The document discusses theories about the origin of the universe and the solar system. It describes 3 main theories for the origin of the universe: 1) the Big Bang theory, 2) the Steady State theory, and 3) the Pulsating Universe theory. It also discusses several historical theories for the origin of the solar system, including theories proposed by Descartes, Kant, and Laplace. Today, most scientists accept the Nebular Theory that the solar system formed from a collapsing cloud of gas and dust about 4.5 billion years ago.
The document discusses theories about the origin of the universe and the solar system. It describes 3 main theories for the origin of the universe: 1) the Big Bang theory, 2) the Steady State theory, and 3) the Pulsating Universe theory. It also discusses several historical theories for the origin of the solar system, including theories proposed by Descartes, Kant, and Laplace. Today, most scientists accept the Nebular Theory that the solar system formed from a collapsing cloud of gas and dust about 4.5 billion years ago.
The document discusses theories about the origin of the universe and the solar system. It describes 3 main theories for the origin of the universe: 1) the Big Bang theory, 2) the Steady State theory, and 3) the Pulsating Universe theory. It also discusses several historical theories for the origin of the solar system, including theories proposed by Descartes, Kant, and Laplace. Today, most scientists accept the Nebular Theory that the solar system formed from a collapsing cloud of gas and dust about 4.5 billion years ago.
The document discusses theories about the origin of the universe and the solar system. It describes 3 main theories for the origin of the universe: 1) the Big Bang theory, 2) the Steady State theory, and 3) the Pulsating Universe theory. It also discusses several historical theories for the origin of the solar system, including theories proposed by Descartes, Kant, and Laplace. Today, most scientists accept the Nebular Theory that the solar system formed from a collapsing cloud of gas and dust about 4.5 billion years ago.
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Part 1.
EARTH SCIENCE
RIGIN AND STRUCTURE
OF THE EARTH: THE UNIVERSE AND THE In this modern age when hi-tech gadgets, machineries, and devices abound, there are still many basic questions that linger in our mind. We continue to look for clearer explanations to the things that mystify us. These could be from the simple things that we usually see and observe every day to the complex questions about our existence. We ask ourselves: *Where am I in this vast world? *How did the universe originate? *Where did life start and originate? *What is so special and interesting about the universe and the solar system where we belong? OBJECTIVES:
In this chapter, learners must be able to:
1. Describe the different hypotheses explaining the origin of the universe. 2. Explain what the universe is composed of. 3. Describe the different hypotheses explaining the origin of the solar system. Theories behind the Origin of the Universe FIRST THEORY According to this theory developed by various scientists and philosophers, about 10 to 20 billion years ago, matter and energy were compressed and condensed in a hot tiny dense mass. In fact, matter and energy back then were theorized as the same and indistinguishable from each other. But due to random fluctuations, this tiny dense and compact point exploded tremendously. This explosion is termed as the Big Bang Theory. In this theory, energy and matter divided and became distinct from each other. After that massive explosion, dust and portion of the condensed matter and energy started to spread out. These scattered particles eventually coagulated and different objects and heavenly bodies began to form. Soon, stars, solar systems and galaxies were formed. This is the most popular theory of the origin of the universe. SECOND THEORY This theory has many versions, but the most popular version is the one proposed in 1948 by Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold, Herman Bondi et al. it states that the universe has been present ever since and therefore has no beginning and no end, and has been expanding constantly. This theory, known as Steady State Theory or Infinite Universe Theory, is an alternative to the Big Bang Theory. According to this theory, the density of matter in the expanding universe remains unchanged due to a continuous creation of matter, THIRD THEORY The Pulsating Universe combines both the Big Bang and the Big Crunch as part of a cyclical event. If this theory holds true, Then the universe in which we live in exists between Big Bang and a Big Crunch. This theory says that universe follows infinite self sustaining cycles such as expanding and contracting. After the universe has contracted to a certain size, explosion occurs and the universe will start expanding. The theory also states that the universe is “living” and keep pulsating in and out. The universe expands at a rapid rate with gravity and inertia and eventually inertia will THE SOLAR SYSTEM The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system comprising the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. It is in constant motion, with the planets and their moons, comets, asteroids and other space objects revolving around the Sun. THEORIES ON THE ORIGIN OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM
Many scientists have developed
