Life on Earth

        The weather is still not cooperating and my star gazing did not happen this week. Instead I am going to talk about one of the reasons that we have life on Earth. There are many factors that make Earth a unique planet in our solar system. One of the things that make Earth unique is the evolution of our atmosphere. This evolution has made life on Earth possible. The very first atmosphere that the Earth had was probably mainly Hydrogen and Helium because that was the gas that was left over in small amounts in the inner solar system.  When oceans appeared the atmosphere would have started to contain water vapor. This is due to the evaporation of the water in the oceans. The Earth was had volcanic eruptions that allowed outgassing. Outgassing is the release of gases that were trapped in rock. The outgassing was able to released carbon dioxide, water, nitrogen, hydrogen, and sulfur dioxide. This would not have allowed life to move out of the water and onto the land. However, there had to be processes that allowed for this to occur or else we would not be here today. In order for life to move to land there had to be oxygen in the atmosphere. There are two processes that allowed for this to occur. One of the processes photosynthesis, this is when planets and certain organism take in sunlight and carbon dioxide and release oxygen. This allows for oxygen to be put into the atmosphere. The second process is when radiation from the sun breaks apart water molecules in the atmosphere. This leaves oxygen and hydrogen separated, the hydrogen will escape into space and the oxygen will build up in the atmosphere. These to processes were able to build up oxygen and life could evolve and also move to the land. The atmosphere also protects the planet from harsh radiation that would have make life on the land impossible.  

Mars and Jupiter

        Last week I was able to find the two constellations that I wanted to in the night sky. However, my survey of the night sky to find constellations is not looking promising for this week. Unfortunately the weather is not cooperating. It is supposed to rain and be cloudy all week. This will make it very difficult to locate constellations. Therefore, this week I will use Stellarium to explore two of the planets in our solar system. Mars is the first planet that is visible above the horizon at night at this time of year.

Figure obtained from Stellarium

        This figure shows Mars and one can even see some of the surface features. One can also see that Mars has two moons that orbit it, these are Phobos and Deimos.  They appear as circular points however that are actually potato shape because they do not have enough self-gravity to make them spherical. Phobos is more cratered and has a shorter period to orbit mars it is also the largest out of the two moons.  The next planet is Jupiter, this is the close Jovian planet to the sun and it has a large number of moons but it has four large moons called the Galileo Moons.

Figure Obtained from Stellarium 

        This is a figure of Jupiter it is one of the Gas giants. Jupiter and the other Jovian planets are much larger than the terrestrial planets and they also have large moons. Here one can see Jupiter but also its four large moons. These are Callistro, Europa, Io and Ganymede. Many scientists are interested in Europa because it is thought to have liquid oceans under its surface of ice. There are plans to use radar to determine the thickness of the ice. There have also been thought that this moon may be a place that could harbour life.  I have found these two planets and discussed some of the properties of them and their moons. Hopefully next week it is possible to see the stars and I can go star gazing.

Ursa Minor and Cassiopeia

        I have completed my one month study into the phases of the moon. I will now start to look at different constellations in the night sky. I will spend the next two months reporting what constellations I have been able to pick out. I will then compare and also aid my study with Stellarium.  Tonight I am going to start off with a constellation that should not be difficult to find. I am going to look for Ursa Minor which is commonly known as the little dipper. This should realistically be easy to find because one of the stars that make up this constellation is Polaris. Polaris is also known as the northern star. This star is easy to find because it is a bright star in the night sky and with the aid of a compass one can find it. This is the northern star. Once this star is found I will have found the little dipper.

Figures were obtained from Stellarium

        The diagrams that are above were reproduced by Stellarium. As once can see it can be difficult to see these constellations when there are so many stars in the night sky. It would be a wonderful world if the sky would highlight each of the constellations just like Stellarium does for us inexperienced stargazers.

Figures were obtained from Stellarium

         I was successful in finding Ursa Minor so I decided to see if I could locate Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia is to the right of Ursa Minor and looks like a sideways W.  I was able to spot both of these constellations on my last outing. The two diagrams above show what Cassiopeia looks likes. One would think that all of these stars that make up the constellations would be close to each other. However this is not the case they can be light years away from Earth. In Cassiopeia the closet star is 54.46 light years away and the star that is the furthest from Earth is at a distance of 613.08 light years. There are hundreds of light year differences between them.  Stay tuned for more constellation next week.

First Quarter Moon

Over the past three entries I have made my way through some of the phases of the moon. According to the figure above I should observe the first quarter moon tonight. Last week I observed the new moon and as mentioned before the moon goes through close to 2 phases a week. This means I should see the first quarter moon. This phase of the moon rises at noon and will be highest in the sky at 6 pm and will set at midnight. I chose to view the moon at around 8pm on Sunday night. When I observed the moon it was not yet a full half illuminated it was closer to the first quarter moon phase as opposed to the waxing crescent phase. 

This Figure was obtained by Stellarium

           This figure above is close to what I observed when looking at the moon on Sunday night. As you can see the full quarter of the moon is not illuminated and thus it is not quite in the first quarter phase. I compared my observation to Stellarium which agreed. I then fast forward to the next day on Stellarium and recorded the phase of the sun. For the figure below one can see that a quarter of the moon is illuminated. This means that the moon on Sunday was closer to the first quarter phase. 

This Figure was obtained by Stellarium

         This will be my last blog on the phases of the moon. Next week the moon will be back to the same phase that it was when I started my blog. I am going to now concentrate on certain constellations that are in our sky every weekend. Hope you enjoyed the phases of the moon.

New Moon

           From the lunar phase diagram that is part of my last post I can predict what the next phase of the moon will be on Sunday. Knowing as stated before that in a week span the moon will complete approximately two phases.  It follows that if the moon was in the third quarter phase that in one week it will pass through the waxing crescent phase. When I observe the moon on Sunday it will be in the new moon phase. This phase is highest in the sky at noon and cannot be seen because of the alignment of the earth’s sun and moon. Thus we cannot see the half of the moon that the sun is lighting up. Interestingly one may think that there should be a solar eclipse every new moon because the moon is between the Earth and Sun. This does not occur because the moon orbits the Earth and a slight angle and prevents the solar eclipse. To have a solar eclipse the moon, sun and earth have to line up exactly. When I observed the moon at around 12 noon on Sunday there was just a sliver of the moon that I could see. This portion of the moon that I saw can be explained because the new moon will occur on Sept. 27 which is two days after my observations. This is closer to the new moon phase as opposed to the waxing crescent phase. The figure that is shown below shows what Stellarium the computer program gave for the phase of the moon on Sunday at noon. This backs up my prediction as well as my observations. 

This Figure was obtained by Stellarium

            To prove that the true new moon would occur on the Tuesday I have used Stellarium to give a picture of what the new moon should look like. This is represented in the figure below. Stay tune for the next phase of the moon. 

This Figure was obtained by Stellarium