Galaxies - Universe Project

                         The Massive Movement Project

    Scientist has shown the earth is inside the sun by geocentric model the earth in center. Based on astronomy study.  Ptolemy  has  thought of this theory. Also scientist Copernicus  thought of the theory heliocentric model that the sun is in the center. However its shows that the sun is inside the solar system because the earth moves faster then the mars.

    The earth's motions affect us each day because of revolution which is the movement of one body around another such as the earth's orbit around the sun. The shape of the earth's orbit is ellipse.  It takes 365 and 6 hours long for earth to revolve one time around the Sun. Evidence such as the tilt and revolution proves the earth rotates. Rotation is when the movement of earth around its axis or imaginary line throught the earth with an axis tilt of 23.5 degree. Polaris it's important because the north axis always point tilt the star. The equator is a line that separated the earth half  into two hemispheres the northen and southern hemipheres. It takes the earth 24 hours to rotate on its axis each hour. This is proves by pendulum and coriolis effect that earth rotates.   

    The sun, moon and earth interacts by helping each other manage and keep the earth revolves and rotates. Revolution is one of the reason we have different seasons and time zones everywhere. Aphelion is fastest, perihelion is closest. Seasons isa change on earth weather based on earth position. The four seasons which are winter, spring, summer and fall happen cause of where the tilt axis is pointed. Direct sunlight is when the aix is pointed to the sun (summer) and Indirect Sunlight is when the axis is pointed near the sun (winter). Therefore there is no seasons at the equator because there is always direct sunlight.

    The sun, moon, and earth is one causes that effect the time zone we have. There are 24 times zones in the world that are divided in 15 degree by longitudes lanes. The international date line is a boundary formed where the 1st and 24th time zones meet. The greenwich mean time it's where time zone starts. All these changes makes the seasons has a date to come such as the winter solstice the day which is December 21 or 22 the sun reaches its lowest point in the sky. Also the summer solstice
the day which is June 21 or 22 when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky or earth.

    Equinoxes is when the sun is directly over the equator and the number of daylight and night time hours are equal worldwide. There is the vernal spring equinox in march and the autumnal equinox in september or october.

    The phases of the moon are affected by the movement of the sun and it also affect on how the moon itself and earth comes on earth. The moon phases is when the moon moves around of the earth and it needed 27/1 days. Waxing it's when the moon is getting bigger (2,3,4) and waning is when the moon is getting smaller (6,7,8). Based on the moon phases their shapes comes differently such as new moon means no moon cannot see the moon, crescent moon means less than half, quarter moon means moon half, gibbous moon means more than half and full moon means all.

       Tide is a change of level on earth's ocean. The spring tide is when the sun and moon gets in a right trianlge and the water level increase in the sides. The neap tide is when sea level stays normal without changing.

     There is two type of eclipses. Solar eclipse is when the sun is cover by the moon.  A lunar eclipse is when the sun covered completely by the moon. A partial eclpise is when the sun is covered by half of the moon. Difference between them total is when earth's shadow blocks the light to the moon and partial is when the sunlight is blocked.  Umbra is the opaque, darker part of the shadow. The penumbra is the semi opaque, lighter part of the shadow.

Plates Tectonics

The Continental Drift Theory

This theory is the movement of the Earth's continents relative to each other by appearing to drift or compacted together. In 1915, Alfred Wegener proposed this theory, he hypothesized that there was supercontinent 220 million years ago, which he named Pangaea or All-earth. Alfed founded evidence such as fossils, puzzle, and mountains when they were together. Overtime Pangaea started to break up into two smaller supercontinents, called Laurasia and Gondwanaland, during the Jurassic period. By the end of the Cretaceous period, the continents were separating into land masses that look like our modern day continents which are seven continents.

 

 

The part of lithosphere (land) we live on is made up of four layers from the inside ad the outside. For example the Inner core a solid layer made up of nickel and iron, the Outer core is also made mostly of iron, nickel and melted metals  into a very hot liquid. The mantle very thick and made up of melted rocks. Also the crust the thin and rocky layer we consider as earth.

 

The plates tectonics is the theory by which scientist believe that the earth is made up of plates (piece of earth broken up into many pieces) and moves. Also explains the cause of earthquakes, volcanoes, oceanic trenches, mountain range formation.

 

The top layers of the plates are called the crust. Oceanic crust (the crust under the oceans) is thinner  than continental crust which is the land we live on. The earth interior is made up of plates (break in earth surface) that could be either continental or oceanic crust.

In these plates there is different type of movement happening such as divergent boundary (the plates moves apart each other), convergent boundary (the plates moves toward each other) and transform boudary (the plates slide past each other).

Faults is a break in the earth's surface. There is three main types of faults. Normal fault when the one side of the break moves down, Reverse fault when one side of the break moves up and finally Strike slip faults slide past each other. Each of them create a continental earthquake.

 

These different type of boundaries can cause natural disasters such as earthquake which is a movement of the earth's surface causes by the pressure of the two plates sliding each that can causes a lot of damages.  Also tsunami an earthquake happen under the ocean with huge waves.

 

Not only naural disasters happen but there is other effects created such as mountains building which happen when convergent plate comes together and formed like folded and dome mountains formed by when magma entered between two layers of sedimentary rock. Also rift valley and ridges.

Folded Mountains

Dome Mountains

I agree with the plates tectonics theory because all the evidence are realistic and are showned with facts. I believe these natural disasters can't stop happening nothing can't prevent them. They will occur as long the earth is still there. Over all the plate tectonics movement happen naturally even it causes damages and change to the environment, we can protect ourselves and be careful about the changes and be able to adapt with it. The earth will still moving.

Reflection

As long I was doing this project, I enjoyed most of the parts of it. The research was interesting and I never knew how the earth was formed. Based on what I found it was incredible and informative to know and to learn. The challenging part was to get information organized and summarize it in my own word in order to present it to the teacher. I learned a few new skills such as an editor I have to proofread my own work and to get things done on time which is hard for me often. I guess I could have search more topic and work on topic I dont really know about yet. I dont really have nothing to change about the tectonics plates project. I though it was a great lesson to know about and it is important to know how the earth is form and why things around us happen.