Fall SAVY 2017, Day 1 – Journey into the Universe: Astronomy 101 (3rd/4th)
Today in Planetary Astronomy we set the stage for our future studies!
First, we did logistics like introductions and determining classroom guidelines. Then we got into looking at the planets of our Solar System and putting them into categories. When astronomers think about planets in general, usually they’re thought of as “rocky” or “giant” – today we talked about how one can also split the giant category into “gas giants” and “ice giants.” When talking about the Solar System, one cannot forget the most numerous category – the small stuff! Asteroids, comets, moons and how some of them can be “dwarf planets” as well as being a small body.
Next week we’ll be talking about how planetary systems form as well as looking at the numbers that scientists use.
One of the fun things you could do this week is look at how the sizes of things in the Universe compare to each other (I rather like this somewhat older YouTube videos: Star Size Comparison HD, and also this one: Planets, Stars, Nebulae, Galaxies – Universe Size Comparison [HD]).
See you Saturday!
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