ANCIENT ASTRONOMY
• The Greeks used basic geometry and trigonometry to measure the sizes and
distances of the largest appearing bodies in heavens, the Sun and the Moon.  
• They believed that the earth is at the center of the universe and it is sphere-
shape. The moon, the sun, and the planets are revolving around the earth. 
 
The Greek Philosophers 
 

Anaxagoras  
• 499 BC to 428 BC
• Born in Clazomenae, Ionia (now Turkey)
• stated that the MOON is sphere – shape thus, it shines by only half reflected
sunlight at one time. 
• Phases of moon and eclipses.
• Sun is a big hot rock.

Short Biography
• Anaxagoras was born to a wealthy family, but gave up his wealth to become a
scientist. He was the first Ionian to go to Athens, bringing the new Ionian philosophical
tradition to the Greek homeland. He becomes friends with Pericles.
Importance to Astronomy
• Anaxagoras taught that the sun was a hot rock, and that the moon shone from
the reflected light of the sun. He also understands that eclipses are caused when the
moon passed through the shadow of the earth (a lunar eclipse) or when the moon gets
in between the sun and the moon (a solar eclipse.) He ends up in jail in Athens for
teaching that the sun and moon were not gods, but merely places. Pericles gets him out
of jail eventually.
• Anaxagoras does not believe in a divine intelligence that runs the universe. While
he does believe that there is some sort of life force that causes the universe, and all in
it, to run, this life force isn't by definition an intelligent thing. (Kind of like The Force in
Star Wars.)
• There is a great quote attributed to Anaxagoras. He was asked what was the
purpose in being born. He replied "The investigation of sun, moon, and heaven."
 

Aristotle 
• 384 BC to 322 BC
• Born in Stagira, Greece
• Made the conclusion   that the earth is spherical because it always casts a
curved shadow when it eclipses the moon.
• He knows that we see the moon by the light of the sun, how the phases of the
moon occur and understands how eclipses work. 

Short Biography
• Aristotle was born in Stagira, Greece, in 384 BC. He was sent to be a student at
Plato's Academy, and eventually became a teacher there himself. He was the tutor of
Alexander the Great. When Plato died, and Aristotle was not chosen to take over Plato's
Academy, he formed his own school in Athens called the Lyceum. Aristotle wrote about
almost everything, including medicine, physics, astronomy, biology, law, logic, and
government, to name a few. Many of his writings form the basis of Western thought.
Importance to Astronomy
• Aristotle knew that the earth was a sphere. Philosophically, he argues that each
part of the earth is trying to be pulled to the center of the earth, and so the earth would
naturally take on a spherical shape. (Gravitationally, this is actually accurate!) He then
points out observations that support the sphericalness of the earth. First, the shadow of
the earth on the moon during a lunar eclipse was always circular. The only shape that
always casts a circular shadow is a sphere. Second, as one travelled more north or
south, the positions of the stars in the sky change. There are constellations visible in the
north that one cannot see in the south and vice versa. (He uses this to also argue that
the earth isn't very big, because you don't have to travel very far to notice the
difference.) Third, he says not to discount those who say that Morroco and India are
really close to each other, because there are elephants in both of these regions. (De
Caelo, Book II Part 14)
• Aristotle talks about the work of Eudoxus and Callippus, who had developed an
earth centered model of the planets. In these models, the center of the earth is the
center of all the other motions. While it is not sure if Eudoxus and Callippus actually
thought the planets moved in circles, Aristotle certainly does. Aristotle even adds
"counteracting spheres" so that the motion of one sphere doesn't interfere with the
motion of the one next to it. To Aristotle, the many spheres that carry the planets,
including the sun and moon, are very real, and he says there are 55 of them.
(Metaphysics, Book XII, Part 8)
• Aristotle rejects a moving earth for two reasons. Most important is that he doesn't
understand inertia. To Aristotle, the natural state for an object is to be at rest. He
believes that it takes a force in order for an object to move. Using Aristotle's ideas, if the
earth were moving through space, if you tripped, you would not be in contact with the
earth, and so would get left behind in space. Since this obviously does not happen, the
earth must not move. This misunderstanding of inertia confuses people until the time of
Galileo. A second, but not as important, reason Aristotle rejects a moving earth is that
he recognized that if the earth moved and rotated around the sun, then "there would
have to be passings and turnings of the fixed stars": the positions of the stars would
change with the seasons. (De Caelo, Book II, part 14) In modern words, there would be
an observable parallax of the stars. One cannot see stellar parallax with the naked-eye,
so Aristotle concludes that the earth must be at rest. (The stars are so far away, that
one needs a good telescope to measure stellar parallax, first measured in 1838.)
• Aristotle believes that the objects in the heavens are perfect and unchanging.
Since he believes that the only eternal motion is circular with a constant speed, the
motions of the planets must be circular. This comes to be called "The Principle of
Uniform Circular Motion" and even Copernicus believes in it. The perfectness and
constancy of the heavens ends up being challenged in the late 16th century when
Tycho Brahe shows that a supernova and a comet are beyond the orbit of the moon.
• Aristotle and his ideas become very important because they become
incorporated into the Catholic Church's theology in the twelfth century by Thomas
Aquinas. In the early 16th century, the Church bans new interpretations of scripture in a
defensive move against the growing Protestant movement. At the time, there had been
no interpretations involving a moving earth; thus teaching a non-geocentric model of the
solar system becomes a bad thing to do.
 

