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POLE STAR

Many times we have noticed parents convincing their children about magical wishes come true. One such belief is the wish made to the pole star during the time of Christmas. The Santa Claus is believed to liver in the polar region might listen up to all the wishes we make to the pole star and will make our wishes come true. As kids we were also shown the pole star glittering up in the sky. What is this pole star? According to astronomy, a pole star is the visible star that is present near the Earth’s Polar Regions. It may be the North Pole star or the South Pole star. Of the two, the North Pole star, Polaris (lode star) is the brightest and we usually refer it as the pole star. This belongs to the constellation of Ursa Minor and is placed between the Big Dipper and the Cassiopeia constellations. This pole star is a variable star in the sense over thousands of years Polaris would not be Earth’s pole star. The reason behind this is that precession of the equinoxes and due to the fact that the stars also make movements and are not fixed. The precession of the equinoxes means the shift of the equinox’s along the Earth’s elliptical path. This why Beta Ursae Minoris was the pole in 500 AD and the Polaris is now at present. Thuban and Vega will be the pole stars in the future. So make your wishes to Thuban and Vega too to make all your dreams come true in the future!

AURORA

Aurora is a colorful band of light that appears in the northern and southern part of the earth. Hence they are also known as northern and southern lights. They usually appear in night sky as a bright band of light. Though Auroras can be seen throughout the earth, they are more clearly visible at the poles due to prolonged darkness and magnetic field. Aurora is formed by the collision of charged high energy particles like protons and neutrons in earth’s magnetosphere with the particles in the earth’s atmosphere. This collision excites the electrons and the particles in the atmosphere. This excitation energy is released as photos into the earth’s atmosphere and hence emitting light. Gases like oxygen and nitrogen interact with the atmosphere to produce different color. Atomic oxygen results in green and red auroras. Molecular nitrogen is responsible for pink and dark green auroras while ionic nitrogen results in light blue and green auroras. Helium and neon produce purple and orange auroras respectively. Auroras are most commonly visible during the winter months. The region around the north and south poles within 2500km radius, where the auroras are clearly visible, is called the auroral zone. Auroras are also known to appear on other planets with strong magnetic fields like Jupiter and Saturn.

GRAVITY

One fine day, an apple falls on a persons head and BANG! There goes the theory of gravity and the person who put forwarded it was SIR ISSAC NEWTON. He envisioned the law of gravity between the planets in the 17th century though first journey to the moon was only in the 20th century. What is this interesting factor so called gravity? By definition gravity is the force of attraction which one body attracts the other and it is present all over the universe. Gravity is everywhere! The ground pulls us and this is why we are able to walk. Even other planetary objects exert the gravitational pull on us, but this doesn’t happen. Why? This is because the earth itself is a massive body which exerts equal gravitational force on the other celestial objects. This is how all the planets are placed in the space. This gravitational force makes the planets to maintain the orbit and even the satellites are placed in the space and are made to revolve around the earth. Our planet, the earth has a gravitational constant of g=9.8 m/s2. This is the force which makes us do the everyday life. The gravitational constant of the moon is 16.7 m/s2 and this is the reason why astronauts jump on the moon instead of walking. Even the astronauts feel “the zero-gravity” in spaceships. This is because the spaceships are already falling towards the earth and this makes them feel weight less and they feel the zero-gravity effect. Gravity is incredible abstract noun which does great thing and makes us live!

UP IN THE SKY!

Have you ever looked at the sky in the night? Have you been you in your terrace gazing the sky in the nigh? Everyone would like to enjoy the scene of the bright stars. Normally one could see nearly 3,000 stars and those people in the darker regions can see nearly 10,000 stars. Many times as kids we would have counted these stars and the count will never seem to end. How many stars are there in the sky? What could have created the sky? How did the star formed? Astronomy is the most interesting subject which deals with all the celestial objects. Astronomers and scientist are in a deep search and do research on the various planetary objects. These glowing objects are not only stars but they also include comets, meteorites, asteroids and many other things. They all form the galaxies. Galaxy was considered as the birth place of all creation. The dust and the gas together form the stars, which is a massive ball of plasma. Having been created in the Nebula, the stars under goes various stages. Main sequence stars is the stage which the stars spends 90% of its life time. The sun is the nearest star to the earth is 4.6 billion years old undergo this stage for 10 billion years. Being in this busy world have we ever noticed or cared to read about all these scientific facts? Everything happens up in the sky!

