Unit 1

Chapter 1: Science and the Universe: A Brief Tour

 Astronomy: The study of objects beyond Earth and the processes by which these
objects interact with one another
o About studying the universe, looking at the objects within the universe and how
they interact with each other, how they evolve and change over time
 Astronomy and the Scientific Method
o Scientific Method: a method to advance our scientific understanding of
something
 Theory -> Prediction -> Experiment -> Observation -> Theory
 Make an observation, make a theory of what happened and how it
happened, make a prediction, an educated guess, what should happen
based on your theory, then conduct an experiment, if the observation is
that it didn’t fit the theory, then revise the theory
 Can start anywhere in the circle, don’t have to start with an observation
but that is most likely
o Theory: an explanation for something
 Must be testable to see if what we are saying is right
 If you can’t test it or prove it is not useful
 Continually test theories, revise if needed
o In astronomy, experimenting is not always possible
 Astronomy is described as an observational science, we observe most of
these things, the experimental stage might not always happen
o Over time the observations and theories will get better and better
 We will be able to make a more solid theory as we see if the evidence fits
it
 Might end up with a Scientific Law: something we believe to be true
through many observations, hypotheses, and experiments
 Requires revision and better equipment over time
 Scientific laws get better over time
 We think scientific laws will also be true elsewhere
 Ex. Think gravity laws exist in other solar systems
 Important because we won’t be going there, so when making
conclusions about these places it is based on these scientific laws
 Know that these laws will apply equally to these distant places,
which is why they are Universal Laws, apply throughout the
universe
  SI Units
o Tell us what it is we are measuring
o Use SI Units in science which is the system international which has been
established and agreed upon by the world for the most part
o Allows everyone to understand it and compare
o Kilogram is the SI unit for weight
o In astronomy the numbers are huge
 Scientific Notation
o Representing numbers in a condensed form
o Ex. 4,570,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 = 4.57 x 1024
o Means multiply 4.57 by 1 with 24 zeros to get the big number back
o The power to 24 tells us how many decimal places we moved over to the left
o If it’s a positive exponent its to the left
o We should only one digit before the decimal
o Can also use it to represent very small numbers
o If moving the decimal to the right, the exponent will be a negative number
o Ex. 0.000,000,000,000,78 = 7.8 x 10-13
 Distance
o AU = astronomical unit
 The distance between the Earth and the Sun
 Approximately 150 million km
o Light Year
 A distance, not a time
 How far light would travel in one year
 In one second light would travel around earth 7 times
 A light year is approximately 9.46 Trillion Kilometers
o Astronomy is a glimpse in to the past
 When we are observing these distant objects we are looking at them as
they were in the past
 Ex. We see the sun as it was 8 minutes ago
 We are seeing an older version of our sun
 The next closest star is 4 years ago
 Some of the stars we see could no longer exist
 By looking at different distances from us we can see the universe at
different stages