ARISTARCHUS
• The scientist who professed the heliocentric, (Helios=Sun, centric =centered). 
• c310 BC to c230 BC
• Born in Samos
• Professed the heliocentric, (Helios=Sun, centric=centered) ; Heliocentric theory.
• Relative distance to moon and sun.
• Relative sizes of earth, moon and sun.

Short Biography
• Born in Samos, not a lot is known about Aristarchus. Most of his work is lost, and
we only know about him because other ancient Greek people talked about him.
Importance to Astronomy
• Only one book of Aristarchus survives, "On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun
and Moon." In it he proves:
o The distance to the sun is greater than 18, but less than 20, times the distance to
the moon.
o The radius of the sun is greater than 18, but less than 20, times greater than the
radius of the moon.
o The radius of the sun is greater than 19/3 (6.3), but less than 43/6 (7.2), times
the radius of the earth.While the results are off, his basic geometry and methods are
sound. (Actually, the sun is about 400 times farther than the moon, and about 109 times
bigger than the earth.)
• Aristarchus' method for determining the relative distances to the moon and the
sun is pretty easy to understand. Imagine drawing a triangle by connecting the centers
of earth, moon and sun, When the moon is "exactly" 1/2 full, and looks like a semicircle,
then the angle earth-moon-sun is 90, so that the distance between the earth and the
sun is the hypoteneuse of the right triangle. One just has to measure the angle theta in
the diagram, and we can say that the ratio of the distance to the moon to the distance to
the sun is equal to the cosine of theta.
• Aristarchus said that the angle theta was 87, which is too small. It turns out that
the angle would be just under 90. In practice, it is also difficult to accurately decide
when the moon is exactly half full, and so difficult to accurately measure the angle, so
while the method is correct, it turns out to be difficult to do.
• Aristarchus notes that the angular size of the moon and sun are the same, which
is basically true. Because of this, if the sun is about 19 times farther away than the
moon, then it must be about 19 times larger.Having calculated how much farther away
the sun is than the moon, Aristarchus is then able to calculate how much bigger the sun
is than the earth. To do this, he notes that during a lunar eclipse, when the moon enters
the shadow of the earth, the size of the shadow is about twice the size of the moon.
(Again, his data is a little off: it is closer to 3 times the size of the moon.) The image
below show the moon, earth and sun during a lunar eclipse.
 