FROM THE DUST!

The bible is the holy book of the Christians and it consists of two parts, The Old Testament and The New Testament. The Genesis is the first book of the holy book which tells about the creation of life. Though there had not been any strong proof about this, still man believes it as a part of his faith. As every coin has two parts, there are also questions which are raised contradictorily against the so called ‘Faith in God’. Still there a lot number of doubts of how God created life just in seven days. Is it possible? The bible says that man was created from dust. Science is totally different from religion and after Darwin’s theory of origin of species there is always been a conflict between the faith of the church and the facts of science. Is it true that man, a living being, was created all from dust? Many can’t prove it like how Newton proved the theory of gravitation. But there are various prediction and hypothesis which are made to connect the Faiths and the Facts. Up in the sky in the nebula are the birth place of all the stars and the galaxy. NASA believes that the Eagle Nebula is the “Pillar of Creation” and these stars are believed to be form from gas and dust with constant interaction with the inter-stellar medium. In astronomy, the interstellar medium is the gas and dust that pervade interstellar space. The terrestrial planets are formed with the protoplanetary disk, within the snowline. One such planet formed within the snowline is the earth which the only habitual region. So thus everything came from the dust! There is a strong connection between the Faiths and the Facts. But how did Moses who wrote the book of genesis knew about all the discoveries of astronomy which was founded only in the 18th century??

LIFE ON MOON

Darwin’s theory of Origin of Species says that man evolved from apes, a genre of monkeys. Existence of life will need number of parameters and factors to support it. Earth proved itself to be a habitual region. Various civilizations were formed in various part of the earth. The sun, moon and the stars were worshiped as Gods. Greek mythology says that Goddess Theia gave birth to Artemis, protected the wild places and the animals. Myths have a separate place for moon, and to no surprise these days science has a greater place for the moon .As technology have developed, man has made enough explorations in the earth that he is more interested to know about the moon. Having found that it is a celestial body which has a composition similar to that of the earth, scientist and astronomers are trying to answer the million dollar question, and “can life exist on moon”? The Soviet Union was the first to launch the unmanned spacecraft to the moon. In the due course many spacecrafts and satellites were sent to find whether there is any chance that the moon can support life. But all the results say that the moon is dead. Scientists say that Liquid water cannot exist where the atmospheric pressure is extremely low or zero. Tests for river bed by the unmanned robots on the surface of the moon and experiment on the lunar rocks do continue. After all, every single soul on the earth would like make a trip to the nearest heavenly body if life seems to exist there!

MOON

In the night when we walk alone, there is always a companion high in the sky walking along with us showing the light in the dark - The moon! In this busy, where people are always occupied with some thought and work often forget to have a look at the moon. It’s in the sky looking at us with a white face. Each one on the earth have a strong inner feeling that it was created for one’s self as they see it everywhere they go. It will seem like the moon is walking with us. But how many of us have imagined a life without the moon? Many theories have been put forward to explain the origin of the moon. One of which says that the moon was formed as when the earth formed from the debris of the sun. The other prediction is that the moon had formed somewhere else in the solar system and has been captured into the earth’s orbit. These theories failed as they had insufficient proofs and it did not give answer to many questions of doubts. Finally a hypothesis was framed which says that the moon was formed from the earth itself. Some 4.5 billion years ago, as earth was growing, a mars like body named Theia, hit the earth and the debris filled with rocks went around the earth and together they formed the moon. Whatever maybe its origin, we have been gifted with an awesome white celestial companion up in the sky!!

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