussion, Bode himself was directly involved in research leading from the discovery of a planet - that of Uranus in 1781. Although Uranus was the first planet to be discovered by telescope and these earlier sightings allowed an exact calculation of the orbit of the new planet. Bode was also responsible for giving the new planet its name, the discoverer William Herschel proposed to name it after George III which was not accepted so readily in other countries. Bode opted for Uranus, with the apparent logic that just as Saturn was the father of Jupiter, in 1789, Bodes Royal Academy colleague Martin Klaproth was inspired by Bodes name for the planet to name his newly discovered element uranium. From 1787 to 1825 Bode was director of the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, in 1794, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In April,1789 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, Bode died in Berlin on 23 November 1826, aged 79
15.
Ceres (dwarf planet)
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Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt that lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Its diameter is approximately 945 kilometers, making it the largest of the planets within the orbit of Neptune. The 33rd-largest known body in the Solar System, it is the dwarf planet within the orbit of Neptune. Composed of rock and ice, Ceres is estimated to approximately one third of the mass of the entire asteroid belt. Ceres is the object in the asteroid belt known to be rounded by its own gravity. From Earth, the apparent magnitude of Ceres ranges from 6.7 to 9.3, Ceres was the first asteroid discovered, by Giuseppe Piazzi at Palermo on 1 January 1801. It was originally considered a planet, but was reclassified as an asteroid in the 1850s after many other objects in similar orbits were discovered. Ceres appears to be differentiated into a core and icy mantle. The surface is probably a mixture of ice and various hydrated minerals such as carbonates. In January 2014, emissions of water vapor were detected from several regions of Ceres and this was unexpected, because large bodies in the asteroid belt typically do not emit vapor, a hallmark of comets. The robotic NASA spacecraft Dawn entered orbit around Ceres on 6 March 2015, pictures with a resolution previously unattained were taken during imaging sessions starting in January 2015 as Dawn approached Ceres, showing a cratered surface. Two distinct bright spots inside a crater were seen in a 19 February 2015 image, on 11 May 2015, NASA released a higher-resolution image showing that, instead of one or two spots, there are actually several. In October 2015, NASA released a true portrait of Ceres made by Dawn. In February 2017, organics were reported to have been detected on Ceres in Ernutet crater, Johann Elert Bode, in 1772, first suggested that an undiscovered planet could exist between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Kepler had already noticed the gap between Mars and Jupiter in 1596, the pattern predicted that the missing planet ought to have an orbit with a semi-major axis near 2.8 astronomical units. Although they did not discover Ceres, they found several large asteroids. One of the selected for the search was Giuseppe Piazzi. Before receiving his invitation to join the group, Piazzi discovered Ceres on 1 January 1801 and he was searching for the 87th of the Catalogue of the Zodiacal stars of Mr la Caille, but found that it was preceded by another
16.
Asteroid
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Asteroids are minor planets, especially those of the inner Solar System. The larger ones have also been called planetoids and these terms have historically been applied to any astronomical object orbiting the Sun that did not show the disc of a planet and was not observed to have the characteristics of an active comet. As minor planets in the outer Solar System were discovered and found to have volatile-based surfaces that resemble those of comets, in this article, the term asteroid refers to the minor planets of the inner Solar System including those co-orbital with Jupiter. There are millions of asteroids, many thought to be the remnants of planetesimals. The large majority of known asteroids orbit in the belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, or are co-orbital with Jupiter. However, other orbital families exist with significant populations, including the near-Earth objects, individual asteroids are classified by their characteristic spectra, with the majority falling into three main groups, C-type, M-type, and S-type. These were named after and are identified with carbon-rich, metallic. The size of asteroids varies greatly, some reaching as much as 1000 km across, asteroids are differentiated from comets and meteoroids. In the case of comets, the difference is one of composition, while asteroids are composed of mineral and rock, comets are composed of dust. In addition, asteroids formed closer to the sun, preventing the development of the aforementioned cometary ice, the difference between asteroids and meteoroids is mainly one of size, meteoroids have a diameter of less than one meter, whereas asteroids have a diameter of greater than one meter. Finally, meteoroids can be composed of either cometary or asteroidal materials, only one asteroid,4 Vesta, which has a relatively reflective surface, is normally visible to the naked eye, and this only in very dark skies when it is favorably positioned. Rarely, small asteroids passing close to Earth may be visible to the eye for a short time. As of March 2016, the Minor Planet Center had data on more than 1.3 million objects in the inner and outer Solar System, the United Nations declared June 30 as International Asteroid Day to educate the public about asteroids. The date of International Asteroid Day commemorates the anniversary of the Tunguska asteroid impact over Siberia, the first asteroid to be discovered, Ceres, was found in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, and was originally considered to be a new planet. In the early half of the nineteenth century, the terms asteroid. Asteroid discovery methods have improved over the past two centuries. This task required that hand-drawn sky charts be prepared for all stars in the band down to an agreed-upon limit of faintness. On subsequent nights, the sky would be charted again and any moving object would, hopefully, the expected motion of the missing planet was about 30 seconds of arc per hour, readily discernible by observers
17.
Dwarf planet
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A dwarf planet is a planetary-mass object that is neither a planet nor a natural satellite. The International Astronomical Union currently recognizes five dwarf planets, Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, another hundred or so known objects in the Solar System are suspected to be dwarf planets. Individual astronomers recognize several of these, and in August 2011 Mike Brown published a list of 390 candidate objects, Stern states that there are more than a dozen known dwarf planets. Only two of these bodies, Ceres and Pluto, have observed in enough detail to demonstrate that they actually fit the IAUs definition. The IAU accepted Eris as a dwarf planet because it is more massive than Pluto and they subsequently decided that unnamed trans-Neptunian objects with an absolute magnitude brighter than +1 are to be named under the assumption that they are dwarf planets. The classification of bodies in other systems with the characteristics of dwarf planets has not been addressed. Starting in 1801, astronomers discovered Ceres and other bodies between Mars and Jupiter which were for some decades considered to be planets. Between then and around 1851, when the number of planets had reached 23, astronomers started using the asteroid for the smaller bodies. With the discovery of Pluto in 1930, most astronomers considered the Solar System to have nine planets and it was roughly one-twentieth the mass of Mercury, which made Pluto by far the smallest planet. Although it was more than ten times as massive as the largest object in the asteroid belt, Ceres. In the 1990s, astronomers began to find objects in the region of space as Pluto. Many of these shared several of Plutos key orbital characteristics, and Pluto started being seen as the largest member of a new class of objects and this led some astronomers to stop referring to Pluto as a planet. Several terms, including subplanet and planetoid, started to be used for the now known as dwarf planets. By 2005, three trans-Neptunian objects comparable in size to Pluto had been reported and it became clear that either they would also have to be classified as planets, or Pluto would have to be reclassified. Astronomers were also confident that more objects as large as Pluto would be discovered, Eris was discovered in January 2005, it was thought to be slightly larger than Pluto, and some reports informally referred to it as the tenth planet. As a consequence, the became a matter of intense debate during the IAU General Assembly in August 2006. The IAUs initial draft proposal included Charon, Eris, and Ceres in the list of planets, dropping Charon from the list, the new proposal also removed Pluto, Ceres, and Eris, because they have not cleared their orbits. The IAUs final Resolution 5A preserved this three-category system for the bodies orbiting the Sun
18.
