To begin with, some people may ask what a constellation is or how many constellations are there. Well a constellation is actually not even real. The only reason why we have constellations is because it helps us tell which star is which and nothing more than that. If it is a dark night and you look in the sky you will see many stars and are probably hard to see or you are wondering how many you can see and it is way to hard to count. Well there is over 1000 stars that you see outside in the sky on a dark night. These constellations help by breaking up the sky into more bits.
So we know that constellations are not real but they help us remember the stars. Most people are probably thinking why we would want to remember the stars but there are people out there interested in this and also astronomers would love to know these things. Actually, farmers would also like to know which star is which and learn about constellations as well. Why would farmers want to know about this? Well they grow crops and plant in the spring, and harvest in the fall so since different constellations are visible at different times of they year, you can see them to tell what month it is. One of the constellations is Scorpius and for example Scorpius is only visible in the northern hemisphere’s evening sky in the summer. Some people suspect that many of the myths associated with the constellations which were invented to help the farmers remember them. When the farmers saw certain constellations, they would know that it was time to start their planting.
Finally, the constellations have changed over time. Most of the constellations in our modern world have been redefined so now every star in the sky is in exactly one constellation. There are 88 official constellations that exist today.
Bibliography
"Constellations." JIM KALER. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Feb. 2011.
Dibon-Smith, Richard, and meant for personal use only.. "The Constellations." The Constellations Web Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Feb. 2011.
"Constellation Photos - Constellations - Digital Images of the Sky." Digital Images of the Sky. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Feb. 2011.
Proficiency #4---
To begin with, most people are wondering how the solar system were formed but before we answer that, what is the Solar System? Well, the Solar System is a collection of bodies that make up a star, with planets including objects orbiting around it. It exists of the Sun and the Sun is orbited by eight planets including our planet which is earth. These eight planets include Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The first four planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are the rocky planets and the other four planets are gaseous planets. Gaseous planets are like vaporous so the other four are vaporous planets. The sun is the most important in our solar system because it has most of light, heat, and other energy in life and the eight planets orbit around the Sun.
Now, the Solar System was formed from a large cloud of dust and gas which is called the Solar Nebula. The Solar Nebula began collapsing under its own gravitational force. Scientists believe that the collapse of this giant gas cloud was caused to happen by a star near it. As it collapsed a large part separated itself from it to form the Solar System so that his how the Solar System formed.
Next, one big difference that the inner and outer planets have is that the inner planets are small and the outer planets are big. The inner planets have solid surfaces, greater density, and varied atmospheres, orbit the sun quickly, spin slowly, few moons, and no rings. Unlike the outer planets which have no surfaces, smaller density, similar atmospheres, orbit the sun slowly, spin quickly, lots of moons, and does have rings. In the Inner planets Earth is the largest with Mercury being the smallest and in the Outer planets Jupiter is the largest and Neptune is the smallest. In the Inner planets Earth goes the QUICKEST taking 23 hours and 56 minutes to spin on its axis while the Outer planets SLOWEST is Uranus taking 17 hours and 14 minutes to spin on its axis. The inner planets have fewer moons because they only have moons orbiting around two planets which are Earth and Mars while the Outer planets have moons orbiting around all of them. All of the Outer planets have rings orbiting them which are thin disks of dust and rocks and none of the Inner planets have rings orbiting them. Those are most of the differences between Inner and Outer planets.
Finally, in the future the sun will expand meaning get bigger and will probably get much hotter too. That will probably happen because as it gets bigger it also gets hotter and also in the past and as today comes the sun has gotten much bigger and probably hotter.
Bibliography
"How Was the Solar System Formed." Universe Today. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Jan. 2011.
"How the Solar System was formed." Edinformatics -- Education for the Information Age . N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Jan. 2011.
"The Planets Overview." The Solar Space Station - facts, information and pictures about the Solar System, planets asteroids meteors comets etc. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Jan. 2011.
