The adopted sons of the Sun: The Dwarf Planets

Unlike planets, dwarf planets lack the gravitational muscle to sweep up or scatter objects near their orbits. They end up orbiting the sun in zones of similar objects such as the asteroid and Kuiper belts. Pluto, Eris and the asteroid Ceres became the first dwarf planets in our solar system, recognized in world-wide astronomy.

On August 24, 2006, the International Astronomical Union voted at the end of its 26th General Assembly to establish definitions for three classes of substellar objects in the Solar System:

Planet - This is a celestial body that: (a) is in orbit around the Sun; (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a nearly round shape (due to a hydrostatic equilibrium); and (c) has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit. As now defined, the Solar System has eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

Dwarf Planet - This is a celestial body that: (a) is in orbit around the Sun; and (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a nearly round shape (due to a hydrostatic equilibrium); but (c) has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit; and (d) is not a satellite of another planet. As defined, the Solar System has probably has at least one dwarf planet in the Main Asteroid Belt (Ceres), Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt (Pluto and Eris); and Oort Cloud (possibly Sedna). In addition, the "dwarf planet" Pluto is recognized as a prototype of a new class of trans-Neptunian objects.

Earth in comparison with Dwarf Planets

Smaller Solar System Bodies - This category collectively refers to all other celestial bodies orbiting our Sun, Sol (including asteroids, comets, and satellites).

Bibliography:

Sol Company. SolStation.com. 2008. 25 august 2011 <http://www.solstation.com/stars/dwarfpla.htm>.

The Mysteries of Quasars

Ok, first I'm going to introduce myself.

I'm a high school student named Rafael Guevara (Id. number: A01280452), but people call me Rafa or Alex, both are fine to me, but I like more the first way. Well, now I would like to talk a little bit about what my pseudonym, Quasar Man, actually means.



First of all, a quasar:

1) Is a compact region in the center of a massive galaxy.

2) It has an incredible quantity of energy that produce a lot light, that’s why quasars seem to be stars, in fact, the name “quasar” (quasi-star = star-like) comes from this similarity.

3) Quasars are relatedly a recent discovery in astronomy. It was in 1963 when Thomas Matthews and Allan Sandage, both scientists from the Californian observatory Monte Palomar, discovered a very curious object in space: it was too small for the quantity of light it produced. They called it quasar (star-like), although it was much more powerful than any star.

4) They are extremely far away. One of the shiniest quasars is about 2 billion light-years away, but they shine much more than one of the greatest galaxies.

5) Quasars allow astronomers to know how the Universe was in its early years because light takes a lot of time to travel such distances, so we are actually looking the quasars as when they were very youth, since the beginning of the Universe itself.

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I don’t know what do think, but I really love all this stuff about Outer Space, I don’t think we are alone in Universe, it’s not logical to think that way, I mean, there are billions of galaxies, and each galaxy has billions of stars, and, I don’t know, at least millions of those stars must have several planets around them. Just imagine the huge possibility for life to develop somewhere in those innumerable planets.

Hope you enjoy this humble web blog, you can comment freely, seriously, all humans (and any intelligent life-form) are welcome ;)

Bibliography:

Mienciclo Universal. 2010. 22th august 2011 <http://0-www.mienciclo.es.millenium.itesm.mx/enciclo/index.php/Qu%C3%A1sar>.