Giuseppe Piazzi
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Giuseppe Piazzi was an Italian Catholic priest of the Theatine order, mathematician, and astronomer. He was born in Ponte in Valtellina, and died in Naples and he established an observatory at Palermo, now the Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo – Giuseppe S. Vaiana. Perhaps his most famous discovery was the first dwarf planet, Ceres, no documented account of Piazzis scientific education is available in any of the biographies of the astronomer, even in the oldest ones. Piazzi certainly did some studies in Turin, quite likely attending Giovan Battista Beccarias lessons, in the years 1768-1770 he was resident at the Theatines Home in S. Andrea della Valle, Rome, while studying Mathematics under Francesco Jacquier. In July 1770, he took the chair of Mathematics at the University of Malta, in December 1773, he moved to Ravenna as prefetto degli studenti and lecturer in Philosophy and Mathematics at the Collegio dei Nobili, where he stayed until the beginning of 1779. After a short period spent in Cremona and in Rome, in March 1781 Piazzi moved to Palermo as lecturer in Mathematics at the University of Palermo and he kept this position until 19 January 1787, when he became Professor of Astronomy. The circle was the most important instrument of the Palermo Observatory, in 1817, King Ferdinand put Piazzi in charge of the completion of the Capodimonte Observatory, naming him General Director of the Naples and Sicily Observatories. The work on this catalogue was started in 1789, enabling Piazzi, the catalogue wasnt finished for first edition publication until 1803, and second edition in 1814. Spurred by the success discovering Ceres, and in the line of his catalogue program, one of them,61 Cygni, was specially appointed as a good candidate for measuring a parallax, which was later performed by Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel. The star system 61 Cygni is sometimes still called variously Piazzis Flying Star, Piazzi discovered Ceres, today known as the largest member of the asteroid belt. On 1 January 1801 Piazzi discovered an object that moved against the background of stars. At first he thought it was a star, but once he noticed that it moved, he became convinced it was a planet, or as he called it. In his journal, he wrote, The light was a faint, and of the colour of Jupiter. Therefore I had no doubt of its any other than a fixed star. I conceived afterwards a great suspicion that it might be a new star, the evening of the third, my suspicion was converted into certainty, being assured it was not a fixed star. Nevertheless before I made it known, I waited till the evening of the fourth, in spite of his assumption that it was a planet, he took the conservative route and announced it as a comet. But I have been not to advance this supposition to the public. He was not able to observe it long enough as it was soon lost in the glare of the Sun, unable to compute its orbit with existing methods, the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss developed a new method of orbit calculation that allowed astronomers to locate it again
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Astronomer
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An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who concentrates their studies on a specific question or field outside of the scope of Earth. They look at stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies, as well as other celestial objects — either in observational astronomy. Examples of topics or fields astronomers work on include, planetary science, solar astronomy, there are also related but distinct subjects like physical cosmology which studies the Universe as a whole. Astronomers usually fit into two types, Observational astronomers make direct observations of planets, stars and galaxies, and analyze the data, theoretical astronomers create and investigate models of things that cannot be observed. They use this data to create models or simulations to theorize how different celestial bodies work, there are further subcategories inside these two main branches of astronomy such as planetary astronomy, galactic astronomy or physical cosmology. Today, that distinction has disappeared and the terms astronomer. Professional astronomers are highly educated individuals who typically have a Ph. D. in physics or astronomy and are employed by research institutions or universities. They spend the majority of their time working on research, although quite often have other duties such as teaching, building instruments. The number of astronomers in the United States is actually quite small. The American Astronomical Society, which is the organization of professional astronomers in North America, has approximately 7,000 members. This number includes scientists from other such as physics, geology. The International Astronomical Union comprises almost 10,145 members from 70 different countries who are involved in research at the Ph. D. level. Before CCDs, photographic plates were a method of observation. Modern astronomers spend relatively little time at telescopes usually just a few weeks per year, analysis of observed phenomena, along with making predictions as to the causes of what they observe, takes the majority of observational astronomers time. Astronomers who serve as faculty spend much of their time teaching undergraduate and graduate classes, most universities also have outreach programs including public telescope time and sometimes planetariums as a public service to encourage interest in the field. Those who become astronomers usually have a background in maths, sciences. Taking courses that teach how to research, write and present papers are also invaluable, in college/university most astronomers get a Ph. D. in astronomy or physics. Keeping in mind how few there are it is understood that graduate schools in this field are very competitive
20.
Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers
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Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers was a German physician and astronomer. Olbers was born in Arbergen, today part of Bremen, while he was at Göttingen, he studied mathematics with Abraham Gotthelf Kästner. In 1779, while attending to a fellow student, he devised a method of calculating cometary orbits which made an epoch in the treatment of the subject. It was the first satisfactory method of calculating cometary orbits, after his graduation in 1780, he began practicing medicine in Bremen. At night he dedicated his time to astronomical observation, making the story of his home into an observatory. On March 28,1802, Olbers discovered and named the asteroid Pallas, five years later, on March 29,1807, he discovered the asteroid Vesta, which he allowed Carl Friedrich Gauss to name. As the word asteroid was not yet coined, the literature of the referred to these minor planets as planets in their own right. He proposed that the belt, where these objects lay, was the remnants of a planet that had been destroyed. The current view of most scientists is that effects from the planet Jupiter disrupted the planet-formation process in the asteroid belt. On March 6,1815, Olbers discovered a periodic comet, Olbers paradox, described by him in 1823, states that the darkness of the night sky conflicts with the supposition of an infinite and eternal static universe. Olbers was deputed by his citizens to assist at the baptism of Napoleon II of France on June 9,1811. He was a member of the corps legislatif in Paris 1812–13 and he died in Bremen aged 81. He was twice married, and one son survived him, Olbers paradox, the argument that the dark sky at night shows that stars cannot be evenly distributed through infinite space, is named for him, though others had also advanced it. The Origin of the Asteroids, Olbers versus Regner, observations on the Nature of the New Celestial Body Discovered by Dr. Olbers, and of the Comet Which Was Expected to Appear Last January in Its Return from the Sun. Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London
21.
2 Pallas
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Pallas, minor-planet designation 2 Pallas, is the second asteroid to have been discovered, and is one of the largest asteroids in the Solar System. With an estimated 7% of the mass of the belt, it is the third-most-massive asteroid. It is 512 kilometers in diameter, somewhat smaller than Vesta and it is likely a remnant protoplanet. When Pallas was discovered by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers on 28 March 1802, it was counted as a planet, the discovery of many more asteroids after 1845 eventually led to their reclassification. Pallass surface is most likely composed of a material, its spectrum. It was formerly considered a dwarf planet for its size. In 1801, the astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovered an object which he believed to be a comet. Shortly thereafter he announced his observations of this object, noting that the slow, uniform motion was uncharacteristic of a comet, suggesting it was a different type of object. This was lost from sight for months, but was recovered later that year by the Baron von Zach and Heinrich W. M. Olbers after a preliminary orbit was computed by Carl Friedrich Gauss. This object came to be named Ceres, and was the first asteroid to be discovered, a few months later, Olbers was again attempting to locate Ceres when he noticed another moving object in the vicinity. This was the asteroid Pallas, coincidentally passing near Ceres at the time, the discovery of this object created interest in the astronomy community. Before this point it had been speculated by astronomers that there should be a planet in the gap between Mars and Jupiter, now, unexpectedly, a second such body had been found. When Pallas was discovered, some estimates of its size were as high as 3,380 km in diameter, even as recently as 1979, Pallas was estimated to be 673 km in diameter, 26% greater than the currently accepted value. The orbit of Pallas was determined by Gauss, who found the period of 4.6 years was similar to the period for Ceres, Pallas has a relatively high orbital inclination to the plane of the ecliptic. In 1917, the Japanese astronomer Kiyotsugu Hirayama began to study asteroid motions, by plotting the mean orbital motion, inclination and eccentricity of a set of asteroids, he discovered several distinct groupings. In a later paper he reported a group of three associated with Pallas, which became named the Pallas family, after the largest member of the group. Since 1994 more than 10 members of family have been identified. The validity of this grouping was confirmed in 2002 by a comparison of their spectra and these resulted in the first accurate measurements of its diameter
22.
