1. The earth location is the Milky Way, which is one of (estimated) 100 billion galaxies in the universe (as seen by The Hubble Telescope) . The number of galaxies are set to be increased as technology improves. Other names of galaxies are called Whirlpool Galaxy, Sombrero Galaxy, Black Eye Galaxy and many many more. Most of the galaxies are named after the location they are in. For example, the Andromeda Galaxy is also called Messier 31 as it is the 31st object on the Messier list. But what exactly is a galaxy? A galaxy is a large area in space that consists of millions or even billions of stars. A galaxy also holds dust and gas. All of these objects are held together by a gravitational force.
2. Pluto was discovered by American astronomer, Clyde William Tombaugh (1906- 1997). He discovered the (back then) planet in the 1930s which was then classified as a dwarf planet in 2006. It was classified as a dwarf planet because the planet is placed on the Kuiper Belt. Unlike the other planets’ belts, the Kuiper is slightly tipped and looks diagonal when drawn with the other planets. The difference between a normal planet and a dwarf planet is that a dwarf planet still has moons and space junk around it that is about the same size as each other.
3. When Galileo first looked up at the stars in 1610, a discovery was made that changed the universe. Lots of telescopes were made after that, each one expanding in size each time. In the year 1889, Edwin Hubble was born. He was an astronomer who played an important role in extragalactic astronomy and helped discover the Big Bang Theory. So when NASA launched a telescope on the 24th of April, 1990, they named it after Edwin Hubble. The Hubble telescope has has 1.3 million observations since its launch. With these observations, NASA has published over 150,000 scientific papers with the results. The telescope is the 13.3 meters long. NASA has said that this telescope has been the most significant advance since Galileos’ first discovery of stars.
4. Nicklaus Copernicus was an astronomer, mathematician and scientist that helped shape earth in 1473 to the year 1543. Copernicus created the theory of the sun being the center of the universe, rather than Earth. In 1508, he began creating his model that showed the sun being the center of the solar system. Copernicus determined that Earth rotates daily as well. However he did not reveal his theory as Copernicus did not have the tools to prove it. If it was reveled he would of been punished by the church, who performed cruel punishments to anyone who disagreed with them. It wasn’t until the 17th century, when Galileo had enough knowledge of physics to prove Copernicus theory’s correct.
5. When the sun formed billions of years ago, it was filled with the element, hydrogen. In the 4.6 billion years the sun has existed, the sun has used up about half of the hydrogen. Scientists believe that the sun will use up all its hydrogen in about 5 billion years time. So as of now, we have nothing to worry about. However once the sun uses up all its hydrogen, the galaxy will go through a Nuclear fusion process turning all the hydrogen into helium until heavier elements run out of fuel as well.
6. The Doppler Effect is created by the frequency of sound waves. The Doppler Effect is able to measure speed of stars and galaxies approaching us via sound waves. The sound waves simply have a higher frequency if the source is moving toward the observer and the sound waves have a lower frequency if the source is moving away from the observer. The Doppler Effect was invented by Christian Doppler. In the year 1842.
7. RedShift is very similar to the Doppler Effect, instead of sound waves and pitch tracking the movement of the object. RedShift notices the shift by colour and light.
Lets learn more about RedShift though. It was invented by Edwin Hubble and is seen in Hubble’s Law. Redshift was discovered by Vesto Slipher in 1912. It is used a lot by astronomers today. As shown in Hubble’s Law, Hubble constant is estimated by measuring the redshifts that are spotted in different galaxies. Spotting the Redshift in different galaxies determines how far the Milky Way (our galaxy) is from other galaxies.
8. Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) or also known as Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) is an electromagnetic radiation of aftermath the Big Bang. The Cosmic Microwave Background began saturating our universe around 380,000 years of the Big Bang taking place. This makes it the oldest of its kind. Who discovered this exactly?
9. The Cosmic Microwave Background was discovered by radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. Surprisingly these men discovered the Cosmic Microwave Background entirely by accident. On May 20th, 1964, Penzias and Wilson noticed an odd buzzing sound coming from all around the sky. The two astronomers were puzzled by the noise and removed everything from the area (including pigeons on the antenna) to see if any of there equipment was creating the odd noise. Discovering the Cosmic Microwave Background confirmed the Big Bang Theory and lead Penzias and Wilson to receive a Nobel Peace Prize in 1978 for Physics.
10. Space travel will never stop. In 4.6 billion years of this universe we have discovered close to nothing when thinking about how big this universe is. It is very impressive of the space missions humans have gone on so far and now we will be able to discover more with the help of NASA. NASA has announced missions like: Insight Mars. Insight Mars is set to study the planets interior design. Insight Mars is not the only machine studying mars though. Mars 2020 rover is going to look for signs of past microbial life, gathers samples of the planet for us to study and investigate resources to help astronauts to land on Mars. The Parker Solar Probe is set to be closest object to reach the sun. NASA’s first asteroid (OSIRIS- REx) is set to come back to earth. Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) with explore the planets and stars beyond the Milky Way. A mission to Jupiter moons is set to launch at some point in the 2020’s. Lastly, NASA is currently working on the most advance rocket ever made to send humans to Mars. With the help of thousands of astronomers, scientists and mathematicians. NASA will be able to create more missions discover everything about the universe. But we couldn’t of gone this far without the help of all astronomers, scientists and mathematicians throughout history.