...Jupiter and its Galilean Moons By: Logan Brink Astronomy 101 April 19, 2011 The solar system is an intriguing place. There are objects in our solar system that have unfathomable beauty; a few of these beautiful objects being Jupiter and its four Galilean moons. Jupiter is one of the most interesting bodies in the solar system, so it makes sense that its four largest moons are equally fascinating. The Galilean moons are some of the most curious bodies in our solar system. From dead worlds to water worlds to fire worlds, these four moons may hold a lot of answers to some of the mysteries of the solar system. At 5.2 A.Us (Astronomical units – 93,000,000 miles) from the Sun, Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the first of the gas giants (Bennett et. al A-14-15). Being so far away from the Sun, it takes Jupiter about 11.9 Earth years to orbit the Sun (Kerrod 148). Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system; in fact, it is more massive than all the other planets combined! At its equator, the gas giant measures 88,850 miles in diameter (Kerrod 148). Jupiter is so huge that it is eleven times bigger across than Earth. Jupiter’s size, however, does not seem to have any effect on how fast the planet spins on its axis. Earth spins on its axis in about 24 hours, one Earth day. Jupiter has eleven times the diameter as Earth and spins on its axis in approximately 9 hours and 55 minutes (Kerrod 148). This means that the massive planet is spinning inordinately fast, this...
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...Moons of the solar system Ganymede Ganymede is a satellite of Jupiter and the largest moon in the Solar System. It is the seventh moon and third Galilean satellite outward from Jupiter. It has a diameter of 5,268 km 8 percent larger than that of the planet Mercury. It is a fully differentiated body with an iron-rich, liquid core. A saltwater ocean is believed to exist nearly 200 km below Ganymede's surface, sandwiched between layers of ice. Ganymede is the only moon in the Solar System known to possess a magnetosphere, likely created through convection within the liquid iron core. The meager magnetosphere is buried within Jupiter's much larger magnetic field and would show only as a local perturbation of the field lines. The satellite has a thin oxygen atmosphere that includes O, O2, and possibly O3, which is ozone. Ganymede's discovery is credited to Galileo Galilei, who was the first to observe it on January 7, 1610. Astronomer Simon Marius soon suggested the satellite’s name, for the mythological Ganymede, cupbearer of the Greek gods and Zeus's lover. On January 7, 1610, Galileo Galilei observed what he believed were three stars near Jupiter, including what turned out to be Ganymede, Calisto, and one body that turned out to be the combined light from Io and Europa; the next night he noticed that they had moved. On January 13, he saw all four at once for the first time, but had seen each of the moons before this date at least once. By January 15, Galileo came to the conclusion...
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...Jupiter’s Moons Lab Purpose: The purpose of this lab was to determine the period and semi-major axis for the orbit of each moon around Jupiter. We then apply Kepler’s Laws to calculate the mass of Jupiter from out observations of each moon. Procedure: Choose a moon per lab partner. Open the Moons of Jupiter program by clicking on START → Programs → Academic Department → CLEA Exercises → Jupiter Moons. The Moons of Jupiter program simulates the operation of an automatically controlled telescope with a Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) camera that provides a video image to a computer screen. It is a sophisticated computer program that allows convenient measurements to be made and the telescope's magnification to be adjusted. The computer simulation is realistic in all important ways, and using it will give you a good feel for how modern astronomers actually collect data and control their telescopes. Instead of using a telescope and actually observing the moons for many nights, the Moons of Jupiter computer simulation shows the moons to you as they would appear if you were to look through a telescope at the specified time. Click on File → Log In. A dialog box appears. Enter the names of each student working at your computer. When all the information had been entered to your satisfaction, click OK to continue. Click on File → Run. The next dialog box to appear is called Start Date & Time. Startup values are needed by the computer to establish your initial observation session...
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...present on Ganymede, one of Jupiter's Galilean moons. The implications of this discovery are infinite. The presence of water suggests that life may be possible on Ganymede, which helps the search for habitable environments along. The discovery was made using the Hubble Space Telescope which observed the oscillations of Ganymede's aurorae in the ultraviolet spectrum, thus supplying pertinent information regarding the magnetosphere of Ganymede. Due to the numerous similarities between Ganymede and Europa, it may be possible that Europa also has water present or even an underground ocean much like Ganymede's. To come to a conclusion research will...
