The Night Sky

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Term Paper Title	The Night Sky
# of Words	7722
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	30.89

The Night Sky

     Long ago, people looked into the night sky and wondered what they were looking at?
How far away are those twinkles in the sky?  Could they all be stars, or maybe, could they be
something else?  What makes certain lights brighter than others, and how does distance affect
their intensity?  These questions and other interesting facts will be reviewed in the following
pages.
     One of the most common curiosities regarding the night sky is distance, which can be
very hard to determine.  Because space is so vast, scientists must use mathematical methods to
determine how far away, how large, and how bright something actually measures.  However,
because of the constantly changing position of Earth and the solar system in relation to the
galaxy, and the incredible distances that separate objects in space, scientists have developed a
different standard unit of measure.  The most common unit of measure is a light year.  “A light
year is the distance that light can travel in one year” (Giancoli 1000).  Using very sophisticated
tools, scientists have measured the speed at which light travels and have found the distance in
one second to equal 3 x 10^8 meters.  From this discovery, they have the ability to determine
that one “light minute” equals 18 x 10^9 meters, which calculates one “light year” to equal 9.46
x 10^15 meters (roughly 10^13 kilometers).  To promote a better picture of how far ten
trillion kilometers stretches, imagine the distance between the earth and the moon to measure
384,000 kilometers, or 1.28 light seconds;  the distance between the earth and the sun is
150,000,000 kilometers, or 8.3 light seconds; and the distance from Earth to the farthest planet,
Pluto, measures 6 billion kilometers or 6 x 10^-4 light years.  To envision the almost
unimaginable distances of space, the closest star to the sun, Proxima Centauri, is 4.3 light years
away, which is over 10,000 times farther away than the most distant planet in Earth’s solar
system (Ibid).
     Of all the distant objects that are seen in the night sky, the closest objects to Earth are
planets.  There are a total of nine planets in the earth’s solar system, including Earth, along with
a few other stellar objects, such as comets, that pass by every so many years (Ridpath 59).
The planets vary greatly in size and composition.  Some that shine very brightly can be seen all
year round, while others are very hard to locate and distinguish.  The order of the planets in the
solar system goes as ...

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