At the Sommers-Bausch observing night the first thing I observed was Mars, a 4 billion-year-old planet. It was a clear night on Tuesday, November 6th. When looking through the telescope I saw mars as a bright red star with gleams of light coming out of all sides. Mars is the fourth planet from the sun with a deadly atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide. Unlike Earth…Mars has two moons; Phobos and Deimo. It has been said that one day Mars will have a ring, caused by Phobos being torn apart by gravitational forces in the next 30 million years. Leaving Mars with only one moon. As most know Earths tilt is 22.5 degrees which is the cause of the seasons. Mars is titled 25.19 degrees, this causes mars to have seasons, but twice as long as earth because the tilt is larger.
The second thing I had observed that night was the Dumbbell Nebula, 1,360 light years away. Looking at the nebula through the telescope it looked like a faint grey cloud in the middle of millions of stars. In the middle is a white dwarf, the largest one known in the solar system. The Dumbbell nebula is the second largest planetary nebula, the helix nebula being the largest. This nebula was first discovered in 1764 by Charles Messier. It is said to be super bright in the sky and resembles a dumbbell and is located in the Vulpecula constellation. It is said to be 100 times brighter than our sun, this is because it absorbs the radiation and produces visible light.
The last thing I observed that night was Andromeda galaxy, about 2.5 light years away and 10 billion years old. Looking through the telescope I observed it as a faint grey orb circle in the sky. This Galaxy is the furthest thing away, but still visible to the eye. This galaxy has trillions of stars each one having their own planet which makes for millions of planets. It is said to be approaching the milky way galaxy at about 100 kilometers per second. They say that one day it will crash with the Milky Way but not for another 3.75 billion years, when this happens we will have an elliptical galaxy. One difference between our galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy is the andromeda galaxy has two nuclei. They believe this is because of a collision between galaxies billions of years ago which resulted in their nucleus combining and orbiting together.
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Mars has been mentioned in books, TV shows, movies, ect. In our culture we look at mars as a place we might extraterrestrial life. In movies mars is portrayed as a place where life exists. We look for hope that we might find slight evidence of life on that planet. What an awful waste of space if there is none. It is also a landmark in the sky, a bright red star that really is the planet mars. People today are obsessed with mars, yet it has such a dangerous environment and lots of radiation. One day it might be possible for life to develop there but not for a long time. In the art you see of mars, some paintings are supposed to be portrayed of mars billions of years ago which they show to be heavenly before it turned into the deadly planet it is now. The recent painting of mars the ones that are portrayed for present day show the dry, red planet it is today.
