Read the introduction to your textbook, pages 2-11.
Choose ONE of the following questions and answer it thoroughly. This is your first homework, and with it you are making a first impression upon your teacher. Use your best written English to answer the question. Demonstrate your ability to communicate. Your grade will be based on your quality of expression; there is no “right” or “wrong” answer. Show me the best writing of which you are capable. YOUR RESPONSE SHOULD BE ADDED AS A COMMENT TO THIS BLOG.
1. It has been suggested that the universe may be 15 billion years old. The introduction of your textbook defines a light year as the distance traveled by light on one year. Light travels at about 3 x 10^5 kilometers (km) per second. Explain how this information could be used to predict that the universe must be smaller than 2 x 10^26 km across.
2. The Bible states in Joshua 10:12-13 that “…the sun stood still and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.” (Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, 1984, International Bible Society, Colorado Springs, CO. Used by permission.) Is there any conflict between believing the biblical account of the sun stopping in the sky and the structure of our solar system as described in the introduction of your textbook?
3. One reason that many people are interested in astronomy is the possibility that life exists beyond the earth. With particular reference to the description of the scientific method, what sort of evidence (not including actually meeting an alien!) do you feel would be required to make a strong claim that life probably exists elsewhere?
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There’s definitely a conflict between the bible and science in this case. The sun itself revolves around another object, so if the sun stopped orbiting, our solar system would just stop in the dead of space and eventually collide with another solar system in the Milky Way. The biblical account could be metaphorical, in the sense that the said avenging lasted for a long time.
2. In the introduction of the text book, it shows that the sun is in the center of the solar system and all the planets move around it. In biblical days they believed that the sun moved around the Earth, but they did not believe that the Earth rotated and moved around the sun. The main conflict between the biblical account of the sun stopping and the structure of the solar system shown in the text book indicates that if this biblical event took place then the sun most not have stopped moving, but the Earth must have actually stopped rotating.
The scientific method states that a hypothesis must be able to be tested directly. So for a theory to be formed that there is life on another planet, there must be physical evidence. Perhaps this could be water or a similar atmosphere like Earth's.
Question Three: I would believe that life exists on other planets if when we do experiments we actually saw something happening on those planets. We never see things happening on other planets therefore it is hard to believe there is life outside of the planet earth.
All the time, there are people suggesting that there is life existing elsewhere, beyond the earth and what the human eye may be able to see. There is a whole universe outside of human comprehension. The scientific method is a common technique used by many astronomers and scientists. This method has six main steps, and one of the key steps is testing the hypothesis. When looking for life existing beyond earth, there has to be something in the universe that has what a life needs to live. By breaking down the chemical composure of an organism, cells are commonly found. These cells need certain things to survive such as water, nutrients or sun light. If such a place exists in the universe that contains what these living cells need to survive, it is very likely that a type of cell life could live beyond what scientists and astronomers know of today.
Question 3: In order to make a strong claim that life exists elsewhere, I feel that we would need an actual sample of life itself from another planet. Without bringing back the true evidence, it would be hard to prove this idea. If there was some way to preserve the life, and get it back to earth, it would be really interesting to experiment with. Even the smallest creature, or live cell could say a lot about what else is out there.
Question #3: I believe that there can be life beyond the Earth because Scientist’s have found proof on Mars that there is ice and living bacteria. This really makes me believe that there is hope of finding a living thing other than on the Earth.
3. It is necessary to have a sort of sample to experiment on in order to find out if life exists anywhere. There should be life is the sample has some characteristics, such as water and nutrients, for an organism to live in that area. Otherwise, if you did not have any real evidence, it would be impossible to conclude that a place has any life.
To provide evidence supporting the existence of another human species in other solar systems would require scientists to leave our solar system to gather samples or evidence of other like-earth planets. For the other planets in our solar system it is made obvious that earth is the only livable planet because of the different variations of resources it provides. Because of the human biology, earth provides a correct living space for us; however, if some other life were to survive on Venus or Mars or any of the other planets, it would have the evolution of a different kind of species to cater to the other planets climate and living conditions. Through the scientific method it has not been proven but could be possible, that there are living species outside our solar system that have not yet been discovered. To discover these other planets it will take scientists and their instruments to do the unthinkable, to reach and collect data from many light years and light years away to detect another species…if there is one?
Question 3: I think I would believe that there are signs of life on other planets if I saw forms of life, such as water, some source of energy, and light. It is so hard to justify life on other plants, just because of how far away they are, so it is necessary for physical evidence to be provided in order to sustain those ideas.
3. The scientific method states that in order to prove a hypothesis, it must first be tested by experimentation. In order to experiment, we must first expand our space program so that we can go farther out and explore new things. Right now we are very limited to how far we can travel into space and we need to explore beyond the moon if we ever want to find other living things outside of Earth. As for the evidence, we would need to find a planet with water; because water contains bacteria and other microrganisms. We have already discovered water on Mars and this makes me think that there is life (although very small) outside of Earth.
i believe that god created the world, and thus along with it created the universe. though i think that this particular verse from the bible is mis-stated (to a certain extent). not necessicarily in the sense that the sun came to an actual halt, but it was an over exhaurated description of saying that until the nation advenged itself it would be unable to be relieved of the heat. i don't think that it necessicarily meant the progression of the sun in the sky (in a scientific manner) was altered.
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