3 Juno
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Juno, minor-planet designation 3 Juno in the Minor Planet Center catalogue system, is an asteroid in the asteroid belt. Juno was the asteroid discovered, on 1 September 1804 by German astronomer Karl L. Harding. It is the 11th-largest asteroid, and one of the two largest stony asteroids, along with 15 Eunomia and it is estimated to contain 1% of the total mass of the asteroid belt. Juno was discovered in 1804 by Karl Ludwig Harding and it was the third asteroid found, but was initially considered to be a planet, it was reclassified as an asteroid and minor planet during the 1850s. 3 Juno is named after the mythological Juno, the highest Roman goddess, with two exceptions, Juno is the international name, subject to local variation, Italian Giunone, French Junon, Russian Yunona, etc. An older symbol, still seen, is ⚵. Juno is one of the asteroids, perhaps tenth by size. It is the second-most-massive S-type asteroid after 15 Eunomia, even so, Juno has only 3% the mass of Ceres. The orbital period of 3 Juno is 4.36578 years, amongst S-type asteroids, Juno is unusually reflective, which may be indicative of distinct surface properties. This high albedo explains its relatively high apparent magnitude for an object not near the inner edge of the asteroid belt. Juno can reach +7.5 at an opposition, which is brighter than Neptune or Titan, and is the reason for it being discovered before the larger asteroids Hygiea, Europa, Davida. At most oppositions, however, Juno only reaches a magnitude of around +8. 7—only just visible with binoculars—and at smaller elongations a 3-inch telescope will be required to resolve it and it is the main body in the Juno family. Juno was originally considered a planet, along with 1 Ceres,2 Pallas, in 1811, Schröter estimated Juno to be as large as 2290 km in diameter. All four were reclassified as asteroids as additional asteroids were discovered, junos small size and irregular shape preclude it from being designated a dwarf planet. Juno orbits at a slightly closer mean distance to the Sun than Ceres or Pallas and its orbit is moderately inclined at around 12° to the ecliptic, but has an extreme eccentricity, greater than that of Pluto. This high eccentricity brings Juno closer to the Sun at perihelion than Vesta, Juno had the most eccentric orbit of any known body until 33 Polyhymnia was discovered in 1854, and of asteroids over 200 km in diameter only 324 Bamberga has a more eccentric orbit. Juno rotates in a direction with an axial tilt of approximately 50°. The maximum temperature on the surface, directly facing the Sun, was measured at about 293 K on October 2,2001, taking into account the heliocentric distance at the time, this gives an estimated maximum temperature of 301 K at perihelion
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Karl Ludwig Harding
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Karl Ludwig Harding was a German astronomer, who discovered 3 Juno, the third asteroid of the main-belt in 1804. The lunar crater Harding and the asteroid 2003 Harding are named in his honor, from 1786–89, he was educated at the University of Göttingen, where he studied theology, mathematics, and physics. In 1796 Johann Hieronymus Schröter hired Harding as a tutor for his son, Schröter was an enthusiastic astronomer, and Harding was soon appointed observer and inspector in his observatory. In 1804, Harding discovered Juno at Schröters observatory and he then went to Göttingen to assist Carl Friedrich Gauss. There he was professor of astronomy, 593–594 Willy Jahn, Harding, Karl Ludwig, Neue Deutsche Biographie,7, Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, pp. 666–667, N. N. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol.3, S.86 Publications by K. L. Harding in Astrophysics Data System
24.
4 Vesta
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Vesta, minor-planet designation 4 Vesta, is one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, with a mean diameter of 525 kilometres. It was discovered by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers on 29 March 1807 and is named after Vesta, Vesta is the second-most-massive and second-largest body in the asteroid belt after the dwarf planet Ceres, and it contributes an estimated 9% of the mass of the asteroid belt. It is slightly larger than Pallas, though more massive. Vesta is the last remaining rocky protoplanet of the kind that formed the terrestrial planets, numerous fragments of Vesta were ejected by collisions one and two billion years ago that left two enormous craters occupying much of Vestas southern hemisphere. Debris from these events has fallen to Earth as howardite–eucrite–diogenite meteorites, Vesta is the brightest asteroid visible from Earth. Its maximum distance from the Sun is slightly greater than the distance of Ceres from the Sun. NASAs Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around Vesta on 16 July 2011 for an exploration and left orbit on 5 September 2012 en route to its final destination. Researchers continue to examine data collected by Dawn for additional insights into the formation, Heinrich Olbers discovered Pallas in 1802, the year after the discovery of Ceres. He proposed that the two objects were the remnants of a destroyed planet and these orbital intersections were located in the constellations of Cetus and Virgo. Olbers commenced his search in 1802, and on 29 March 1807 he discovered Vesta in the constellation Virgo—a coincidence, because Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta are not fragments of a larger body. Because the asteroid Juno had been discovered in 1804, this made Vesta the fourth object to be identified in the region that is now known as the asteroid belt, the discovery was announced in a letter addressed to German astronomer Johann H. Schröter dated 31 March. Gauss decided on the Roman virgin goddess of home and hearth, Vesta was the fourth asteroid to be discovered, hence the number 4 in its formal designation. The name Vesta, or national variants thereof, is in use with two exceptions, Greece and China. In Greek, the name adopted was the Hellenic equivalent of Vesta, Hestia, in English, in Chinese, Vesta is called the hearth-god star, 灶神星 zàoshénxīng, in contrast to the goddess Vesta, who goes by her Latin name. Upon its discovery, Vesta was, like Ceres, Pallas, the symbol representing the altar of Vesta with its sacred fire and was designed by Gauss. In Gausss conception, this was drawn, in its modern form, after the discovery of Vesta, no further objects were discovered for 38 years, and the Solar System was thought to have eleven planets. However, in 1845, new asteroids started being discovered at a rapid pace and it soon became clear that it would be impractical to continue inventing new planetary symbols indefinitely, and some of the existing ones proved difficult to draw quickly. That year, the problem was addressed by Benjamin Apthorp Gould, who suggested numbering asteroids in their order of discovery, thus, the fourth asteroid, Vesta, acquired the generic symbol ④
25.
