Our Place in the Universe

Order in Terms of Size Telescope Moon Saturn Sun Star Cluster Milky Way Galaxy Hubble Galaxies

Order in Terms of Distance from Earth Telescope (350 miles above) Moon (250 thousand miles) Sun (93 million miles) Saturn (790 million miles) Star Cluster (2400 Trillian miles) Milky Way Galaxy Hubble Galaxies

Order in Terms of Age Telescope Star Clusters (80 million years) Moon (4.5 billion years) Saturn (4.5 billion years) Sun (4.5 billion years) Milky Way Galaxy (10 billion years) Hubble Galaxies (10 + billion years)

How do we fit in? Let’s start small

How do we fit in? Yorkville Middle School Yorkville Kendall County Illinois Midwest United States North America Earth

How do we fit in? Now think larger – Earth – Solar System – Milky Way Galaxy – Universe

How big is our solar system? Earth to the Sun – 93 million miles Sun to Pluto – 3.67 BILLION miles – The radius Diameter of the entire solar system – 7.33 BILLION miles

How close is the nearest star to us? 4.3 Light years away

Milky Way Galaxy Spiral Galaxy Center with 2 major arms – We are part of “Orion’s Arm” 100,000 Light Years Across – Light Year = Distance light travels in one year= 5.88 Trillion Miles – How fast does light move? 300 million meters per second

Our Universe Contains multiple galaxies – Nearest galaxy is Andromeda 2.5 million Light Years away 14 Billion Light Years Across Contains stars, planets, moons, galaxies, black holes, comets, asteroids, meteors

COSMOS CLIP!

History of the Universe JANUARYFEBRUARYMARCHAPRIL Big Bang – Jan 1 st 1 st Stars – Jan 10 th 1 st Galaxy – Jan 13 th Origin of the Milky Way Galaxy – March 15 th MAYJUNEJULYAUGUST Sun is Born – Aug 31 st SEPTEMBEROCTOBERNOVEMBERDECEMBER Formation of the Solar System Formation of Earth Life Began – Sept 21 st Life was breathing and responding – Nov 9 th Life became more diverse – Dec 17 th Insects, dinosaurs, birds, flowers – Last week of Dec Humans Evolved – Last Hour Dec 31 st All of recorded history – Last 14 Seconds

What holds it all together? Gravity – A force that pulls two objects together – Holds the planets in orbit around the sun – Holds the moon in orbit around Earth – Keeps you on the ground – Causes objects to fall

Why is our Earth perfectly round? Objects larger than 1,000 km have enough gravity to pull themselves into a sphere All of the mass pulls on the other mass and makes a sphere All planets are a sphere for this reason Larger asteroids are sphere for this reason Smaller asteroids are randomly shaped because they don’t have enough gravity

In short…Our solar system