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Music free version at    • Classroom Aid  Heliocentrism  

In this segment of our video book, we cover distances inside our Solar System.

We start out with a brief history beginning with how Nicolas Copernicus used planetary retrograde motion to help move us from the Earthcentric view to the Suncentric view of our Solar System. We work our way through the contributions made by: Tycho Brahe and his detailed observations made with mural quadrants and sextants; Kepler and his mathematics of elliptical orbits; and Galileo with his observations using the newly invented telescope. We conclude this history with Newton and his theory of gravity. Gravity gives us the first opportunity to explain the inverse square law that will play such a central role in celestial distant measurements as we move out to the stars.

We then explain planetary parallax as an extension to triangulation and use it to determine the distance to the Moon. We also illustrate all the additional information that becomes available once the distance is known, such as diameter, area and volume. Next, we take a look at the orbit of Mars and the Earth and the distance of Mars from the Sun, followed by distances of all the planets and dwarf planets from the Sun. During this segment we cover the major moons around each planet. We then focus on the Asteroid Belt. We explain Lagrange Points and cover Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids orbiting two of these points. This takes us to Earth’s Trojan asteroid, 2010 TK7.

We then turn our attention to the Sun. We triangulate the Sun with Venus to calculate our distance from the Sun – one Astronomical Unit. With distance to the Sun known, we calculate its diameter, surface area and volume; the length of Earth’s orbit; the Earth’s velocity around the Sun; and with that, the Sun’s mass. Next, we use Jupiter’s moon Io to calculate the speed of light and with that we calculate how long it takes the Sun’s light to reach the Earth.

We end by adding the parallax rung to our distance ladder.

Music:

@00:00 Rachmaninov, Sergei: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini – Variation 18; Cecile Ousset (Piano), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Sir Simon Rattle, 1984; from the album “The most relaxing classical album in the world…ever!”

@03:01 Bizet, Georges: Entracte to Act III from “Carman”; Orchestre National de France / Seiji Ozawa, 1984; from the album “The most relaxing classical album in the world…ever!”

@05:13 Satie, Erik: Gymnopedie No. 1; City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra – Louis Fremaux, 1974; from the album “The most relaxing classical album in the world…ever!”

@09:37 Vangelis: Conquest of Paradise from the album “1492 Conquest of Paradise”, 1992

@16:39 Elgar, Edward: Nimrod from ‘Enigma’ Variations Op. 36; London Symphony Orchestra / Sir Adrian Boult, 1986 from the album “The most relaxing classical album in the world…ever!”

@18:44 Massenet, Jules: Meditation from ‘Thais’; Hans Kalafusz (violin), Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra / Sir Neville Marriner, 1987 EMI Electrola GmbH from the album “The most relaxing classical album in the world…ever!”

@23:26 Pachelbel, Johann: Cannon in D; Academy of St. Martin in the Fields – Sir Neville Marriner, 1974; from the album “The most relaxing classical album in the world…ever!”