Immanuel Velikovsky
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Earlier, he played a role in the founding of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, and was a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. His books use comparative mythology and ancient literary sources to argue that Earth suffered catastrophic close contacts with other planets in ancient times, in positioning Velikovsky among catastrophists including Hans Bellamy, Ignatius Donnelly, and Johann Gottlieb Radlof, the British astronomers Victor Clube and Bill Napier noted. Velikovsky is not so much the first of the new catastrophists and he is the last in a line of traditional catastrophists going back to mediaeval times and probably earlier. Velikovsky argued that electromagnetic effects play an important role in celestial mechanics and he also proposed a revised chronology for ancient Egypt, Greece, Israel and other cultures of the ancient Near East. The revised chronology aimed at explaining the so-called dark age of the eastern Mediterranean and reconciling biblical history with mainstream archaeology, in general, Velikovskys theories have been ignored or vigorously rejected by the academic community. Nonetheless, his books sold well and gained an enthusiastic support in lay circles. The controversy surrounding his work and its reception is often referred to as the Velikovsky affair, Velikovskys work is frequently cited as a canonical example of pseudoscience and has been used as an example of the demarcation problem. Immanuel Velikovsky was born in 1895 to a prosperous Jewish family in Vitebsk and he graduated with a gold medal in 1913. Velikovsky then traveled in Europe and visited Palestine before briefly studying medicine at Montpellier in France and he returned to Russia before the outbreak of World War I, enrolled in the University of Moscow, and received a medical degree in 1921. Upon taking his degree, Velikovsky left Russia for Berlin. With the financial support of his father, Velikovsky edited and published two volumes of scientific papers translated into Hebrew, the volumes were titled Scripta Universitatis Atque Bibliothecae Hierosolymitanarum. He enlisted Albert Einstein to prepare the volume dealing with mathematics and physics, in 1923, Velikovsky married Elisheva Kramer, a young violinist. During this time, he had about a dozen papers published in medical and he was also published in Freuds Imago, including a precocious analysis of Freuds own dreams. In 1939, with the prospect of war looming, Velikovsky travelled with his family to New York City, intending to spend a year researching for his book Oedipus. The book was inspired by Freuds Moses and Monotheism and explored the possibility that Pharaoh Akhenaton was the legendary Oedipus, freud had argued that Akhenaton, the supposedly monotheistic Egyptian pharaoh, was the source of the religious principles that Moses taught to the people of Israel in the desert. Freuds claim was based in part on the resemblance of Psalm 104 in the Bible to an Egyptian hymn discovered on the wall of the Tomb of Akhenatons general, Ai, in Akhenatons city of Akhetaten. To disprove Freuds claim and to prove the Exodus as such, one such document was the Ipuwer Papyrus, which he felt reported events similar to several of the Biblical plagues. Within weeks of his arrival in the United States, World War II began, launching on a tangent from his original book project, Velikovsky began to develop the radical catastrophist cosmology and revised chronology theories for which he would become notorious
26.
Solar System
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The 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, of the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly, the moons, two are larger than the smallest planet, Mercury. The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from the collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The vast majority of the mass is in the Sun. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, are terrestrial planets, being composed of rock. The four outer planets are giant planets, being more massive than the terrestrials. All planets have almost circular orbits that lie within a flat disc called the ecliptic. The Solar System also contains smaller objects, the asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, mostly contains objects composed, like the terrestrial planets, of rock and metal. Beyond Neptunes orbit lie the Kuiper belt and scattered disc, which are populations of trans-Neptunian objects composed mostly of ices, within these populations are several dozen to possibly tens of thousands of objects large enough that they have been rounded by their own gravity. Such objects are categorized as dwarf planets, identified dwarf planets include the asteroid Ceres and the trans-Neptunian objects Pluto and Eris. In addition to two regions, various other small-body populations, including comets, centaurs and interplanetary dust clouds. Six of the planets, at least four of the dwarf planets, each of the outer planets is encircled by planetary rings of dust and other small objects. The solar wind, a stream of charged particles flowing outwards from the Sun, the heliopause is the point at which pressure from the solar wind is equal to the opposing pressure of the interstellar medium, it extends out to the edge of the scattered disc. The Oort cloud, which is thought to be the source for long-period comets, the Solar System is located in the Orion Arm,26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way. For most of history, humanity did not recognize or understand the concept of the Solar System, the invention of the telescope led to the discovery of further planets and moons. The principal component of the Solar System is the Sun, a G2 main-sequence star that contains 99. 86% of the known mass. The Suns four largest orbiting bodies, the giant planets, account for 99% of the mass, with Jupiter. The remaining objects of the Solar System together comprise less than 0. 002% of the Solar Systems total mass, most large objects in orbit around the Sun lie near the plane of Earths orbit, known as the ecliptic
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Brown dwarf
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Below this range are the sub-brown dwarfs, and above it are the lightest red dwarfs. Brown dwarfs may be fully convective, with no layers or chemical differentiation by depth, unlike the stars in the main-sequence, brown dwarfs are not massive enough to sustain nuclear fusion of ordinary hydrogen to helium in their cores. They are, however, thought to fuse deuterium and to fuse lithium if their mass is above a threshold of 13 MJ and 65 MJ. It is also debated whether brown dwarfs would be defined by their formation processes rather than by their supposed nuclear fusion reactions. Stars are categorized by spectral class, with brown dwarfs designated as types M, L, T, despite their name, brown dwarfs are of different colors. Many brown dwarfs would likely appear magenta to the human eye, Brown dwarfs are not very luminous at visible wavelengths. Planets are known to orbit some brown dwarfs, 2M1207b, MOA-2007-BLG-192Lb, at a distance of about 6.5 light years, the nearest known brown dwarf is Luhman 16, a binary system of brown dwarfs discovered in 2013. DENIS-P J082303. 1-491201 b is listed as the known exoplanet in NASAs exoplanet archive. However, a) the term black dwarf was already in use to refer to a white dwarf, b) red dwarfs fuse hydrogen. Because of this, alternate names for these objects were proposed, in 1975, Jill Tarter suggested the term brown dwarf, using brown as an approximate color. The term black dwarf still refers to a dwarf that has cooled to the point that it no longer emits significant light. The first self-consistent calculation of the minimum mass confirmed a value between 0.08 and 0.07 solar masses for population I objects. The discovery of deuterium burning down to 0.012 solar masses, however, such objects were hard to find as they emit almost no visible light. Their strongest emissions are in the spectrum, and ground-based IR detectors were too imprecise at that time to readily identify any brown dwarfs. Since then, numerous searches by various methods have sought these objects, for many years, efforts to discover brown dwarfs were fruitless. In 1988, however, a faint companion to a known as GD165 was found in an infrared search of white dwarfs. The spectrum of the companion GD 165B was very red and enigmatic and it became clear that GD 165B would need to be classified as a much cooler object than the latest M dwarfs then known. GD 165B remained unique for almost a decade until the advent of the Two Micron All Sky Survey which discovered many objects with similar colors, today, GD 165B is recognized as the prototype of a class of objects now called L dwarfs
28.