Ds = Distance to the sun; Dm = Distance to the moon; and D = Distance from earth to
apex of its shadow.
Rs = Radius of sun; Re = Radius of the earth; and R = Radius of the earth's shadow at
the moon's position.

HIPPARCHUS
• 190 BC to c120 BC
• Born in Nicaea, Bithynia (now Turkey)
• determined the location of almost 850 stars which he divided into six groups
according to their brightness.
• Determines the length of the year.
• Discovers the Precession of the Equinoxes.
• He measured the length of the year to within minutes of the modern value and
developed a method for predicting the times of lunar eclipses within a few hours. 
• Applies epicycles to the sun and moon.
Short Biography
• Very little is known about Hipparchus. None of his major work survives, and most
of what is known is due to what Ptolemy says in the Almagest. He was born in Nicaea,
which is now the modern town of Iznik in Turkey. He lived and worked in Rhodes and
Alexandria.
Importance to Astronomy
• Hipparchus is often called the first real astronomer, as he was the first Greek to
actually make systematic observations of the sky. He was also a very talented
mathematician who made great strides in the development of the classic Greek model
of the solar system.
• Hipparchus catalogs the position and brightness of over 800 stars. He was the
first person to record the actual angular positions using the ecliptic as a base line. He
ranked the stars according to a brightness scale of six magnitudes.
• He discovered the slight wobble in the axis of the earth's rotaion, also called the
"Precession of the Equinoxes." The axis of the earth's rotation currently points to a spot
near the Polaris - hence it is called the North Star as it doesn't move very much over the
course of the night. Because of a slight gravitational effect, the axis is slowly rotating
with a 26,000 year period, and Hipparchus discovers this because he notices that the
position of the equinoxes along the celestial equator were slowly moving.
• He calculates the length of the year to be 365 days, 5 hours, 55 minutes and 12
seconds long and calculates his error to be no more than 15 minutes. (It turns out he
was only 6 minutes off.)
• He also came up with another way to determine the distance to the moon. Using
parallax, he was able to calculate that the moon was between 59 and 67 earth radii
away. (The correct average distance is 60.) He did this from a solar eclipse. During a
solar eclipse, the moon just covers the sun (remember that they are both about 1/2
degree in angular size.) However, only a very small portion of the earth can actually
witness the eclipse in totality, because the shadow of the moon on the earth is fairly
small. Hipparchus used data from a solar eclipse viewed from 2 different locations. The
diagram below would represent a solar eclipse as viewed from 2 different places on the
earth, labeled A and B.
 

Claudius Ptolemy 
• C85 to C165
• Born in Alexandria, Egypt
• presented the geocentric outlook of the Greeks in its most sophisticated model
that became known as Ptolemaic system.
• Culmination of Greek Astronomy and cosmineraof solar system
• Wrote Syntaxis aka the Almagest
• 1st working predictive model of solar system
 
Short Biography
• Very little is known of Ptolemy's life. He most likely grew up in or near Alexandria,
where he studied mathematics and astronomy. While he is most known for his work in
mathematical astronomy, he wrote a number of other books that have survived,
including Optics and Geography, which was an attempt to make a map of the world as
known by Ptolemy with latitude and longitude measurements.
Importance to Astronomy
• Ptolemy wrote the Almagest around 150 AD. The name Almagest actually comes
from the latinized version of the Arabic name for his work, al-majisti, meaning "the
greatest." The Greek name, Syntaxis, is short for its original title, The Mathematical
Compilation.
• With the Almagest, Ptolemy produced the first working, predictive model of the
solar system in the world, and was the culmination of Greek astronomy and the
geocentric model. The Almagest was a complete textbook in mathematical astronomy,
and was so successful that it became the standard in mathematical astronomy for 1400
years. The Almagest itself was broken into 13 chapters. He begins by teaching all the
mathematics that is needed for the computations in the book, and then goes on to give
detailed descriptions of how to make astronomical observations and mathematical
models for the sun, moon and planets. 
• He includes mathematical tables and star charts, and explains how to improve on
observational data.
•  He describes how to make any astronomical calculation that one may want. 
• He improved on the work of Hipparchus, and produced the first complete working
and predictive model of the solar system, and it was the basis for mathematical
astronomy until the sixteenth century when Copernicus introduced his heliocentric
model of the solar system. 
• The Greek geocentric model is still often called the Ptolemeic system in honor of
this achievement.
MODERN ASTRONOMY
 This was developed from religious and philosophical ideas of the great scientists. 
 