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...Name of Scientist | Year/Date Discovered | Description of the Inventor | Nicolaus Copernicus(Astronomer) | 1473-1543 | proposed a model of the solar system that involved the Earth revolving around the sun. The model wasn't completely correct, as astronomers of the time struggled with the backwards path Mars sometimes took, but it eventually changed the way many scientists viewed the solar system. | Galileo Galilei(Astronomer) | 1564-1642 | he discovered the four primary moons of Jupiter (now known as the Galilean moons), as well as the rings of Saturn. Though a model of the Earth circling the sun was first proposed by Copernicus, it took some time before it became widely accepted. | Albert Einstein(Astronomer) | 1879-1955 | Einstein suggested that the laws of physics are the same throughout the universe, that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant, and that space and time are linked in an entity known as space-time, which is distorted by gravity | John Dalton(Meteorologist) | 1787 | Dalton was trying to explain why gases stay mixed, instead of settling out in layers in the atmosphere. Atomic weights were basically an afterthought in a paper he presented, and he was encouraged to study them further. | Cleveland Abbe(Meteorologist) | 1871 | Cleveland Abbe inaugurated a public weather service that served as a model for the national weather service, which was organized shortly thereafter as a branch of the U.S. Army Signal Service. In 1871 he was appointed chief meteorologist...
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...Answers to Questions Student’s Name Institution’s Name Antigone The basic conflict in “Antigone” is a distorted understanding of the Justice. Unfortunately, the vengeance and justice can be confused in the minds of some self-centered individuals. Thus, Creon, the king of Thebes, was confident that his punishment of Antigone was justified, because she disobeyed not just the request of her uncle and future father-in-law, but she disrespected the direction of the supreme ruler of the state. Simultaneously, the Gods were not less entitled to punish Creon because he disobeyed the “natural order”, which from their point of view was above all. The consequence of such kind of justice was the death of innocent people, which has always been a case of the collateral damage of vengeance, not a result of justice. Considering that the divine law forbade leaving the body unburied, Antigone demonstrated not only the love towards her dead brother, but respect to the Gods; whereas Creon demonstrated the gross insult to the Gods by forbidding Polynices’ burial and leaving his body to rot. Antigone swore to give her brother a decent burial because she believed that her doing is righteous one and even the threat of death could not stop her. She was not thinking about herself. She knew that the Gods would not forgive those, who had broken their law, and that their punishment would be colossal. Hence, she was not just against the Creon’s wrongdoing; she was trying to prevent...
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...After the success of NASA’s fly-bye mission, called the Europa Clipper that was launched in 2020, NASA started to plan a manned mission the icy moon. The Europa Clipper sent back data that proved what many have believed that there in fact is a sub-ocean underneath and that it is highly likely that it is hospitable for life. The mission that I was placed would be a single person travelling to Europa. I would land safely to Europa and set up a lander to extract a core sample of the ice and hopefully organisms that could have been frozen in the thin layer of ice. The spacecraft used will be mainly using solar sails to propel the spacecraft through the journey. The year is now 2030, the date to launch the rocket. We set the launch date for a week due to mapping out the trajectories and speed of space debris orbiting the earth. After figuring out the safest day we set...
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...astronomical objects bound to it by gravity, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. Of the many objects that orbit the Sun, most of the mass is contained within eight relatively solitary planets whose orbits are almost circular and lie within a nearly flat disc called the ecliptic plane. THE SUN The Sun is the most prominent feature in our solar system. It is the largest object and contains approximately 98% of the total solar system mass. Did you know? The Sun is big enough to hold over 1 million Earths. Many rituals and monuments are devoted to worshipping the Sun and/or marking important times in the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Mercury * Moon * No satellite * Giovanni Zupi * Has magnetic field * Mariner 10 * Revolution: 88 days * Rotation: 59 days Venus * Earth * No satellite * Galileo Galilei * No magnetic field * Mariner 2 * Revolution : 224.7 days * Rotation : 243 or (242 days) Mercury * Roman messenger of the gods * Smallest planet * Shortest year * Core: iron * Mantle: silicates * Crust: cratered terrain from meteors and small comets. Venus * Roman goddess of beauty * Hottest planet * Longest day * Core: iron and nickel * Mantle: unknown composition * Crust: Silicious rocks Mercury * Caloris Basin -largest crater * The sky of...