Sun
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The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a perfect sphere of hot plasma, with internal convective motion that generates a magnetic field via a dynamo process. It is by far the most important source of energy for life on Earth. Its diameter is about 109 times that of Earth, and its mass is about 330,000 times that of Earth, accounting for about 99. 86% of the total mass of the Solar System. About three quarters of the Suns mass consists of hydrogen, the rest is mostly helium, with smaller quantities of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon. The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star based on its spectral class and it formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of matter within a region of a large molecular cloud. Most of this matter gathered in the center, whereas the rest flattened into a disk that became the Solar System. The central mass became so hot and dense that it eventually initiated nuclear fusion in its core and it is thought that almost all stars form by this process. The Sun is roughly middle-aged, it has not changed dramatically for more than four billion years and it is calculated that the Sun will become sufficiently large enough to engulf the current orbits of Mercury, Venus, and probably Earth. The enormous effect of the Sun on Earth has been recognized since prehistoric times, the synodic rotation of Earth and its orbit around the Sun are the basis of the solar calendar, which is the predominant calendar in use today. The English proper name Sun developed from Old English sunne and may be related to south, all Germanic terms for the Sun stem from Proto-Germanic *sunnōn. The English weekday name Sunday stems from Old English and is ultimately a result of a Germanic interpretation of Latin dies solis, the Latin name for the Sun, Sol, is not common in general English language use, the adjectival form is the related word solar. The term sol is used by planetary astronomers to refer to the duration of a solar day on another planet. A mean Earth solar day is approximately 24 hours, whereas a mean Martian sol is 24 hours,39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds. From at least the 4th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the Sun was worshipped as the god Ra, portrayed as a falcon-headed divinity surmounted by the solar disk, and surrounded by a serpent. In the New Empire period, the Sun became identified with the dung beetle, in the form of the Sun disc Aten, the Sun had a brief resurgence during the Amarna Period when it again became the preeminent, if not only, divinity for the Pharaoh Akhenaton. The Sun is viewed as a goddess in Germanic paganism, Sól/Sunna, in ancient Roman culture, Sunday was the day of the Sun god. It was adopted as the Sabbath day by Christians who did not have a Jewish background, the symbol of light was a pagan device adopted by Christians, and perhaps the most important one that did not come from Jewish traditions
29.
Nemesis (hypothetical star)
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As of 2012, over 1800 brown dwarfs have been identified. There are actually fewer brown dwarfs in our cosmic neighborhood than previously thought, rather than one star for every brown dwarf, there may be as many as six stars for every brown dwarf. The majority of stars are single. However, in 2010, A. L. Melott and R. K, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite failed to discover Nemesis in the 1980s. The 2MASS astronomical survey, which ran from 1997 to 2001 and they focused on the extinction intensity of fossil families of marine vertebrates, invertebrates, and protozoans, identifying 12 extinction events over the time period in question. The average time interval between extinction events was determined as 26 million years, at the time, two of the identified extinction events could be shown to coincide with large impact events. Although Raup and Sepkoski could not identify the cause of their supposed periodicity, the challenge to propose a mechanism was quickly addressed by several teams of astronomers. In 2010, Melott & Bambach re-examined the fossil data, including the now-improved dating and they also determined that this periodicity is inconsistent with the Nemesis hypothesis. The change from 26 to 27 million years is expected based on a 3% stretch in the geological timescale since the 1980s and this became known as the Nemesis or Death Star hypothesis. If it does exist, the nature of Nemesis is uncertain. Muller suggests that the most likely object is a red dwarf with an apparent magnitude between 7 and 12, while Daniel P. Whitmire and Albert A. Jackson argue for a brown dwarf, Muller expects Nemesis to be discovered by the time parallax surveys reach the 10th magnitude. Muller, referring to the date of a recent extinction at 11 million years before the present day, richard Mullers most recent paper relevant to the Nemesis theory was published in 2002. In 2002, Muller speculated that Nemesis was perturbed 400 million years ago by a star from a circular orbit into an orbit with an eccentricity of 0.7. The trans-Neptunian object Sedna has an extra-long and unusual elliptical orbit around the Sun, Sednas orbit is estimated to last between 10.5 and 12 thousand years. Its discoverer, Michael Brown of Caltech, noted in a Discover magazine article that Sednas location seemed to defy reasoning, Sedna shouldnt be there, theres no way to put Sedna where it is. It never comes close enough to be affected by the Sun, Brown therefore postulated that a massive unseen object may be responsible for Sednas anomalous orbit. This line of inquiry led to the hypothesis of Planet Nine. Brown has stated that it is likely that one or more non-companion stars, passing near the Sun billions of years ago
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Superseded scientific theories
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This label does not cover protoscientific or fringe science theories with limited support in the scientific community. Also, it does not mean theories that were never widely accepted, some theories that were only supported under specific political authorities, such as Lysenkoism, may also be described as obsolete or superseded. In some cases a theory or idea is found baseless and is simply discarded, for example, the phlogiston theory was entirely replaced by the quite different concept of energy and related laws. An example of this is the use of Newtonian physics, which differs from the currently accepted relativistic physics by a factor that is small at velocities much lower than that of light. Transmutation of species, Lamarckism, inheritance of acquired characteristics - first theories of evolution, not supported by experiment, and rendered obsolete by Darwinian evolution and Mendelian genetics, although some elements of Lamarckian evolution are coming back in the area of epigenetics. Mendelian genetics, classical genetics, Boveri–Sutton chromosome theory - first genetical theories, not invalidated as such, but subsumed into molecular genetics. Maternal impression – the theory that the mothers thoughts created birth defects, no experimental support, and rendered obsolete by genetic theory Miasma theory of disease – the theory that diseases are caused by bad air. No experimental support, and rendered obsolete by the theory of disease. Preformationism – the theory that all organisms have existed since the beginning of life, and that contain a miniature but complete preformed individual, in the case of humans. No support when microscopy became available, rendered obsolete by cytology, discovery of DNA, and atomic theory. Recapitulation theory – the theory that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, telegony – the theory that an offspring can inherit characteristics from a previous mate of its mothers as well as its actual parents, often associated with racism. Vitalism – the theory that living things are alive because of vital force independent of nonliving matter. It was gradually discredited by the rise of chemistry, biochemistry. Friedrich Wöhlers synthesis of urea from ammonium cyanate was only one step in a long road, disproven in 1850 with the discovery of Rhizocrinus lofotensis. Caloric theory - the theory that a fluid called caloric was the substance of heat. Rendered obsolete by the theory of heat. Classical elements - All matter was thought to be composed of various combinations of classical elements. This was finally refuted by Antoine Lavoisiers publication of Elements of Chemistry, phlogiston theory – The theory that combustible goods contain a substance called phlogiston which entered air upon combustion
31.
Accretion disk
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An accretion disk is a structure formed by diffused material in orbital motion around a massive central body. The central body is typically a star, gravity causes material in the disk to spiral inward towards the central body. Gravitational and frictional forces compress and raise the temperature of the material, the frequency range of that radiation depends on the central objects mass. Accretion disks of stars and protostars radiate in the infrared. The study of modes in accretion disks is referred to as diskoseismology. Accretion disks are a phenomenon in astrophysics, active galactic nuclei, protoplanetary disks. These disks very often give rise to astrophysical jets coming from the vicinity of the central object, jets are an efficient way for the star-disk system to shed angular momentum without losing too much mass. The most spectacular accretion disks found in nature are those of active galactic nuclei and of quasars, as matter enters the accretion disc, it follows a trajectory called a tendex line, which describes an inward spiral. The loss of angular momentum manifests as a reduction in velocity, at a slower velocity, as the particle falls to this lower orbit, a portion of its gravitational potential energy is converted to increased velocity and the particle gains speed. Thus, the particle has lost energy even though it is now travelling faster than before, however, the large luminosity of quasars is believed to be a result of gas being accreted by supermassive black holes. Elliptical accretion disks formed at tidal disruption of stars can be typical in galactic nuclei, Accretion process can convert about 10 percent to over 40 percent of the mass of an object into energy as compared to around 0.7 percent for nuclear fusion processes. A gas flow then develops from the star to the primary. Angular momentum conservation prevents a straight flow from one star to the other, Accretion disks surrounding T Tauri stars or Herbig stars are called protoplanetary disks because they are thought to be the progenitors of planetary systems. The accreted gas in this case comes from the molecular cloud out of which the star has formed rather than a companion star, in the 1940s, models were first derived from basic physical principles. In order to agree with observations, those models had to invoke a yet unknown mechanism for angular momentum redistribution, if matter is to fall inwards it must lose not only gravitational energy but also lose angular momentum. In other words, angular momentum should be transported outwards for matter to accrete and this prevents the existence of a hydrodynamic mechanism for angular momentum transport. On one hand, it was clear that viscous stresses would eventually cause the matter towards the center to heat up, on the other hand, viscosity itself was not enough to explain the transport of angular momentum to the exterior parts of the disk. Turbulence-enhanced viscosity was the thought to be responsible for such angular-momentum redistribution
32.