FIVE SCIENTIST 
Nicolaus Copernicus 
– adapted the scientific theory of heliocentrism, stating that    the motions of celestial
objects can be explained without putting the Earth at rest in the center of the universe. 
February 19, 1473 to May 24, 1543
- Born in Torun, Poland
• adapted the scientific theory of heliocentrism, stating that the motions of celestial
objects can be explained without putting the Earth at rest in the center of the universe. 
• Heliocentric model of solar system.
- "Commentariolus"
Short Biography
• Copernicus was the youngest of four children. After his father's death when he was
only 11 years old, Copernicus and his siblings were adopted by his uncle, who would
later become Bishop of Ermland. 
• Copernicus was able to go to school, and eventually to the University of Cracow, and
then later on to Italy to continue his studies in law, mathematics, astronomy and
medicine. 
• He finally returns to Poland for good in 1506, and after his uncle dies in 1512, he
becomes a canonist at Frauneburg. (This means that he works for the Catholic Church,
but he is not a priest.) 
• Copernicus is able to support himself and find enough time to continue to do
astronomy. He works on astronomy for most of his life, but mostly alone and as a
hobby.
Importance to Astronomy
• Copernicus believed in the Principal of Uniform Circular Motion - possibly even more
so than Ptolemy. 
• He objects to the Ptolemy's invention of the equant as a violation of that principal. He
ends up proposing a heliocentric theory, while still relying on circles and epicycles, does
not use the equant. Around 1511, he circulates a little manuscript called
Commentariolus in which he lays out a general framework for a model of the solar
system, which he bases on the following seven postulates:
• There is no one center of the orbits of the all the planets.
• Only the moon goes around the earth.
• All the planets, including the earth, go around the sun.
• The stars are immeasurably far away.
• The stars don't move - they only appear to move because the earth rotates once a day
on its axis.
• The sun doesn't move - it only appears to move because the earth revolves around
the sun.
• During retrograde motion, the planets don't actually go backwards, they only appear to
go backwards because of the motion of the earth.
• He doesn't offer any real details of the theory, just lays out what things would look like.
He promises a fuller version in the future, and he works on his theory for the next 30
years.

Tycho Brahe 
• expressed the idea of stellar parallax that if the earth does revolve along an orbit
around the Sun, the position of the stars near to it, when observed from extreme points
in Earth’s orbit six months apart, should shift with respect to the more distant stars. \
• December 14, 1546 to October 24, 1601
- Born in Knudstrup, Denmark
- Most accurate naked-eye astronomical observations in history.
- Proves comets and a supernova are celestial bodies.
- Tychonic model of the solar system.
 
