The Amazing Solar System

by LoveUniHateExams 19 Replies latest jw friends

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  LoveUniHateExams

  I gotta say, I don't know much about the Solar System. I never was particularly interested in it.

  But I've recently read Professor Brian Cox's book (which accompanies a BBC series) and it's completely fascinating.

  I'm quite interested in pictures of Mars. Martian landscapes seem familiar and different at the same time …

  
  

  ^^^ It could be a photo of the Sahara or Kalahari, but it's millions of miles away on the surface of Mars.

  If anyone has got any interesting facts of photos of the Solar System, please post them!
  
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  stan livedeath

  Looks like they beamed up Scotty.
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  road to nowhere

  Double post

  Voyager 2 is beyond pluto. It takes 16. 5 hours for a signal to travel one way. They used photos to see any debris and steer it clear. I didnt find the the wattage of the transmitter, but it is really low.

  AND the United states has secret colonies on Mars.😊

  I did talk to an employee of a space agency who thinks the probes that " crashed" are really doing something covert.
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  LoveUniHateExams

  This is Uranus.

  
  

  ^^^ It is tilted on its axis approx. 95 degrees. This means that it's kinda 'laying down' rather than 'standing up'. Its North Pole is on the right in this photo. Its thin rings are also visible.

  It also has at least 27 moons.

  Pretty amazing ...
  
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  Magnum

  Martian landscapes seem familiar and different at the same time

  Very good description. I agree. I just stared at that Martian landscape photo for a while. It's so weird to me that that is out there just hurling through space with no life on it. It's beautiful and yet lonely - even eerie.

  Which book are you referring to? I'd like to read it. I just googled and found two that fit your description: Wonders of the Universe and Universal: A Guide to the Cosmos. I'll probably get both, but I'm wondering which one you read.
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  LoveUniHateExams

  It's Wonders of the Universe.

  There is a BBC TV series of the same name (which I've not seen).

  Prof. Cox is obviously knowledgeable and passionate, but he also explains things very well to absolute beginners such as me.

  The book was very interesting - it goes into Mars, Venus, Saturn's rings, Saturn's moons Enceladus and Titan, Jupiter and Jovian moons Io and Europa.

  It is fascinating, I couldn't put it down, lol.
  
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  pistolpete

  I took astronomy in College and been interested ever since. Here is something interesting.

  Our Solar System, which includes our Sun and the other planets revolving around the Sun is located in the Milky Way Galaxy.

  So far, astronomers have found more than 500 solar systems, in our MILKY WAY GALAXY, ---- just like ours, with a Sun, moon, and other planets revolving around their Sun, that may or may not have life, we just don’t know because it would take take 200,000 years for a spaceship traveling at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) to go across the entire Milky Way Galaxy.

  But here is the thing, Scientist are discovering new ones every year. Given how many they have found in our own neighborhood of the Milky Way galaxy, scientists estimate that there may be tens of billions of solar systems in our Milky Way Galaxy alone, perhaps even as many as 100 billion just like our Solar system..

  Now something astonishing happened around 2003. They pointed the Hubble Telescope at a patch of sky that had nothing in it but was completely dark and void of anything. And this spot was outside our Milky Way Galaxy.

  After some time, the Telescope revealed 10,000 Galaxies just like our Milky Way Galaxy with Billions of Stars just like our sun meaning Billions of Solar systems just like our Solar system with a Planet, a Sun, a Moon, and other planets revolving around their own Sun---and maybe, just maybe, -----intelligent life superior to ours.

  Meaning, what we know is vastly outstripped by what we don't know. In other words, we are just at the tip of the beginning of knowledge.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zawqojb-Lo

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP_Q6JqFMf0
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  waton

  Our solar system has an unique architecture, seen in the stacking of the planets, their rotation and orbital velocities.

  outstanding is No. 1, the first body where live is discovered: "our" Earth.

  No.10 in the Bode* series. with an orbital velocity 10 000 times the speed of light. An orbital diameter of 1000 seconds, a pendulum 10 decimeters long, that swings in a one second, a surface acceleration of ~ 10 m/s^2. A surface atmospheric pressure equal to a 10 meter water column. using a 10 based counting system because of the No.of digits of its dominant species.

  * a doubling in planetary distances with a lower limit of .3 AU, upper of 9.6 AU.
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  LoveUniHateExams

  Here's the surface of Venus.

  
  

  ^^^ Temperatures here are apparently hotter than Mercury. Venus's thick cloud cover keeps the suns heat in.

  Venus was once thought to be possibly like modern Earth. Then the probe landed on the surface, lol.
  
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  Brock Talon

  Personally, I love Pluto. When I was a child, I learned "there are nine planets in our solar system"... but since then, Pluto has been reclassified as a "dwarf planet" which is not a a first class planet at all. This was a very controversial decision that not all astronomers agreed with and I followed the argumentation with great interest. But because it had not cleared it neighborhood of other objects, "they" decided it was not a "planet" and that was that. Still, it qualifies for a dwarf planet, so it still is a "planet" in my book. (As apposed to an asteroid, comet, or some other more trivial celestial body.)
  
  Well, I love all the odd things about Pluto, among these are:

  Pluto's biggest moon, Charon, is about half its width. They orbit each other like a dual planet system. (See photo)
  

  Pluto has an elliptical orbit (year) that takes 248 Earth years to complete. If there were humanoid life on Pluto and their lifespan was similar to ours, they would never age to even one Pluto year old. Most would die before reaching 1/3 of a year old. Its orbit also comes closer than Neptune's orbit at its closest, but Pluto orbits at an inclined plane to that of the solar system's eight planets. Because of this very odd elliptical orbit, the methane can freeze and snow (with red snow!) and then thaw and refreeze again during its 248 year orbit as it gets closer and then farther from the Sun.
  

  Pluto is tiny (about) 2/3 the size of our moon, but rotates at 153 Earth hours. If there were humanoid life on Pluto and they had to work 1/3 of a day like we do (working 8 hour days) their work day would be 50 hours.
  
  Pluto was named by an 11 year old who was fascinated by Roman Mythology. Pluto was the god of the underworld, also named in Greek: Hades. All of its moons are named similarly: Charon, Styx, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos. If you don't know these names, you don't know your mythology! I always loved Greek and Roman mythology, so I love Pluto and its moons for this alone.
  

  There are so many other interesting things about Pluto, the most prominent of the Kuiper belt objects and probably the most well known dwarf planets.
  
  I thought I would share this cool stuff about my favorite planet: Pluto. Yes, Pluto will always be the ninth planet to me. Go ahead and make the other dwarf planets actual planets if you wish. I don't care. And even though it rains diamonds on Neptune, Pluto's red methane snow rocks.
  
  
  Pluto and Charon doing their eternal dance