Protoplanetary disk
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A 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, but 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, protostars mainly form from molecular clouds consisting primarily of molecular hydrogen. When a portion of a cloud reaches a critical size, mass, or density. As this collapsing cloud, called a solar nebula, becomes denser, conservation of angular momentum causes the rotation to increase as the nebula radius decreases. This rotation causes the cloud to flatten out—much like forming a flat pizza out of dough—and take the form of a disk, the initial collapse takes about 100,000 years. After that time the star reaches a temperature similar to that of a main sequence star of the same mass. It is now a T Tauri star, the oldest protoplanetary disk yet discovered is 25 million years old. Protoplanetary disks around T Tauri stars differ from the surrounding the primary components of close binary systems with respect to their size. Protoplanetary disks have radii up to 1000 AU, and only their innermost parts reach temperatures above 1000 K and they are very often accompanied by jets. Protoplanetary disks have been observed around several stars in our galaxy. Recent observations by the Hubble Space Telescope have shown proplyds and planetary disks to be forming within the Orion Nebula. Protoplanetary disks are thought to be structures, with a typical vertical height much smaller than the radius. The mass of a typical disk is dominated by its gas, however. Dust grains shield the mid-plane of the disk from energetic radiation from space that creates a dead zone in which the MRI no longer operates. It is believed that these disks consist of a turbulent envelope of plasma, also called the active zone, the dead zone located at the mid-plane can slow down the flow of matter through the disk which prohibits achieving a steady state. The nebular hypothesis of solar system formation describes how protoplanetary disks are thought to evolve into planetary systems, electrostatic and gravitational interactions may cause the dust and ice grains in the disk to accrete into planetesimals. This process competes against the wind, which drives the gas out of the system, and gravity
33.
Zecharia Sitchin
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Zecharia Sitchin was a Russian-American author of books proposing an explanation for human origins involving ancient astronauts. Sitchin attributed the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the Anunnaki and he believed this hypothetical planet of Nibiru to be in an elongated, elliptical orbit in the Earths own Solar System, asserting that Sumerian mythology reflects this. Sitchins books have sold millions of copies worldwide and have translated into more than 25 languages. Sitchins ideas have been rejected by scientists and academics, who dismiss his work as pseudoscience and his work has been criticized for flawed methodology and mistranslations of ancient texts as well as for incorrect astronomical and scientific claims. Sitchin was born in the Azerbaijan SSR, but was raised in Mandatory Palestine and he received a degree in economics from the University of London, and was an editor and journalist in Israel, before moving to New York in 1952. While working as an executive for a company, he taught himself Sumerian cuneiform. According to Sitchin, Nibiru collided catastrophically with Tiamat, which he considers to be another planet once located between Mars and Jupiter and this collision supposedly formed the planet Earth, the asteroid belt, and the comets. The second half, struck again by one of Nibirus moons, was pushed into a new orbit, according to Sitchin, Nibiru was the home of a technologically advanced human-like extraterrestrial race called the Anunnaki in Sumerian myth, who Sitchin states are called the Nephilim in Genesis. Sitchin states that gods were the rank-and-file workers of the colonial expedition to Earth from planet Nibiru. Sitchin believes that fallout from nuclear weapons, used during a war between factions of the extraterrestrials, is the evil wind described in the Lament for Ur that destroyed Ur around 2000 BC, Sitchin states the exact year is 2024 BC. Sitchin says that his research coincides with many texts. Sitchins books sold millions of copies worldwide and have published in more than 25 languages. New York Times reporter Corey Kilgannon noted that despite academic dismissal of his work, critic Michael S. Heiser called Sitchin arguably the most important proponent of the ancient astronaut hypothesis over the last several decades. Sitchin was a frequent guest on the Coast to Coast AM radio show, Gods of the New Millennium author Alan F. Alford admits he initially became infatuated with Sitchins hypotheses but later became a critic of Sitchins interpretations of myth. In 2000, Lorin Morgan-Richards theatrical performance of ENKI, based on the writings of Zecharia Sitchin, premiered in Cleveland, as proof, he cited the work of Sitchin and others. Criticism of Sitchins work falls primarily into three categories, translations and interpretations of ancient texts, astronomical and scientific observations, and literalism of myth, when Sitchin wrote his books, only specialists could read the Sumerian language. However, sources such as the 2006 book Sumerian Lexicon have made the more accessible to non-experts. American biblical scholar Michael S. Heiser states he has many inaccuracies in Sitchins translations
34.
Rogue planet
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A rogue planet is a planetary-mass object that orbits the galaxy directly. Such objects have either been ejected from the system in which they formed or have never been gravitationally bound to any star or brown dwarf. The Milky Way alone may have billions of rogue planets, some planetary-mass objects are thought to have formed in a similar way to stars, and the IAU has proposed that those objects be called sub-brown dwarfs. A possible example is Cha 110913-773444, which might have been ejected and become a rogue planet, the closest free-floating planetary-mass object to Earth yet discovered, WISE 0855−0714, is at 7 light years, though it may be a sub-brown dwarf. Herschel far-infrared observations show that this young free-floating planetary-mass object is surrounded by a disk of at least 10 Earth masses, and thus eventually, can form a mini planetary system. Spectroscopic observations of OTS44 with the SINFONI spectrograph at the Very Large Telescope reveal that the disk is accreting matter. In December 2013, a candidate exomoon of a planet was announced. Most methods of detecting exoplanets rely on motion of the star caused by the planet in orbit. Since a rogue planet has no star, such a method cannot be used to detect rogue planets, two methods used to detect rogue planets are gravitational microlensing and direct imaging. Direct imaging allows astronomers to observe rogue planets continuously, however, only young and massive rogue planets can be observed this way because they are the only ones that emit enough radiation to be detected. On the other hand, with no glare of a host star, when a planetary-mass object passes in front of a star, the objects gravitational field causes momentary changes in the visible brightness of the background star. They found 474 incidents of microlensing, ten of which were enough to be planets of around Jupiters size with no associated star in the immediate vicinity. The researchers estimated from their observations that there are nearly two rogue planets for every star in the Milky Way, other estimates suggest a much larger number, up to 100,000 times more rogue planets than stars in the Milky Way. In November 2012, astronomers discovered a planet at 100 light-years. Interstellar planets generate little heat nor are they heated by a star, in 1998, David J. Stevenson theorized that some planet-sized objects adrift in the vast expanses of cold interstellar space might sustain a thick atmosphere that would not freeze out. He proposes that atmospheres are preserved by the pressure-induced far-infrared radiation opacity of a thick hydrogen-containing atmosphere and it is thought that, during planetary-system formation, several small protoplanetary bodies may be ejected from the forming system. Thus, it is proposed that interstellar planetary bodies with extensive liquid-water oceans may exist, thus theoretically, humans might live on a planet without a sun, although food sources would be limited. A study of simulated planet ejection scenarios has suggested that around 5% of Earth-sized planets with Moon-sized natural satellites would retain their satellites after ejection, a large satellite would be a source of significant geological tidal force heating
35.
