Carson - Beyond the solar system: exploring galaxies, black holes, alien planets, and more: a history with 21 activities

Copyright 2013 by Mary Kay Carson
All rights reserved
Published by Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
814 North Franklin Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610

eISBN 978-1-61374-547-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Carson, Mary Kay.

Beyond the solar system : exploring galaxies, black holes, alien planets, and more : a history with 21 activities / Mary Kay Carson.

p. cm.

Audience: 4-6.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-61374-544-1 (trade paper)

1. AstronomyHistoryJuvenile literature. I. Title.

QB15.C37 2013

520.9dc23

2012046330

Cover design: Sarah Olson

Front cover photos: Top left, artists rendering of exoplanet UCF-1.01, NASA/JPL-Caltech; James Webb Space Telescope mirrors, NASA/MSFC/David Higginbotham; Chandra X-ray Observatory, Wizard Nebula, Hubble Space Telescope, artists rendering of Cygnus X-1, all courtesy of NASA/CXC/M. Weiss; Very Large Array courtesy of Tom Uhlman Photography.

Back cover photos: Edwin Hubble, courtesy of Carnegie Observatories; particle accelerator, CERN, photo by M. Brice; artists rendering of exoplanet HD 189733b courtesy of ESA - C. Carreau; planet illustrations courtesy of NASA/CXC/M. Weiss.

Interior design: Sarah Olson

Printed in the United States of America

5 4 3 2 1

Prehistory	Humans believe that a deity or deities created their flat world covered with a dome-like sky. They mark the passage of time with lunar phases and observe visible planets with the naked eye
Ancient Times	Chinese, Babylonians, Greeks, and Egyptians record their observations of the night sky
	BC Hipparchus creates an accurate map of the 1,000 or so brightest stars
AD	Ptolemy publishes The Almagest
	Ptolemy states that Earth is the center of the cosmos
	Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi publishes his Book of Fixed Stars
1543	Nicolaus Copernicus states that the Sun is the center of the solar system
1572	After observing an exploding star, Tycho Brahe writes that changes occur in the heavens
1608	Hans Lippershey invents the refracting telescope
1609 Galileo Galilei	builds the first astronomical telescope and begins observations
1610	Galileo Galilei observes the phases of Venus, confirming a sun-centered cosmos
1668 Isaac Newton	builds the first reflecting telescope
1687	Isaac Newton publishes his theory of universal gravitation
1705	Edmond Halley correctly predicts the return of a comet, which reappears 53 years later
1781	William Herschel discovers Uranus, doubling the size of the solar system
1790	William Herschel discovers planetary nebulas
1860	William Huggins begins the spectral analysis of stars
1905 Albert Einstein	publishes his theory of special relativity
1912	Henrietta Leavitt discovers a method of measuring distances of galaxies using Cepheids
1913	Ejnar Hertzsprung and Henry Russell discover the relationship between stars color and brightness
1915	Albert Einstein publishes his theory of general relativity
1919	Sir Arthur Eddington confirms Einsteins theory of general relativity by photographing a solar eclipse
1923	Edwin Hubble proves that there are other galaxies outside the Milky Way
1926	Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, paving the way for space exploration
1927	Robert Atkinson and Fritz Houtermans determine that stars are fueled by nuclear fusion
1929 Edwin Hubble	discovers that the universe is expanding
1931	Georges Lematre suggests the universe began in a huge explosion, the Big Bang
1932	Karl Jansky discovers cosmic radiowaves
1933	Fritz Zwicky discovers evidence of dark matter
1957	Worlds first satellite, Sputnik 1, orbits Earth
1963	Maarten Schmidt discovers quasars
1965	Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discover cosmic microwave background from the Big Bang
1967	Jocelyn Bell discovers pulsars
1969	Donald Lynden-Bell discovers that there are supermassive black holes in the center of every galaxy
1986 Margaret Geller	and John Huchra discover the structure in the universe
1990	Hubble Space Telescope launches
1991	Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory launches
1995	Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz discover the first exoplanet, 51 Pegasi B
1998	Teams of scientists determine that the universes expansion is accelerating, possibly due to dark energy
1999	Chandra X-ray Observatory launches
2003	Spitzer Space Telescope launches
2009	Planet-finding space telescope Kepler launches

T he next time you look up at the 3,000 or so stars visible in the night sky, put yourself in the place of a prehistoric person. Looking up at all those little lights in the darkness, imagine what you think they are. Tiny, faraway campfires that never burn out? Flying creatures carrying torches? What does what you think about the stars say about youyour beliefs, how the world works, and what controls it?