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...University of Phoenix Material Basics of Astronomy Outline Amanda Taddei 8-27-2012 Complete the outline based on the readings for this week: Ch. 1–4 of The Cosmic Perspective. Use complete sentences for all sub points listed. The following is an example of a completed outline: 1. Our place in the universe a. The modern view of the universe 1) What is our Sun and what is its role in the solar system? a) Our sun is a hot ball of glowing gases that is at the heart of our solar system. b) Our suns role is to give out energy and heat. This energy and heat allows for there to be life on earth. However, even though our sun is unique and life giving there are billions of stars that are just like it in the Milky Way galaxy. (Solar System Exploration, 2012) 2) What is our Milky Way galaxy and the sun’s position in it? a) The Milky Way galaxy is a spiral galaxy that has arms that extend out from the center like a pinwheel. Our galaxy is one of about 100 billion visible universes. (Solar System Exploration, 2012) b) The sun’s posistion in the galaxy is in the Orions arm of the Mily Way. However, because of how our planets are set up in our system there is life on Earth. The Sun has an almost circular orbit. The sun is just the right distance from the center of our galaxy to promote life. The planets and our sun are just the right distance apart for one of our planets, Earth, to have higher intelegance life on it. 3) What is the Big Bang and what does...
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...the crayon scribbles added to the otherwise drab interior of the ship. “That drawing of you in a spacesuit, fighting an alien blob monster on Mars never fails to amuse me,” Janeway said to her friend, Dr. Kathryn Ripley. “Oh yes, my daughter has quite the imagination. She’s my little budding scientist. She has already told me she wants to go and look for life in the oceans under the ice on Europa when she grows up.” Europa was next on the list of humanity’s places to visit within the solar system. The large moon orbiting Jupiter is 40% the size of Earth. It is thought to have a metallic core surrounded by rock, and a liquid water ocean covered with ice. Since it is so far from the Sun, liquid water would be impossible, because of this fact Europa is suspected to have volcanic activity heating the moon due to the orbital resonance the moon has with the other three Galilean moons, Io, Callisto, and Ganymede. This means that Europa is pulled on by the gravity of the other moons and Jupiter in opposing directions, heating its interior, allowing oceans of liquid water to form that may be up to 200 kilometers deep (Harnett and Winglee 180). “By the time she’s old enough, I’m sure the technology will exist for her to be able to do it. If we find life on Mars, and she finds it on Europa, the two of you will make the Ripley name synonymous with finding aliens,” Scully chimed in. “Oh, I can only hope,” Ripley beamed. “How much longer do you think we’ll need to stay in here?” Crusher asked...
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...Squidoo – Squidoo has an interesting blog post on why this author believes that the 1969 moon walk was a hoax. With many reasons to back up this argument, this writer uses many scientific and image-proven facts to get this point across. The article is broken down into the following categories, and is able to give evidence for each topic: 1960’s Technology, Time Frame, Photographic evidence analysis, Astronauts on wires, footage we weren’t meant to see, and so on. If you like reading articles that make you question your once strong beliefs, take a gander! Moon Hoax News – Moon hoax News is a blog dedicated to covering the latest in the hoax’ news over the years. Running since 2007, this site is dedicated to these beliefs. This site encouarges readers to delve into their own investigations of the hoax. Covering current issues about the Obama administration to modern day UFO spottings, this blog’s range of topics will keep you browsing. The Conspiracy Behind The Apollo Space Mission – This basic article written by Greg Scott, from the archives of articlebase.com, throws out the obvious (and not so obvious questions to those who are new to the topic) questions such as: Is there a breeze on the Moon? What Happened to the Stars? Keeping it simple, Greg states that it is only fair to be equally critical to both sides of the argument, and “like most conspiracy theorists, proponents of the hoax theory use lots of faulty evidence and misleading pseudo-science.” World History Blog...
