Mark ASTB03 Blog

ASTB03 Assignment 5                                                    Mark - 6110        Georges Lemaître (July 1894 - June 1966) was an astronomer, physicist, and Catholic priest. At the age of 17, Georges began to study civil engineering at the University of Leuven. At this point, his studies were interrupted by World War 1, where Georges served as an artillery officer for the Belgian army. After the war, he switched his studies from civil engineering to physics and mathematics. After a few years of study, he received his doctorate in 1920 for a thesis on "Approximation of functions of several  real variables". In 1923, Georges became a graduate student of astronomy at the University of Cambridge in England. He worked alongside Arthur Eddington, who triggered Georges interest in cosmology, and astronomy. Georges mathematical background of numerical analysis gave him a strong backbone for his studies in astronomy.  Lemaître believed strongly in Einstein's theory of

ASTB03 Assignment 4                                          Mark - 6110     Pluto is a dwarf planet that orbits the sun at an average distance of 39.5AU. A dwarf planet has similar characteristics to a planet, it just simply isn't large enough to be considered a regular planet. Pluto's diameter is only 2370km, less than 1/5 of the diameter of the Earth. Pluto itself is very rocky and cold, having average temperatures of roughly -225 degrees Celsius. It has many icy mountains, with heights rising as high as 3500 metres (similar to the Rockies). The orbital period of Pluto is 248 years, while its rotation period is roughly 6.39 days. Pluto's geology is comprised of mostly frozen nitrogen, water ice, and rock. Its atmosphere consists of nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide. Pluto has 5 moons which orbit around it. Pluto is one of the largest bodies that belongs to the Kuiper belt, a disc of rocky, icy, and relatively small bodies that orbit past Neptune. Pluto was disc