Pseudoscience
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Pseudoscience consists of claims, beliefs, or practices presented as being plausible scientifically, but which are not justifiable by the scientific method. The term pseudoscience is often considered pejorative because it suggests something is being presented as science inaccurately or even deceptively, accordingly, those termed as practicing or advocating pseudoscience often dispute the characterization. The demarcation between science and pseudoscience has philosophical and scientific implications, differentiating science from pseudoscience has practical implications in the case of health care, expert testimony, environmental policies, and science education. The word pseudoscience is derived from the Greek root pseudo meaning false and the English word science, an earlier recorded use of the term was during 1843 by the French physiologist François Magendie. From time to time, though, the usage of the word occurred in a formal, technical manner around a perceived threat to individual and institutional security in a social and cultural setting. A number of principles are accepted by scientists as standards for determining whether a body of knowledge, method. Experimental results should be reproducible and verified by other researchers, statistical quantification of significance, confidence, and error are also important tools for the scientific method. During the mid-20th century, Karl Popper emphasized the criterion of falsifiability to distinguish science from nonscience, falsifiability means a result can be disproved. For example, a statement such as God exists may be true or false, Popper used astrology and psychoanalysis as examples of pseudoscience and Einsteins theory of relativity as an example of science. The point is made there is no physical test to refute the claim of the presence of this dragon. No matter what test you think you can devise, there is then a reason why this does not apply to the invisible dragon, sagan concludes, Now, whats the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all. During 1942, Robert K. Merton identified a set of five norms which he characterized as what makes a real science, If any of the norms were violated, Merton considered the enterprise to be nonscience. These are not broadly accepted by the scientific community and his norms were, Originality, The tests and research done must present something new to the scientific community. Detachment, The scientists reasons for practicing this science must be simply for the expansion of their knowledge, the scientists should not have personal reasons to expect certain results. Universality, No person should be able to easily obtain the information of a test than another person. Social class, religion, ethnicity, or any other factors should not be factors in someones ability to receive or perform a type of science. Skepticism, Scientific facts must not be based on faith, one should always question every case and argument and constantly check for errors or invalid claims. Public accessibility, Any scientific knowledge one obtains should be available to everyone
36.
Tom Van Flandern
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Thomas C Van Flandern was an American astronomer and author specializing in celestial mechanics. Van Flandern had a career as a professional scientist, but was noted as a proponent of non-mainstream views related to astronomy, physics. He also published the non-mainstream Meta Research Bulletin and he died of colon cancer in Seattle, Washington. Van Flandern graduated from Saint Ignatius High School in Cleveland, while there, he helped start the Cleveland branch of Operation Moonwatch, an amateur science program initiated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory to track satellites. He also helped found a Moonwatchers team at Xavier University, Van Flandern graduated from Xavier University cum laude with a B. S. in Mathematics in 1962 and was awarded a teaching fellowship at Georgetown University. He attended Yale University on a scholarship sponsored by the U. S. Naval Observatory, in 1969 he received a PhD in Astronomy from Yale, with a dissertation on lunar occultations. Van Flandern worked at the USNO until 1983, first becoming Chief of the Research Branch and his espousal of highly non-mainstream beliefs, particularly the exploded planet hypothesis, eventually led to his separation from the USNO. He later said, This forced me to the fringes, areas of not accepted as credible by experts of the field. Following his separation from the USNO, Van Flandern started a business organizing eclipse viewing expeditions, in 1974, his essay A Determination of the Rate of Change of G was awarded second place by the Gravity Research Foundation. Van Flandern and Henry Fliegel developed an algorithm to calculate a Julian date from a Gregorian date that would fit on a single IBM card. They described this in a letter to the editor of a magazine in 1968. This was available for use in business applications, with Kenneth Pulkkinen, he published Low precision formulae for planetary positions, in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement in 1979. The paper set a record for the number of reprints requested from that journal, in 2003, developed the Van Flandern-Yang hypothesis with Xin-She Yang after observations made during the Solar eclipse of March 9,1997. Van Flandern described in his book how he had become dissatisfied with the mainstream view of science by the early 1980s. He wrote Events in my life caused me to start questioning my goals, in matters of religion, medicine, biology, physics, and other fields, I came to discover that reality differed seriously from what I had been taught. In his book, on blogs, lectures, newsletter and web site, Van Flandern focused on problems with cosmology and he alleged that when experimental evidence is incompatible with mainstream scientific theories, that mainstream scientists refuse to acknowledge this to avoid jeopardizing their funding. Van Flandern espoused a set of principles for assessing ideas, in 1976, while Van Flandern was employed by the USNO, he began to promote the belief that major planets sometimes explode. In his book Van Flandern described the reception of his ideas about exploding planets among mainstream scientists
37.
Soyuzmultfilm
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Soyuzmultfilm is a Russian animation studio based in Moscow. Over the years it has gained attention and respect, garnering numerous awards both at home and abroad. Noted for a variety of style, it is regarded as the most influential animation studio of the former Soviet Union. The studio has produced 1530 films during its existence and it is currently divided into two studios, Creative union of the Film studio Soyuzmultfilm and the Soyuzmultfilm Film Fund. The Studio was founded on 10 June 1936 under the name Soyuzdetmultfilm, the name was changed to Soyuzmultfilm on 20 August 1937. Initially comprising only a few scattered workshops, Soyuzmultfilm grew quickly, the studio produced exclusively traditional animation until 1954, when a puppet division was founded and the first stop motion-animated film released. The puppet division would also make cutout-animated films. During the Soviet era, the studio employed a maximum of over 700 skilled labourers, the studio was one of the most ethnically-integrated cultural industries in the Soviet Union. Hedgehog in the Fog, and The Mystery of the Third Planet, the variety of animation styles and the unprecedented degree of artistic freedom given to its many animators made Soyuzmultfilm perhaps the most diverse of the worlds major animation studios. Soyuzmultfilms creativity was fueled in part by the socialist economy of the Soviet Union, because animators were paid by the Academy of Film regardless of how well or how poorly their products sold, they were free to pursue their artistic vision without giving a thought to finances. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought to a close the era of Soyuzmultfilm. New economic realities made it impossible for the government to support the studio any longer, in 1989, Soyuzmultfilm was made into a leased enterprise and forced into the capitalist marketplace. Although the studio survived, it dramatically, losing nearly 90% of its staff. One early misfortune happened when the Russian courts transferred the studios puppet division building to the Russian Orthodox Church, no studio employees were allowed to come in and salvage any item, despite the presence of much expensive equipment and a whole library of puppets. The main reason for the collapse, however, was the studios deliberate dismantling by the new top management, in 1992–1993, Sergei Skulyabin was elected president. In 1992, the signed a deal with the American company Films by Jove, owned by Russian immigrant actor Oleg Vidov. It was the first international offer that the studio had received, Films by Jove restored many of the films and released many of them on television, video and DVD in the United States and Europe, albeit usually with dubbed voices and changed music. According to current director Akop Kirakosyan, the deal seemed promising at the time
38.