Short Biography
• Tycho was born into Danish nobility, and was actually raised by his uncle, though no
one really knows why. He ends up attending the University of Copenhagen in 1559, and
about a year later there was a predicted solar eclipse that got him interested and
excited in astronomy. He begins to purchase astronomical texts and instruments and
begins making his own observations. It becomes apparent early on that existing tables
just weren't that accurate, whether they were made from Ptolemy's model or
Copernicus'. He decides he can do better.
• Tycho was outgoing and thought highly of himself. In 1566, he gets in an argument
with another student over who was the better mathematician which they tried to resolve
by having a duel. I don't know what happened to the other student, but Tycho had the
end of nose cut off, and he ends up getting a prosthetic made.
• Around 1570, Tycho sets up his own little observatory and laboratory on family land
and begins doing astronomy. 1572 was a good year for Tycho. First he met a girl who
would become his common-law wife (they could never legally marry because he was
nobility and she was not) and second, a new star appears in the constellation of
Cassiopeia. (Reality was that a long time ago, a star blew up, and the light from that
explosion finally got to the earth in 1572.) His observations, and subsequent travels,
give Tycho a very good reputation. He is ready to leave Denmark when King offers him
the island of Hven and sizable support to set up the premier observatory of his time.
Importance to Astronomy
• Tycho was dismayed that one couldn't tell which astronomical model was correct. He
didn't like the equant and he didn't like a moving earth, and neither the Copernican or
Ptolemeic model worked any better than the other. 
• The Copernican model was prettier, but didn't seem to work any better than the
Ptolemaic. He also quickly realized that the astronomical tables and data availabel at
the time just wasn't that accurate. 
• He realizes that if he is going to figure out what is correct and really happening up in
the sky, he was going to have to take his own data, and be very careful and as accurate
as possible. So he learns about astronomical instruments, and sets up his own little
observatory in the back yard, so to speak.
• In 1572, a new star suddenly appeared in the constellation of Cassiopeia. It was noted
all over the world. Tycho was one of many people who observed it; over the next few
weeks, it got brighter and brighter, eventually it was possible to see it in the daytime,
and then it slowly faded from view. In all, it was visible for about a year and a half.
Tycho had set up an observatory in the back year and made careful observations over
this time period, and he published his results in a little book called De Stella Nova, or
the New Star. (The picture to the left is from this book - the new star is the big one at the
top.) In it, he showed how there was no measurable parralax, and so it had to be farther
than the moon. This is important because people still clung to the notion that the
heavens were perfect and unchanging - and well, this was a big and sudden change.
(People would have argued that anything new was simply up in the atmosphere, and so
really a part of the earth.) This book also helped to give Tycho a reputation as a talented
astronomer.
• Soon after, the king of Denmark gives Brahe the island of Hven to run as a his own
feudal estate. On this island, he builds a castle/observatory called Uraniborg (picture to
the right), and by 1576 Tycho is running the largest scientific enterprise in the world at
that time. He is truly gifted in making and astronomical insturments that can measure
celestial positions with an accuracy up to only a couple minutes of arc. In 1584, he
builds a second observatory called Stjerneborg, for even more accurate measurements.
(Basically, it was more windproof and solid.) He proceeds to take systematic, and highly
accurate, observations of the stars and planets for over 20 years. 
• In 1597, the new king of Denmark finally ends his support of Uraniborg, and Tycho
eventually moves to Prague after getting appointed the Imperial Mathematican to
Emprorer Rudolph II.
• In 1577, a comet appears that Brahe is able to show is also beyond the orbit of the
moon and so is also a celestial event. Yet again, there is something new and changing
in the heavens.
• In 1588, Tycho proposes a hybrid model of the solar system. (See image below.) He
thinks he has found the answer to what is going on up in the sky. It combines the
beautiful "scale" of the Copernican model with a stationary earth. He proposes that the
earth is at rest in the middle of the universe. The moon obviously goes around the earth
and so does the sun and the stars. All the other planets, however, go around the sun.
He never actually works out any mathematical details, as he can never quite get it right.
Mars is particularly difficult to reconcile and make fit.
 
