Easy Astronomy Blog

Tag: stars

Definition of Astronomy

by Patrick on Sep.26, 2009, under Astronomy

What exactly is the definition of astronomy?

Astronomy can be defined like this :

The scientific study of the universe and the objects in it, including stars, planets, nebulae, and galaxies. Astronomy deals with the position, size, motion, composition, energy, and evolution of celestial objects. Astronomers analyze not only visible light but also radio waves, x-rays, and other ranges of radiation that come from sources outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

So basically, astronomy is the study of everything that is in outer space including stars, planets, constellations, comets, the solar system, etc. It is a fascinating science that more and more people are constantly interested in. These people are called astronomers. They observe outer space with tools like cameras, binoculars and telescopes.

If astronomy interests you and you don’t have much equipment to observe the night sky, you might be interested in taking a look at my Orion Skyquest XT8 telescope review.

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Astronomy fun facts

by Patrick on Dec.27, 2008, under Astronomy

Astronomy is a fun science filled with many astronomy fun facts. Information such as though a planet’s orbit other stars, were the way galaxies are made up, is included. Bees facts can be entertaining and enlightening.

Astronomy fun facts about our own star, the sun, are almost endless. It’s somewhere between 91 and 94.5 million miles away from our home planet. Scientists are not lazy. The Earth’s orbit isn’t circular. The distance varies depending on where the Earth lies in that orbit.

Astronomy fun facts about our average sized sun’s size. It’s contains 98% of all the stuff in the solar system, even though it’s not large for a star. That means the earth, even with massive Jupiter on our side, is only 2%. Over 1.6 million earths would fit inside this star. The sun blows its solar wind out to 50 times the distance between the star and our earth.

What about astronomy fun facts that don’t have to do with the sun? Isn’t the moon interesting? It’s the only non-Earth object upon which man has walked. And one human man actually traveled to the moon but never left it. Dr. Eugene Shoemaker didn’t make the cut for astronauts. But when he died he was cremated and his ashes spread over the moon in 1999.

The moon abounds with more astronomy fun facts. In a famous nursery rhyme a cow jumped over the moon. Believe it or not, as of 1988, 13% of people still believed the moon is made of green cheese. And finally the suits worn by the moon walking astronauts weighed 180 pounds on Earth but only 30 pounds on the moon. That is a big difference.

There are astronomy fun facts about faraway objects too. Stars bring the past to life. It can take millions of years foe light from some stars to reach us. Some of those stars you see may really be images of stars a million years old that aren’t even there in the present. The number of stars in the sky is a one followed by 22 zeros. Oh boy that’s a lot.

There are even more astronomy fun facts. But this article has to end. So get out there and learn about astronomy.

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