Let's Learn Something Cool - The Solar System (The Trolls Are Back!)
Hello steemians and welcome to my blog once again! The title might be too cliché, I know, but my trolls came back from the moon so excited last month, that they decided to leave the Earth again to explore the rest of our solar system. So, before their new journey begins, I thought I should give you some of the basics just to get you in the right...atmosphere! :P
Image by @ruth-girl
Follow the pictures for a more "digestible" approach:
Any star can form a star system with all the objects that are gravitationally bound to orb around it. Planets, moons, asteroids, meteoroids and comets, they all revolve around the star in the center. There can also be solar systems with two (binary) or even more stars (multi-star). [source]
Galaxies are huge bodies that assimilate solar systems. They are categorized according to their shapes as lenticular, elliptical and spiral. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is a spiral one. [source] Our solar system is located in the Orion Arm, 26,000 light years away from the center of the Milky Way galaxy. [source]
At a rough guess our solar system is about 4.6 billion years old.
Interesting fact: When the primary cloud began to cool down formed masses rich in calcium and aluminum. This hypothesis was recently confirmed, 40 years after the first meteorite rich in the above elements was studied (in 1969). [source]
Gravitational forces within the dust and gas cloud made it spin around too fast until it finally collapsed under its own gravity. Our Sun took most (99%) of the matter and formed in the center. The rest of the planets and other orbiting objects were formed from the material left, with the greatest amount taken by Jupiter and Saturn.
The four smaller inner planets are mostly rocky and metallic in their essence (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars), whereas the next two (Jupiter and Saturn) are gas giants made of hydrogen and helium. The last two (Uranus and Neptune) are ice giants composed of water, ammonia and methane. [source]
In case you want to check it out again, here's a past post of mine on how stars are born.
Our solar system comprises of eight planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune). Five dwarf planets (Eris, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Ceres) [source]. Lots of moons, comets and asteroids.
Let's take a look at what all these names mean:
Planet according to the International Astronomical Union is an object that:
orbits the sun, has sufficient mass to be round (or nearly round), is not a satellite (moon) of another object and has removed debris and small objects from the area around its orbit [source]
Dwarf planet is a planet that hasn't got rid of the debris and small objects around its orbiting area. [source]
Moon is any natural satellite orbiting around a planet, dwarf planet or other celestial body. [source]
Comets are huge lumps of frozen gases, rock and dust. [source]
Asteroids are rocks too small to be considered as planets and orbit the sun. [source]
There are three more zones in our solar system. The first one is the asteroid belt, it lies between Mars and Jupiter. There you will find objects made of rock and metal (like Guns and Roses, HIM, Metallica and Pantera). [source] The Kuiper belt lies beyond Neptune and it's where dwarf planet Pluto lives. It's a freezing cold place where frozen objects live. And further than the Kuiper belt you will find the Oort cloud, the probable source of comets. The Oort cloud is a place where frozen cosmic debris lies and the limit of the sun's gravitational field. [source]
The heliosphere is kind of a solar bubble-like shield created by the sun's emitting plasma, the solar wind. It does not have the shape of a perfect sphere and extends for about 80-100 astronomical units (where 1 AU equals 150 million kilometers). The limit where the solar wind is pressed by interstellar gases and suddenly stops is called the termination shock. [source]
Well, after all that do you feel ready to follow my trolls on a tour of the eight planets and other wonders of our solar system? I can't wait to see which planet they're visiting first and what new things they're going to teach us!
(Original meme image from: pixabay.com)
Thank you for being here and reading this. If you like my writing, you can visit my blog for more ;)
This week's posts:
* TIL - World Trade Center 7
* Short Story - Where Do People Go When They Die
* A Taste Of Sweden (Part 3 - Stockholm Aquaria)
* Bizarre Natural Phenomena Vol.33 - Barbie's Lake (Australian Lake Hillier)
* Atopic Dermatitis - The Bummer!
Special thanks and mentions:
Until my next post,
Steem on and keep smiling, people!