Johannes Kepler 
• December 27, 1571 to November 15, 1630
• Born in Weil der Stadt, Germany
• derived the three basic laws of planetary motion.  
• The path of the planets about the sun is elliptical in shape, with the center of the sun
being located at one focus. (The Law of Ellipses) 
• An imaginary line drawn from the center of the sun to the center of the planet will
sweep out equal areas in equal intervals of time. (The Law of Equal Areas) 
• The ratio of the squares of the periods of any two planets is equal to the ratio of the
cubes of their average distances from the sun. (The Law of Harmonies) 
Short Biography
• Johannes Kepler was born 7 months after his parents were married. Kepler himself
said he was premature, and that is why he was so sickly as a child, but there was
certainly a lot of suspicion in town over what really happened. 
• His parents didn't really get along. His father, Heinrich, had no real skills and was a
mercenary, disappearing for long stretches. At one point, when he had been gone for a
long stretch of time, Kepler's mother actually left him with his paternal grandparents
while she went off to find him. (Somehow, she did find him and drag him back home.)
Kepler's father finally left for good when Kepler was 16. While his parents were not rich,
they were not poor either, and Kepler was able to go to school.
• He was born in Weil der Stadt, which was in the Duchy of Wurttemberg, a Lutheran
stronghold in the Holy Roman Empire. (Wurttemberg is now a state in southern
Germany.) His family moved a few times in the Duchy while he was a boy.
 
Importance to Astronomy
• From his days as a student, Kepler was a Copernican. Starting in 1591, Kepler was an
astronomy and mathematics teacher in the Lutheran school in Graz. 
• One day he was in the middle of a lecture concerning the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn
when he noticed an interesting geometrical fact: one could draw an equilateral triangle
whose vertices all (nearly) hit the orbit of Saturn and at the same time, the orbit of
Jupiter was tangent to the sides of the triangles. (See diagram at right.) 
• Kepler was struck by the idea because he thought it may be a clue as to why the
planets were spaced the way they were. (Remember: in the Copernican system, the
planetary orbital sizes have fixed ratios, unlike the Ptolemeic system where all the
planetary orbits are independent of each other.) 
• He finally published his idea in 1596 in a little book called Mysterium
Cosmographicum. Kepler proposed a geometric system involving 6 nested spheres and
one of each of the 5 Platonic Solids. Each sphere was the radius of a planetary orbit.
Each Platonic solid had a sphere inscribed into it, tangent to its faces, and a sphere
hitting all the vertices. 
• There were only 6 planets orbiting the sun because there were only 5 Platonic solids
to act as spacers for the orbits. Kepler also proposes that the planets are all moving
around the sun due to a force somehow exerted by the sun on the planets, and that this
force weakened the farther from the sun a planet was. The diagram below represents
the solar system according to this scheme.
3 Laws of Planetary Motion
 
• By 1618, Kepler had discovered what are now called Kepler's 3 laws of Planetary
Motion. To repeat, he discovered these laws empirically, meaning that he only figured
them out based on the data, not on an underlying physics. Nonetheless, it was a
collossal intellectual achievement. (It turns out that these laws are valid for any object
orbitting another, whether that is planets around a star, moons around a planet or
satellites around the earth.)
Planets orbit the sun in an ellipse, with the sun at one focus of the ellipse. The image
below shows an elliptical orbit, with the sun at one focus. There are a number of orbital
parameters shown in the diagram: perihelion (closest distance to the sun), aphelion
(farthest distance to the sun), semi-major axis (average distance to sun), and
eccentricity. Note also the mathematical relationship between the variables.
 
Note that the eccentrities of the orbits of the visible planets are all very small. Mars has
the largest eccentricity, and it is only 0.093 - very nearly circular!
 
• As a planet goes around the sun, it speeds up as it gets closer to the sun and slows
down as it gets farther away from the sun in such a way that the area per time swept out
by a line drawn between the sun and planet is constant. This is usually called the equal
areas in equal times law. The image below represents the position of a planet, in red, at
various times in its orbit around the sun, in yellow. The time interval for each of the blue
regions is the same, so the blue areas are all the same. (You could rephrase this law as
the rate at which area is swept out iby a planet as it goes around the sun is constant.)
 
