When you look up in the night sky do you often wonder where the moon is positioned? It appears to just float around up there but in actual fact it does have its place.
It can be inferred that the moon is between the Earth and the Sun. This is due to the Celestial spheres – the crescent phases of the Moon.
On this planet we have a lot of activity happening above us. From an astronomical observation our daily sunrise is a beautiful moment we can watch daily.
From this astronomical observation it is that the sun rises due east on the day of the equinoxes.
Among the many bodies out their in the universe is another random phenomenon.
This is a body which is a relatively small and ice-rich object that orbits a star. This object is called – A comet
The universe is made of many bodies. These objects range from planets to stars, asteroids and so on.
But let’s look at one particular participant. It is a large, glowing ball of gas that generates heat and light through nuclear fusion in its core, this special object is a Star.
Distance in the universe is sometimes difficult to imagine. But there have been methods introduced as markers. For instance is the astronomical unit.
The average distance between the Earth and the Sun – One astronomical unit (AU)
There are many bodies out there in the universe. The neighbourhood of the solar system has a lot of litter. It is once this litter begins to clear that the many objects take their place.
So where is the place of the moon? It is an object that orbits a planet – A moon.
Let us delve into the world of trivia for a bit and clear up a few items of interest. The first is how far is a light year?
This is a simple question because we hear the term often enough but do we all truly understand its distance.
A Light year is about 10 trillion kilometres. Quite a mind blower don’t you think!
It is understand planet earth has experienced many heavy bombardments of asteroids. After the last period of heavy bombardment, life would have had more opportunity to spread and diversify, but would still be vulnerable to local extinction events.
The impact of a lesser asteroid or eruption of a volcano could wipe out the first cells easily, forcing life to start over. The question is how quickly could life spread across the planet so as to be immune to such localized impacts? Would it take thousands or millions of years?
Early in a planet’s development the solar system is still being cleared of debris. By “being cleared of debris,” we mean that massive asteroids are attracted to the planet, resulting in impacts that are both frequent and severe.
Some impacts can be so serious as to remake the surface of the entire planet, melting it back into lava. Life cannot survive under such circumstances, and it is possible that life arose several times early in Earth’s history and was then destroyed by such an impact.
This is an area of science in which there are many well-supported hypotheses, but no definite answers. There are several arguments that discuss how life may have arisen on Earth billions of years ago.
We may be able to test these to see which way is fastest, most efficient, and most reliable. However, because most of Earth’s earliest rocks and fossils have been recycled in the planet’s mantle, we have lost the evidence that could tell us which theory is the way that life actually arose.
It is even possible that life arose several times, being wiped out by local or global disasters (such as asteroid impacts) before finally catching on well enough to survive.