"At a rough guess our solar system is about 4.6 billion years old. "
I'd hate to have to be the one to blow out the candles at the birthday parties. 4.6 billion of them! geez!
So, let me get this straight. Was our whole Milky Way galaxy this "primary cloud" which began to cool down, or just our solar system part of it?
And all those other galaxies. Were they part of this "primary cloud" too?
Before the Big Bang, was it so quiet that you could hear a pin drop?
Are your trolls trolling us?
I just wanted to comment on this question of yours. Theoretically, the big bang is the moment in the universe's history where time started to be defined. Therefore, there is no "before the big bang" moment and your question cannot be answered :)
What good is a question that can't be answered?
I know!
"A man's grasp must exceed his reach
Or what's a Heaven for?"
Okay, you got one point here. :p
Please let me try to reformulate: 'In the context of Standard Cosmology, your question cannot be answered as it goes beyond the domain of application of this theory'.
Is it better? :)
But, but, but, my question wasn't formulated from the standpoint of, wait for it, dum tada dum........"Standard Cosmology".
It's more the sort of thing that goes through what's left of my mind when I'm assisting the Heyoka at a Sundance.
Woah! Lots of questions!
Let's sort it out with a story:
Once upon a time there was total darkness and silence until one bored child decided to light a match and then BOOM! Helium and hydrogen gas scattered and formed big clouds! The little child was so excited to see how the clouds then either started to form stars which gathered and made the protogalaxies or the protogalaxies were formed first and within them smaller clouds gave birth to stars (we don't know that yet).
The stars in those protogalactic masses were soon put out and the little child got disappointed. But the disappointment did not last long. Soon new stars started popping from the countless clouds like fireworks on a New Year's night and galaxies were made.
Those galaxies kept travelling around the universe, meeting one another, sometimes merging to form bigger clusters of star neighborhoods. The little child is still out there, watching this colorful and noisy experiment go on and on and on until...no one knows!
How does that sound?
Have you ever heard the phrase: "It's turtles all the way down."?
If not, ask me about it some time.
Nope, never heard of it, what does it mean? :)
The natives of North America call the continent "Turtle Island"
A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"
"Turtles all the way down" is a jocular expression of the infinite regress problem in cosmology posed by the "unmoved mover" paradox. The metaphor in the anecdote represents a popular notion of the model that Earth is actually flat and is supported on the back of a World Turtle, which itself is propped up by a chain of larger and larger turtles. Questioning what the final turtle might be standing on, the anecdote humorously concludes that it is "turtles all the way down".
The expression is an illustration of the concept of Anavastha in Indian philosophy, and refers to the defect of infinite regress in any philosophical argument. Contrary to most extant western references, it is not a popular Hindu belief." Wikipedia
Thank you for that!
It reminded me of Atlas, who was punished to hold the skies. Could turtles derive from Atlas?
turtles - turtlas - tartlas - atlas? :P
Jokes aside, myths are fascinating and human imagination can create amazing stories. It's funny though how some ideas remain the same within different cultures.
Logic and (modern western) science take place in the conscious mind. The subconscious is much more powerful and makes little or no use of logic at all! It's language is that of myth and dreams.
And there are theories of a deeper still "collective" consciousness which might explain the recurrence of mythological themes throughout history and across geological barriers.
Oooh, no mention to planet X? Maybe will this be the topic of your next post?
Hey! Don't spoil the surprises in this series :P
First the really basics, then the rest ;)
This may be a real basics... soon :)
Hehe! I have already come up with something about it! You'll see ;)
Am staying tuned ^^
Love your trolls leading us through the solar system information. What a fun way to learn!
Thank you so much!
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This is a very useful information. Thanks I have learned a great deal here
Thanks for reading!
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bitcoin was made to end the world. think about it, when all our money is is digital all they have to do is shut the internet down and everyone will die because no money for food or water no grocery stores, and the few that survive will get killed off by drones
That sounds like a really really cool scenario for a fiction (?) story!
I think if that happens in real life, I'll be from the lucky ones that live in the countryside and still have a piece of land to grow their food