Week 8: Lab presentations

 What did you learn in lab this week?

- In our lab section this week, we talked about more information on a variety of things involving space through class presentations. For the origin of the universe, we learned that many people believe in one of the three theories of how the universe was created. Those three theories are the Steady State Theory, the Big Bang Theory, and the Eternal Inflation Theory. In our stars presentation, we learned that a star's life depends on its mass. This means that the larger the mass, the shorter the life of the star. In the Galaxies presentation, we learned that most large galaxies have massive black holes at their centers, which can be billions of times the mass of the sun. Also, you can only see .0004% of our galaxy. What we learned in the Origin of the Earth presentation is after a massive star went through its lifespan and exploded, our sun and planets were made, so the Earth was born. What we learned about black holes is that black holes are huge concentrations of matter packed into very tiny spaces. The term black hole was used in 1964. My group presented the history of space travel, and we talked about the past, present, and future of space travel. In the past, it was all about figuring out how to get onto the moon. The present is all about learning more about space and other planets. The future is all about being able to visit other planets. 

What did you talk about during the discussion?

-In our class lecture, we talked a lot about how the Earth formed and how the Universe was created. We learned that there are many theories made by others with what they think about how the universe and the Earth were created. In the discussion, we talked about how a subatomic particle was inflated to an unimaginably huge size in a fraction of a second. I learned that it was an expansion and not an explosion like a lot of people originally thought when connecting it to the Big Bang. I also learned that the sun formed from a stellar nebula, which is dust and debris, and it was most likely from a star that underwent a supernova. Another thing that I learned in our lecture-discussion is that our Earth has an iron core. I learned that our Earth has an iron core because of the amount of iron that is in our sun during the nuclear fusion it was given to our Earth when it was created. 

What did you learn in the press book readings?

- Something huge that I learned from the press book readings was that the Earth was not formed during the Big Bang. I had a major misconception prior to this reading and our discussions because I have always thought that the Big Bang was a term used when talking about the creation of our Earth. I had no idea that the Big Bang was actually 9.05 billion years prior to when the Earth was created. I also learned how our sun, even though it is huge in our solar system, is not the biggest in the galaxy. Our sun is only an average-sized star, and there are even bigger stars called red giants. Lastly, I learned that the bigger the star, the less time it will take to live. 

What was the most helpful in the press book readings?

- Something that helped me a lot to understand the sequence of events of the universe being created was the timelines that were in the press book readings. showing how many years ago the original Big Bang was and then seeing how long after the other sequence of events happened in the formation of our universe really gave me the right perspective of thinking about how long ago this really was and how long it takes for different parts of the universe to form. 

Anything you need more information on in the readings?

I need more information on how black holes are created. I understand they are from supernovae, but I don't understand how a supernova can create a black hole.

Questions:

How do scientists know there are two trillion galaxies?