Short film
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A short film, is a cinema format, denoting any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. The term featurette originally applied to a longer than a short subject. The increasingly rare term short subject means approximately the same thing and it is an industry term which carries more of an assumption that the film is shown as part of a presentation along with a feature film. Short is an abbreviation for either term, Short films are often screened at local, national, or international film festivals and made by independent filmmakers for non profit, either with a low budget or no budget at all. They are usually funded by grants, non profit organizations. Short films are used by filmmakers to gain experience or prove their talent in order to gain funding for future films from private investors, entertainment companies. Longer and shorter films coexisted with similar popularity throughout the days of film. However, comedy films were produced in large numbers compared to lengthy features such as D. W. Griffiths The Birth of a Nation. By the 1920s, a ticket purchased a varied program including a feature and several supporting works from such as second feature, short comedy, 5–10 minute cartoon, travelogue. Short comedies were popular, and typically came in a serial or series. Even though there was no set release schedule, these series could be considered somewhat like a modern TV sitcom – lower in status than feature films. Animated cartoons came principally as short subjects, in the 1930s, the distribution system changed in many countries owing to the Great Depression. Instead of the cinema owner assembling a program of their own choice, the studios sold a package centered on a main and supporting feature, with the rise of the double feature, two reel shorts went into decline as a commercial category. Hal Roach, for example, moved Laurel and Hardy full-time into feature films after 1935, by the mid-1950s, with the rise of television, the commercial live-action short was virtually dead, The Three Stooges being the last major series of 2-reelers, ending in 1959. Short films had become a medium for student, independent and specialty work, cartoon shorts had a longer life, due in part to the implementation of lower-cost limited animation techniques, but also declined in this period. Warner Bros. one of the most prolific of the golden era, the Pink Panther was the last regular theatrical cartoon short series, having begun in 1964 and ended in 1980. By the 1960s, the market for animated shorts had largely shifted to television, a few animated shorts continue within mainstream commercial distribution. For instance, Pixar has screened a short along with each of its feature films during its theatrical run since 1995
39.
Fictional planets of the Solar System
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The fictional portrayal of our Solar System has often included planets, moons, and other celestial objects which do not actually exist in reality. Often such objects continued to be used in long after the hypotheses upon which they were based had been abandoned. Vulcan was a hypothetical planet supposed to revolve around the Sun inside the orbit of Mercury, the planet was proposed as a hypothesis in 1859, and abandoned not later than 1915. Vulcans Workshop, short story by Harl Vincent, a colony is located on Vulcan. At the Center of Gravity, short story by Ross Rocklynne, Vulcan is part of the Solar System in the Captain Future series. In Outlaw World it is discovered that it is hollow and inhabited inside, Mission to Mercury, science fiction novel by Hugh Walters. During the return of the first manned flight to Mercury, a crew member notices a dark spot moving across the Sun. Since the spot is between them and the Sun and appears to be moving to the eye, it can only be the previously-hypothetical Vulcan. The Power of the Daleks, serial in the Doctor Who TV series, Set on an Earth colony on Vulcan in the early 21st century, a world covered with swamps. Vulcan appears to be one of Earths first colonies, set up by 2020 AD according to publicity, but it is unclear if it is in a nearby solar system, or if Vulcan is in the Solar System. Script directions refer to the Plutovian night, suggesting that the story was set on Pluto, or that Vulcan was in a similar orbit to Pluto. The name Vulcan has been used for other fictional planets, in and out of the Solar System. The idea of a counter-Earth has never been a scientific hypothesis in modern times. The planet is used in the Korad trilogy of Science Fiction-comedy books by Cuban writer Felix Móndejar, planetoid 127 by Edgar Wallace, A short novel of communication by radio with another world on the other side of the sun in Earths orbit. Antigeos series of novels including The Other Side of the Sun, The Other Half of the Planet and Down to Earth by Paul Capon, la Planète ignorée by René Guillot Gor novels by John Norman, Sword and planet adventure on a counter-Earth called Gor. Aïo, terre invisible by Christian Grenier The Illuminatus, trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, The leaders of the Illuminati may have originated on a counter-Earth named Vulcan and come to Earth on flying saucers from Mars via Saturn. The X12 series of books by Olof Möller prominently features a counter-Earth called Anti-Tellus, zillikian is a counter-Earth featured in the Bunduki series by J. T. Edson. Les Cités obscures, graphic novel series by François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters, by Richard A. Lupoff, a sequel to Circumpolar
40.
Giant-impact hypothesis
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The colliding body is sometimes called Theia, from the name of the mythical Greek Titan who was the mother of Selene, the goddess of the Moon. Analysis of lunar rocks, published in 2016, suggests that the impact may have been a direct hit, the giant-impact hypothesis is currently the favoured scientific hypothesis for the formation of the Moon. Supporting evidence includes, Earths spin and the Moons orbit have similar orientations, Moon samples indicate that the Moons surface was once molten. The Moon has a small iron core. The Moon has a lower density than Earth, evidence exists of similar collisions in other star systems. Giant collisions are consistent with the theories of the formation of the solar system. The stable-isotope ratios of lunar and terrestrial rock are identical, implying a common origin, there remain several questions concerning the best current models of the giant-impact hypothesis, however. However, as of 2015 there is no self-consistent model that starts with the giant-impact event, other remaining questions include when the Moon lost its share of volatile elements and why Venus—which experienced giant impacts during its formation—does not host a similar moon. In 1898, George Darwin made the suggestion that the Earth, Darwins hypothesis was that a molten Moon had been spun from the Earth because of centrifugal forces, and this became the dominant academic explanation. Using Newtonian mechanics, he calculated that the Moon had orbited much more closely in the past and was drifting away from the Earth and this drifting was later confirmed by American and Soviet experiments, using laser ranging targets placed on the Moon. Nonetheless, Darwins calculations could not resolve the mechanics required to trace the Moon backward to the surface of the Earth. In 1946, Reginald Aldworth Daly of Harvard University challenged Darwins explanation and their models suggested that, at the end of the planet formation period, several satellite-sized bodies had formed that could collide with the planets or be captured. They proposed that one of objects may have collided with the Earth, ejecting refractory. This collision could potentially explain the unique geological and geochemical properties of the Moon and it is hypothesized that most of the outer silicates of the colliding body would be vaporized, whereas a metallic core would not. Hence, most of the material sent into orbit would consist of silicates. The more volatile materials that were emitted during the collision probably would escape the Solar System, the name of the hypothesized protoplanet is derived from the mythical Greek titan Theia /ˈθiːə/, who gave birth to the Moon goddess Selene. This designation was proposed initially by the English geochemist Alex N. Halliday in 2000 and has accepted in the scientific community. According to modern theories of formation, Theia was part of a population of Mars-sized bodies that existed in the Solar System 4.5 billion years ago
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "article name needed". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. – see, for instance, "Olbers," Britannica