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...Tabitha nobles11-19-11 Question #1 One limitation of preoperational thinking is egocentric thinking. This refers to a child’s inability to take another persons perspective or viewpoint on a situation. To a young child they do think that everyone must think about things just the way they do. They do not understand that other peoples perspectives might be different from their own. An example of this would be to put three objects on a table and have the child stand in front of the table and an adult on the backside of the table. So now you have a short person (child) and a tall person (adult) looking at the same three objects but from different viewpoints. You then ask the child to describe what he sees, and they will say exactly what they are seeing in front of them. You would then ask the child what does he think the adult is seeing and to describe it. The child will describe the same view of what he is seeing from where he is standing, their own perspective of the scene. This is because the child does not yet understand the logical necessity that someone looking at something they are from different place will have a different view. A second limitation of preoperational thinking is animistic thinking. This is when a child believes that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities. That objects have feelings and emotions. For example, when the sun is shinning this means the sun is happy. Or if the sun went down this is because the sun is tired. They also believe things in a...
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...many philosophers in the East and in the West including the Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that earth is the centre of this universe. It was left to Galileo, a prominent mathematician of Padua University to announce his discovery on January 17, 1610 that the Earth is a planet just like other planets revolving round the Sun, which is a star. It was also established that the sun due to its gravitational pull attracts all these planets which revolve round it. Apart from the Earth there are some other planets which go round the sun. These planets, however, vary in size and also in their distance from the sun. They have their own orbits, and the period of rotation also varies in each case. Some of these planets have satellites called moons, varying in number. Some do not have any satellites. Normally, if they do not have a counter pull, they should have been dragged into the sun by the gravitational pull. These gravitation pulls of the sun and the counter pulls of the planets are called centrifugal forces. The planets revolve round the sun in their own specific orbits. These planets could be arranged in an order based on their distance from the sun. The nearest to the sun is Mercury and the next is Venus. Third comes the Earth. Later in the same order come Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Pluto is the most distant planet. If the are arranged in the order of size, the order would be ; 1. Jupiter, 2. Saturn, 3. Neptune, 4.Uranus, 5. Earth, 6. Venus,...
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...Merissa Hardaway Professor: Ms. Lawless English 1510 18 June 2012 Love Spell M’sieur Alce’e couldn’t bear the pain of leaving Calixta. His thoughts became scrambled. Alce’e would stop at nothing to see her again. Suddenly he was enraged. He wondered how to get Calixta away from her family. He wanted to be with her forever. Alce’e knew in spite of everything Calixta was a devoted wife. Nevertheless in that moment of passion Alce’e knew he had a place in her heart. Suddenly Alce’e remembered an old woman near the country side. This woman was a magic maker. The woman was known for her mysterious magic. Nevertheless no one knew the mysterious woman’s name. She was known for her spells and premonitions. The nameless woman was like a fortune teller that knew many things. She lived deep in the French countryside. This was the only person that could bring Calixta to him. Alce’e decided to find the nameless woman. Alce’e reached the countryside and embraced the smell of fresh grass. The woman’s house appeared in the rear of the secluded countryside. He entered and seen some of the most extraordinary things. There were books on shelves form the ceiling to the floor. He even saw glasses and jars full of mysterious potions. The woman even had a curious looking black cat. The house was set up like a store yet a home. The woman came out of a room with a beaded entrance. She spoke in a rhapsody voice and said, “What’s your pleasure”. Alce’e told the woman his...
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...Josh Watson Lesley Watson GS 1140 Mr. Griffin 10/11/2013 Project status report After numerous hours of research on the colonization of the planet Mars we have collected five real life hurdles that could be a threat to sustaining life on a planet other than earth. This group only contains two people. I Josh Watson, and my wife Lesley Watson. We have both teamed up and have done separate research on this topic and combined our information together to compare and contrast. The first major issue would be Terra forming. Terra forming literally means “Earth Shaping”. To colonize Mars we would need to terra form Mars into a planet comparable to earth. Yes Mars has an atmosphere with winds, clouds, seasons and days that are 24 hours long, but Mars has no magnetic field, thus resulting in lethal doses of radiation to humans. There has been evidence that suggests that the remains of polar ice caps have a magnetic field and are safe from radiation. If nothing else works then we would be limited to those areas. It might be possible to turn the Carbon Dioxide rich air into oxygen just like plants and trees do on earth but there would still be major issues with the planet not having a shield for protection. The cost of a trip to planet Mars is another hurdle that gets in our way. NASA has the ability to build a vehicle to take astronauts to Mars, but due to Barrack Obama’s decision to cut the Constellation program in 2010 it appears that any trips...
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