various theories to explain the origin of the solar system. Rene Descartes, in the mid 1600’s devised a Theory of Vortices which postulated that the space was entirely filled with matter in various states, whirling about the sun like a vortex. Descartes explained how the universe could have started from utter Once the particles in the chaotic universe began to move, the overall motion would have been circular because there is no void in nature. So, whenever a single particle moves, another particle must also move to occupy the space where the previous particle once was. This type of circular motion, or vortex, would have created what Descartes observed to be the orbits of the planets about the sun with the heavier objects spinning out towards the outside of the vortex and the lighter objects remaining closer to the center. A hundred years after, Immanuel Kant suggested that contraction in the middle of the rotating cloud appeared and the rest flattened out like a disk, using Newton’s idea of gravity. In his “Nebular Hypothesis” on star and planetary formations, he theorized that thin, dim cloud of dust and gas out in the cosmos would collapse in on themselves under the force of gravity, causing them to spin to form a disk. From this spinning In the year 1700’s, a French mathematician named Pierre Simon Laplace proposed a similar model of solar system. According to his model which is now known as Laplace’s Nebular Theory, a slowly rotating nebula (a cloud vast gas and dusts) collapsed under gravity forming an oblate spheroid due to the increase in its spin rate. Contraction and cooling occurred and formed a lens-like structure leaving detached rings behind, which in the later process collapsed to form planets considering in each ring. In the mid- 1700’s Georges- Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon conceived the idea that a comet collided with the sun sending matter off to form the planets. Several theories citing cosmic catastrophe continued for several hundred of years after Buffon. In the middle part of the 20th century, scientists were able to find a new source of data: the chemical composition of space objects. It was Harold Urey who initially studied the meteorites and their chemical analysis. He concluded that meteorites contain matter that had changed very little in the early history of the solar system. This set a new trend in understanding the solar system whose origin can be based on its chemical composition. More theories regarding the origin of the solar system were proposed by various scientists basing their observation on the space objects and their motion. However, none of these attempts was successful and it was not until 1970’s with Soviet astronomer Victor Safronov that the modern (and widely accepted) Solar Nebular Disk Model (SNDM) came into being. According to this model, our star system was formed 4.568 billion years ago when a small part of a giant molecular cloud experienced a gravitational collapse. Most of the collapsing mass collected in the Since the time, our system has evolved considerably due to collisions between objects, planetary migration and the capturing of extra- solar objects by our own sytem. While originally applied only to our own solar system, the SNDM has since been used by theorists to explain star formation throughout the known universe. Today’s scientists have postulated the current theory about the beginnings of the sun and planets using data gathered for over the past centuries. This theory known as the Nebular Theory. This theory explains that the solar system evolved from a nebula that disintegrated due to the fall of its own gravity about 4.5 billion years ago. This vast cloud of dust contained light elements with trace amounts of heavier elements. Cloud contraction due to gravitational attraction occurred, forming the denser atoms through clumping of atoms together. As it happened, the matter began to move in a giant circular manner. As the gas cloud continued to spin and contract, it flattened and became a disk A few thousand years after, the sun and the rest of the disk began to cool down. The disk’s edge emerged much cooler than the center of the disk due to great distance from the sun. with it, various temperatures were present in the disk causing materials to become solid, dust-like particles, rocky dust particles, icy particles containing water and frozen gases. It took 500 million years for the planets to form in their current location and orbits,. The solar system that we know today refers to a star and all of the space objects that travels around it including planets. Its natural satellites (moon), comets and asteroids. It is a part of a spiral galaxy, a very large group of stars that make up the universe known as the Milky Way with the sun as its center holding the planets and numerous smaller objects in its orbit. To enhance one’s knowledge about the solar system, definitions of some of the common space objects with their visual representation are given below.
ASTEROID - Basically a chunk of rock that orbits
the sun. Its size can be from a few feet up to several miles in diameter. COMET – a cosmic snowball of rocks, dusts, frozen gases that grow tails as it comes nearer to the sun. it glows due to the heat of the sun causing dust and gases to spit from it leaving trails behind. It is usually visible in the night sky. METEORS AND METEORITES – small chunks of debris and rocks in space. A meteor commonly called “shooting star” falls into the planet’s atmosphere. It leaves bright trail in the sky which we usually see. Part of this chunk of rocks and dusts that hits the ground is called meteorite. PLANET – any large heavenly body that revolves around the sun in the solar system. MOON – also called as satellite. It is basically solid body. Only a few have atmospheres planetary moons are formed from discs of gas