Callia Novel Blog

CSA student report

Right now you are at the door to our universe, a vast expanse we call home. In a couple of seconds you will experience a rocket launch into space. Once through Earth’s atmosphere, we’ll guide you through a visual tour of space explaining the environment, and how our solar system works. We’ll start off with the basics, how a star or planet is created and how are stars, satellites, and planets different. Enjoy your journey through the stars!

Did you know Jupiter, the largest planet known, started as two tiny molecules? Every star and planet started that way too. When two molecules collide and start spinning, they begin to collect debris and material, using the gravitational pull they have (also known as centrifugal force). The objects gravitational pull gets stronger as it gets larger. At the centre of a star or planet the gravitational pull is strongest, which is why all stars and planets are spheres. But what defines a star from a planet if they’re made the same way? Good question! The difference is that a star creates light, and a planet reflects it. When a star is created there is an explosion that ignites the gas inside the star, making it produce light. There is no explosion when a planet is created. Also, planets revolve around stars and (another idea to introduce) satellites, also known as moons revolve around planets, and they also reflect the sun’s light. In the next paragraph you will learn much more on the impact the moon has on our planet, as well as an explanation for solar and lunar eclipses, and how the phases of the moon work!

Everything in space has its own gravitational pull, whether it’s ridiculously strong or really weak or in between, everything still has one, which means that our moon has a small gravitational pull on our planet, the result of it, is the tides (high tide and low tide). During low tide the moon pulls out on the water (from Earth) as far as possible, making the water pull back from the shore. High tide is when rotating Earth spins far enough away from the moon, the moon’s gravitational pull releases the water. (diagram of ocean shore at low and high tide at the bottom). Another way the moon impacts us is the seasons, a long time a go our moon was just another body/planet in space, when it got to close to Earth and got caught in the gravitational pull of it. It might have hit our planet and bounced off, then got caught. The collision between the two made the Earth tilt on a 23.45 degree axis, if it did not tilt we would not have seasons and on one side of Earth it would be constant heat and the other constant cold. Now enough about that, let’s talk about the phases of the moon! Every month the moon completes a full cycle, throughout the cycle there are eight main points, new moon, waning crescent, third quarter, waning gibbous, full, waxing gibbous, first quarter, waxing crescent. Out of those eight stages, there are four key stages . At the beginning of a month there is a new moon where the moon is in front of Earth, and our star is illuminating the front half of the moon and the back side, which is facing Earth, is dark so we can’t see the moon. A quarter moon is when the moon is beside Earth, and the sun is shining on the front half, from Earth it seems like one side if the moon is dark and one light, we can see the moon partially. A full moon is when our moon passes behind the Earth and the sun is illuminating the front half, from the perspective of Earth you can see all of the moon (diagram at bottom). Now that you have that down you can learn about solar and lunar eclipses. Have you ever seen the moon turn red? If you have, that’s actually a lunar eclipse. A lunar eclipse is when the moon passes behind Earth (full moon) and it orbits at an angle where no light from our star can reach the moon’s surface, the light reflects off Earth’s atmosphere and onto the moon, but only the weakest light, red, reaches the moon’s surface making it appear red. Solar eclipses are far less common then lunar eclipses. During a solar eclipse the moon comes directly between the Earth and our star, the moon then creates a shadow on one specific spot of the Earth, allowing no light on that spot. Because of the size of the moon, only a small portion of the Earth can observe the eclipse. From the distance we are from our star, the moon and the star appear to be the same size because the moon is one four-hundredths the size of our star, but also four hundred million kilometres away which creates the illusion that they are the same size, in the diagram at the bottom you can see a solar eclipse. I hope you’ve learned something new about the moon! In the next paragraph you’ll learn about the layout of the solar system, and centrifugal force.

The most interesting thing about the solar system is that you can see little patterns when you look at where things are placed, most of the large objects in our solar system are there for a reason. The reason is centrifugal force, centrifugal force is something that pulls things toward the centre, using a rotating motion. In the centre of our solar system are the lightest molecules, hydrogen and nitrogen (sun is in centre, made of those materials). A little farther out from the star are the heavy rock planets (listed in order from closest to sun), Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars. Rocks and minerals are too heavy for the spinning core, so they get pushed out, but since they are heavy they easily get caught in the gravitational pull close to the star. After the rock planets there is an asteroid belt made of leftover rocks and minerals, next there is an orbital path. In between the orbital path and the next asteroid belt are two gas planets, Jupiter then Saturn. Did you know Jupiter is the largest planet because its’ gravitational pull is stronger than the star (sun) at this distance? Anyways the planet after the last asteroid belt is Uranus then Neptune, and finally there are two isolated planets called Pluto and Sedna, they are both dwarf planets that are quite far away from the other planets. Gas planets exist because the gravitational pull is too weak to pull them to the star. The diagram at the bottom shows the solar system (Pluto and Sedna are not included in this diagram because they are not officially planets).The gravitational pull is weaker the farther the object is away from the centre. Well, that’s all for now- uh, oh we’re landing in thirty seconds! I’d better wrap up and finish the tour.

It was a pleasure to guide you through space! I hope you learned some useful new things about the solar system during this tour and that it encourages you to take another journey through the stars to explore the wonders of space on your own!