Astronomy History: 400 years ago

Yesterday, August 25, marks the 400th years from the time that an Italian mateghematician in the name of Galileo Galilei focused the telecope into the heavens. This momentous event opened the way to new understanding of man's position in the universe.

Galileo observed many fascinating sights. One is the geography and topography of the moon,

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 its mountains , valleys and craters. He also saw the phases of Venus, which proved to be an evidence of Corpernicus' heiocentric universe model. He saw the giant planet Jupiter along with it's four large moons-Ganymede, Io, Callisto, and Europa.

Photo (right) The Phases of Venus proves the Heliocentric (sun-centered) universe model by Copernicus.

Galileo immediately announced this newly found truth about the sun being the center of the universe, but the Catholic Church's support of Geo-centric universe never changed. Instead,

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 galileo was put to house arrest until his death for teaching such information that they view as heresy.

Photo (right). Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition.

If Galileo was still alive today, he would have been very happy about the dramatic increase of knowledge and understanding of the universe compared to his days. But even today's knowledge about the universe is only a scratch of the things yet to be discovered.

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Pluto-Failed Planet?

Pluto still failed to be recognized as a planet after this week's international astronomical meeting held by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Rio Janeiro. We can still recall the controversial move made by the IAU to demote Pluto as a "dwarf planet" three years ago in the same meeting held in Prague. The world witnessed table bangings and walk outs of some astronomers after the decision has been laid down.

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The decision was based on the fact that it failed to pass the criteria to be major body on it's orbit. Pluto's mass only accounts for 0.07 of the entire mass of all objects in its orbit (which includes gas giant Neptune because their obits intersect). In contrast, earth is more than a million times heavier than all the objects on its orbit (which includes the moon).

Pluto joined the group of the dwarf planets that includes Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris.

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(Right)The orbit of Haumea

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(Right) Image of Eris and its moon Dysnomia
(Below) Pluto and its moons.

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Perseids Meteor Shower Tonight!

Do you want to hangout tonight? We'll I have a great idea! 

Image by rherring via Flickr

Why not observe the night sky and see the annual Perseids meteor shower?

Persieds is an annual meteor shower that starts by the middle of July and peaks in the middle of August. For this year, 2009, it is expected to peak between August 11 and August 12. According to recent counts, it can showers up to 60 shooting stars per hour or more. It's really a shower of fun to observe this wonderful celestial event.

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Meteor showers occur when the earth passes an orbit of a comet. Comets leaves particles of rocks and ice on their orbit and when the earth passes them, a steady shower of meteor display occurs.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Perseids meteor shower can be observed all over the sky but more concentrated on the Northern part specifically on the contellation of Perseus. The comet named Swift-Tuttle is the one associated with it.

Another well known meteor shower and

 currently the holder of Guiness Book record is the Leonids that occurs on November and is caused by the comet Temple-Tuttle. In 1833, 1866 and 1867, it displays the most expectacular meteor showers of all time when it rained up to 100,000 meteors per hour!

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Astronomy Basics

I found this cool article about astronomy in scribd.com. I want to share this to my readers in case they want a basic idea of what astronomy involves. Cool pictures of the stars, the moon, the planets, the sun and everything in the heaven.

Enjoy!!!!

Astronomy Part1