SOLAR SYSTEM - Jim Colyer

The solar system began as a cloud of dust and gas. The cloud began to spin and contract. It contracted into a disc with the sun at the center. Planets formed from the disk. Gravity caused rocky, terrestrial planets to form near the sun. Gas giants floated further out. Celestial bodies are round because they are molded by the effects of spinning. Every star in the galaxy may have planets. The sun is a star. It is average in size. It is 93 million miles away. Its surface is 11,000 degrees. Sunspots are dark because they are cooler. The sun is a hydrogen bomb, shining by nuclear fusion. Hydrogen turning into helium emits energy in the form of light and heat. This energy is stored in fossil fuels: coal, oil and gas. The sun is a middle-age star and will burn another 5 billion years. It will become a red giant. The planets will be consumed. Earth's oceans will boil away. The atmosphere will go. The sky will turn black. There are two kinds of objects, those which shine by their own light like stars and those which reflect light like planets and moons. The planet Mercury is so close to the sun that many astronomers have never seen it. Mercury's surface is cratered like the moon's. Like the moon, Mercury has no atmosphere. NASA launched the Messenger spacecraft to Mercury. Scientists want to know why it is so dense. Like Mercury, Venus is between Earth and the sun. For that reason, Venus never strays far from the sun in the morning or evening skies. It is seen in the western sky after sunset. Venus goes through phases which are visible through a small telescope. Venus is brightest in its crescent phase because it is closer to Earth. It gets as bright as -4.5 magnitude. Venus is about the size of Earth. We might expect similarities. In fact, the surface of Venus is 900 degrees because of the greenhouse effect. Its atmoshere consists of carbon dioxide. It is hell. Still, Venus accompanied by a crescent moon is one of the beautiful sights in nature. Earth From space, Earth is a blue planet spotted with white cloud tops. Earth is 25,000 miles in circumference and 8,000 miles in diameter. It revolves around the sun every 365 days, the period defined as a year. Earth's orbit varies over million of years. It stretches and shrinks. This accounts for 7 ice ages. Earth tilts on its axis 23 1/2 degrees. This tilt causes seasons. The northern and southern hemispheres alternately lean into and away from the sun. When it is summer in the United States, it is winter in Australia. Earth's moderate distance from the sun is a factor in the evolution of life. It is neither too hot nor too cold. Liquid water can exist. Where there is water, there is life. It rained millions of years to create oceans. Mountains were created by stresses in the earth. Earth's atmosphere came from volcanos. The atmosphere provides pressure and protection from harmful rays. Oxygen is produced by the photosynthesis of plants. Earth's atmosphere extends 300 miles. Life began in the sea (or so we have read). Four billion years ago, chemicals began showing characteristics of life. Viruses are on the line between the living and nonliving. One-celled organisms developed, microbes. Plants colonized the land. Invertebrates evolved. Vertebrates followed. Fish evolved into amphibians which evolved into reptiles. Dinosaurs lived in the Mesozoic Era between 65 million and 220 million years ago. Tyrannosaurus, brontosaurus, triceratops, stegosaurus, ankylosaurus and duckbills ruled. I did a paper titled "The Other Sciences," which was dinosaur-based. A species is a group of animals whose members interbreed. There are over one million species of animals. Continents formed one land mass. As continental drift occurred, reptiles evolved into birds and mammals. Some paleontologists believe birds are dinosaurs. There was a golden age of giant mammals in the Cenozoic Era. Mammoths and mastadons became extinct only at the end of the recent Ice Age. Man has existed in some form for 5 million years. He evolved from primates in southeast Africa and spread through Europe and Asia. From Asia, he populated the South Sea islands and walked across the land bridge at the Bering Strait into the Americas. That was 50,000 years ago. Races as we know them came into existence at the end of the Ice Age 20,000 years ago. Civilization was born in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Recorded history spans 5,000 years. Colonization of the Americas by Europeans from the Renaissance forward is the most important human migration in history. World population is currently 6 billion. 300 million are in the United States. Natural history is understood in terms of the Geological Time Scale. Paleontologists study the fossil record. Fossils are found in sedimentary rocks, those laid down by water. Radio carbon dating determines the age of rocks. To know the age of rocks is to know the age of their fossils. Environment I wrote "Save The Planet" because I am a songwriter. I am faced with defending the message of my song. I am not a fanatic. I recall Al Gore's book about the environment. It was so technical, it was unreadable. It was funny when George Bush 41 referred to Gore as "Ozone Man" because of his preoccupation with the ozone layer. I have read the ozone layer repairs itself. Maybe. The big issue with Gore is global warming. This is the tendency for man-made carbon dioxide to trap heat in Earth's atmosphere. The fear is, the earth will be heated to a point that its polar caps melt, inundating coastal cities. Unchecked, Earth could become a hell like Venus although we would be dead long before. The problem I have is that geologists say we are between Ice Ages. If another Ice Age is inevitable, might not global warming serve as a device for heating the globe? Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may trap the sun's energy and prevent glaciers from flowing north and south to drive the planet's population toward the equator. It sounds crazy. We are trying to figure out whether we will burn up or freeze to death, whether we are going to drown or die of thirst because all the water is locked up in ice. If global warming is taking place (and apparently it is), I am not sure it is an entirely bad thing. It got pretty cold in Nashville last winter. If it is a bad thing, I am not sure that man in his ingenuity will not find a remedy. I stay mainstream. With the population of the earth at 6 billion and climbing, we need to manage natural resources responsibly. The rainforest of South America can not be destroyed without consequences. We should be planting trees in North America, one for each one we cut down. Houses have traditionally been built from lumber. Books have been made from paper. All that may change. New building materials can be developed. Libraries are becoming electronic. The large mammals of Africa need to be protected, otherwise they will be extinct in a few decades. This is up to the governments of African countries and their National Park systems. At the same time, it is a world problem. Man is one species despite his constant fragmenting into religious sects and nationalities. If man were to act as one species (and I am not promoting a one-race concept) and stop warring, he could put his house in order. The energy and money spent by Muslims, Jews and Christians fighting each other could go a long way toward developing alternative fuels. Fossil fuels will eventually be depleted. It will take time (and no one knows how much), but the amount of coal, oil and gas in the ground is finite. If man does not prepare for the time when they are gone, civilization will collapse. There is a lot of talk about alternative fuels and hybid cars. I am unsure how much research is being done and about the state of practical application. People talk about running cars on vegetable oil. Gasoline is up to $2.75 a gallon. How much is a gallon of vegetable oil?

ASTRONOMY http://jimcolyer.com/papers/entry?id=2