Universe: The Solar System and Beyond

My Ebook Publishing House

• Publisher: My Ebook Publishing House
• eBook ISBN: 9781301246564
• Topic: Sciences physiques
• Subtopic: Science de l'espace

Experience the cosmos as never before with UNIVERSE: The Solar System and Beyond
Beginning with a fascinating overview and then organized by planet, this book takes us on a trip across time and space that includes a front-row seat to the explosive birth of the solar system, a journey to (and then deep inside) each of its eight planets, and even an in-depth exploration of asteroids and comets.
With this newly revised edition, the authors' goals are to help you use astronomy to understand science--and use science to understand what we are. Fascinating, engaging, and visually vibrant, this text will help you answer two fundamental questions: What are we? And how do we know?
Three ever widening domains are presented—Earth, our solar system, and the large scale universe itself--each including the ones before it and extending outward.

I. OUR PLANET

Today it is well known that the Earth is a corpus round as an orange. It is surrounded by a blanket of air which we call atmosphere. But a few thousand years ago the people thought that the Earth is flat like a plate, surrounded by waters and that above it is found a round crystal arch in which are implanted the stars, the sun and the moon. Where did this belief come from? The people, up until those times, were not going too far away from their homes. They were spending all their life on a small portion of land which seemed flat like a table. The sky seemed to unite with the Earth someplace, in a place they called the horizon. Later, people imagined that the Earth is surrounded by waters and that it supports on some poles.

According to some opinions from the Antiquity, the Earth was flat, surrounded by waters and supported by poles.

In the Bible is also described the making of the Earth, or the World, pretty much the same. Besides, with slight modifications, this description was found in many religious books. According to the Bible, God made the World according to his will. As we will see furthermore, listening to the voice of science, the universe is built entirely different: “the will of God” is not at all respected. Two thousand years ago were savants who told that the shape of the Earth is not as the religious writings described and that it is spherical (round as a globe).

At that time, in different parts of the world was taking life or developed the society based on exploitation, the society with slaves and slave masters. Along with that, the trade developed very much. But the trade was made often through voyages at great distances, during which the people could notice some facts that were telling them that the Earth is round. For example, they noticed that some stars that were visible, for example, in Egypt, were not visible in Greece or in lands situated further north.

This made the great Greek savant Aristotle, who lived about three hundred years previously to our era, to say the following: “Some stars, which are seen in Egypt or on Cyprus Island, are invisible in the northern lands. As a consequence, the Earth is not only round but pretty small, because otherwise, at a so insignificant difference of position, this phenomenon would not happen”. In the spherical shape of the globe can be seen clearly why a human situated closer to the north cannot see some stars that another human, situated closer to south, sees. The fact that the Earth is round was also understood by the humans from the fact that a ship that moves farther to shore does not disappear brusquely, but gradually: at first disappear its lower parts, and after the sails and the ends of the masts.

Finally, some savants affirmed that the Earth is like a sphere because the shadow of the Earth observed on the globe of the moon, during the moon eclipses, is round.

The explanation of forming the moon eclipses: a) the shadow of the earth on the lunar globe; b) the spherical corpuses throw a round shadow into space.

The most eloquent proof though, of the fact that the Earth is round (spherical), was brought by the journeys made in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In august 1492, Christopher Columbus started from Spain toward India on another route that the one known. At that time, it was traveled toward India in the direction east. Columbus though, being convinced that the Earth is round, started toward India in the direction sunset. After two months of journey, in which time he had to face many difficulties, he debarked on an island found nearby the continent America, unknown until then. Believing that he arrived to India, Columbus called the inhabitants of those lands Indians (the name remained up until today).

The sailor that later made the same route, Amerigo Vespuci, showed that the western lands are part of a new continent. The name of America that this continent gained comes precisely from the name of Amerigo Vespuci. Therefore, the result of the first travels based on the idea that the Earth is round was the discovery of a new continent, America. But the complete proof of the roundness of the Earth was still not made yet. The idea was not left aside though. Still, the people thought: if the Earth is round, it means that the people found on the opposite side of the Earth must walk with their legs upward!

In any point on the surface of the Earth globe, the humans (as well as any other corpus) are attracted by a force (the gravitational force of the Earth).

So they, which are staying below must fall. The people though are not falling and are not walking with their legs upward, because anywhere on the surface of the Earth acts a force, the attraction force of the Earth which keeps them as “connected” to the Earth anywhere they might be on its surface. Then, what we consider “down” or “up” has a meaning, a sense only connected to the place where we are.

The explanation of the fact that the corpuses (therefore the humans as well) are attracted to the Earth was given by a great English scientist Isaac Newton (1642-1727) based on the law of the universal attraction discovered by him. Without knowing this explanation and relying only on what they ac...

Table of contents

• I. OUR PLANET
• II. LET`S LEAVE EARTH
• The planets
• III. BEYOND THE SOLAR SYSTEM