EINSTEIN TO NEWTON. FROM PTOLEMY TO NICHOLAS COPERNICUS, the connection between them is the same: lovers of astronomy. I imagine as boys, they would sit on their porches in the middle of the night and look up at the stars and plants and wonder who formed them. The stars are probably the most fascinating subjects imaginable. Imagine, heavenly bodies moving mysteriously, seemingly by their own minds. Or according to Newton, they are governed by another more mysterious force that he just happened to call, Gravity. Or maybe it’s like the General Theory of Relativity like Einstein suggested and it’s due to the mass of planets causing a dip in Space-time. Or maybe it’s none of those and we have no clue what we’re talking about. Maybe we have no idea what governs creation. I hope to give you a clue in this section of the blog.
The science of astrophysics is very interesting.
The subject of astrophysics covers:
• The gravitational pull of the sun on the planets
• The gravitational pull of the planets on the sun
• The velocity of the planets, the velocity of the moons, etc...
These subjects will be covered in this eBook along with videos
and animations that will make this book fun and
interactive. You will also retain a lot if information
about our solar system through this easy to use platform.
Before we go on to Astrophysics I simply want to start out by
telling you the different planets of the solar system
in order as seen in the solar system and give you a brief
description of them.
A small debate on the "Evolution" or "Creation" of the universe:
There is a debate in the scientific community on whether or not the universe and all the inhabitants, stars, planets, etc… were really created or not. Charles Darwin was not the first to have the idea that billions of years ago, gravity wanted to create the universe, thus it was created. Many scientists were before him that had the same ideas as he. Somehow, scientists think you have to debate in order to discuss science but that simply is not the case. Whether you believe a supreme God created the universe or that it evolved over billions of years, the solar system and universe is fascinating no matter what or who created it. I just want to say that I lean heavily toward the creation part of the story. But there are truths to both sides. I side that God created the earth in six days, but I DO NOT side with the fact that there is a young earth. But to learn why get the book entitled the missing link by Reverend B.R. Hicks. If anything, it sheds some light upon the views of many Christians today.
I briefly wanted to mention this because I will be mentioning God and Creation and I do lean heavily on the side of creation. I will try to mention it as little as I can for the sake of those who are bias. Let me get out my problems with evolution and maybe you can comment on them. Here goes:
- It just so happens that the sun is the right size and sheds enough light to sustain earth.
- It just so happens that the earth is the right distance from the sun.
- It just so happens that the earth has the right thickness in the atmosphere
- It just so happens that there is enough water to sustain human life
- It just so happens that the moon was created.
- It just so happens that the mars-sized “World” collided with the earth to from the debris that would billions of years later would be the moon.
- And it just so happens that the debris would have its own orbit around the earth
- It just so happens that the debris would collect together to form the moon.
- It just so happens that the moon is the right distance from the sun.
- It just so happens that Mercury has a peculiar orbit.
I just named ten just so happens. I want answers by the way. My theory of creation explains all of those. The hand of God caused the earth to be the right distance from the sun. God formed the atmosphere. It was God who supplied water. It was God who created humans. It was God who created the moon. It was God who gave Mercury its peculiar orbit. Why? I don’t know. I’m not God unfortunately.
The sun
The sun isn’t actually a plant, it’s actually a star. It’s actually one of the
smallest stars in the universe. There are many other stars out there much, much
bigger than our star. 
The sun as seen in the figure, is a quite good picture depicting the plasma eruptions from the sun.
You might think that the sun is erupting fire, but really that’s a conversion between
hydrogen to helium (yea the stuff that fills those balloons). The sun burns hydrogen
and converts it into helium. This causes it to emit light and heat. Guess how much
hydrogen the sun converts? 8,000 tons (16,000 pounds) of hydrogen into helium. Is
that every year? No. Every month? No. Every week? No. Every day? No. The sun converts
16,000 pounds of helium into hydrogen every SECOND. If you add that up that’s:
464,486,400,000 pounds of helium per year. In my life time the sun has burned up:
6,502,809,600,000 pounds of helium in fourteen years! That’s a lot of helium.
Hydrogen makes up 75% if the universe. Naturally. It gives us light! I’m sorry
but I don’t see how evolution could “Come up” with something as large as this.
That’s ~500,000,000 pounds of hydrogen burned per year!! Of course the temperature
is outrageous at 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. That is really hot! This is a very
simple depiction at first because I really want to get started on the physics part
of astronomy. But I have to give you a brief overview first. You don’t have to
memorize these things, but all I ask is that you study them and at least memorize
the planets. The table below gives you some facts about the sun:
| Distance from the earth: | 93 million miles |
|---|---|
| Equatorial diameter: | 876,400 miles. |
| Mass: | 332,900 times bigger than the earth |
| Gravity: | 28 times bigger than the earth |
Mercury
Now we will actually begin discussing the actual planets. The first planet nearest the sun is Mercury. Mercury is 36,000,000 miles from the sun and still it’s blazing hot! At 883° F. Even though it’s the closest to the sun, it’s not as hot as Venus (the next planet down). The atmosphere of Mercury is made up of gasses which cannot support life which is why the earth is so original. Mercury is 29% Sodium (a highly flammable metal), 22% hydrogen (a gas), 6% Helium (what you fill balloons up with), and 46% other gasses. Huge craters fill the planes of Mercury.
Mercury during the day is scorched by the sun again at temperatures of 883 degrees F.
But turn to the night and Mercury can reach temps of below -297 degrees F.
That’s really cold. Why? This is because there is hardly any gasses in Mercury’s
atmosphere. That means that when the heat goes to the planet, it doesn’t retain
the heat it takes. So it takes…but gives back. Also Mercury has a peculiar orbit.
Its orbit makes it come close to the sun, but at the opposite, far away from the
sun. So the orbit is more like an ellipse. This causes it to come close to the sun
at one time and far away from the sun at another time.
The table below gives some more information:
| Distance from the sun: | 36,000,000 |
|---|---|
| Solar orbit: | 88 days |
| Equatorial diameter: | 3,032 miles |
| Orbital speed: | 29.75 miles per hour |
| How many rotations? | 4 (per earth year) |