• T2/R3 = k. 
The ratio of the sidereal period squared divided by the cube of the semi-major axis for
all the planets around the sun was a constant for all the planets going around the sun.
This is called his Harmonic Law. If one uses units of years and astronomical units then
the constant is equal to 1. (Why?) Kepler was also able to show that the moons of
Jupiter also obeyed this law, but only in comparing one moon to another.

Gallileo Galilei 
• February 15, 1564 to January 8, 1642
• Born in Pisa, Italy
• Greatest contribution was his first description of the moving objects.
• First to use telescope in astronomy.
Short Biography
• Galileo grew up in Pisa and Florence. He studied medicine at the University of Pisa,
and eventually became a mathematics teacher at the University of Padua from 1589 to
1610. After publication of Siderius Nuncius, 
• he returned to Florence as a mathematician and philosopher to the Grand Duke
Cosimo De Medici. While in this position, he writes several letters attempting to
reconcile the picture of a moving earth with Biblical passages having been interpreted
as indicating a stationay earth.
Importance to Astronomy
In 1609, Galileo hears of early telescopes and builds his own, and looks up at the night
sky with his (at the time) high quality telescope. 
He is so astounded by what he sees, he rushes Sidereus Nuncius to press in 1610
announcing some amazing discoveries with far reaching consequences. Sadly, I will not
tell you what they are here, so read the book like you are supposed to.
By the winter of 1610, Galileo had observed Venus over a few months, and watched
how Venus was undergoing phases, like the moon. 
This was a major discovery, as it proved that Venus had to go around the sun, thus
disproving the Ptolemeic theory. (Note that it does NOT prove that the earth goes
around the sun, as there was the Tychonic model which had a stationary earth, and a
Venus that went around the sun.) (See ../concepts/ptolemywrong.html for more details.
Through 1611-12, Galileo made observations of sun spots, along with a few other
scientists at the time. He made very accurate drawings of what he saw, and was able to
show that the sun was spherical and rotated from his observations. (Kepler later thought
that this rotation of the sun somehow caused the revolution of the planets.)
The number of discoveries made with the telescope (along with the works of Kepler who
had found that Mars went around the sun in an elliptical orbit) ignites a battle between
the geocentrists and the heliocentrists. In addition to the incorrect Aristotlian physics
that was commonly believed, the religious issues all hinged on interpretations of some
lines from the Bible. The various Christian factions were arguing over deep religious
issues, and everyone was using and interpreting the Bible to further their own causes.

Sir Isaac Newton 

- January 4, 1643 to March 31, 1727
- Born in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England
– conceptualized the force of gravity. 
 
Short Biography
• Isaac Newton was born to his father, Isaac Newton, and mother, Hannah Ayscough, in
a small settlement in Lincolnshire, England. Isaac Newton senior died before his son
was born, and three years later Hannah was remarried to Barnabus Smith. Isaac hated
his stepfather. 
• Eventually, Isaac attended The King's School, but was removed in October 1659. His
mother tried to get him to be a good farmer, but he absolutely hated it. He was later put
back into the King's School. 
Importance to Astronomy
• Isaac made many theories of gravity and its effects on astronomical objects. Of
course, 
• he first learned about gravity by the famous falling apple. 
• Isaac also made a strong theory of heliocentrism, which he never doubted.

Solar System 
• The Solar System is defined as group of planets, moons, asteroids, and comets. 
• The Solar Nebula Theory is the model constrained in the formation of the solar system
which includes  the  motions  of  the  planets, compositions  and  ages  of  the  sun,
planets,  and meteorites. 
Theories of the Origin of Solar System  
Nebular Hypothesis
• states that hydrogen and other gases swirled around and condensed into our sun and
its planets. 
• Nebular Hypothesis, an explanation of how the solar system was formed, proposed by
Pierre Simon de Laplace in 1796. Laplace said that the material from which the solar
system was formed was once a slowly rotating cloud, or nebula, of extremely hot gas.
The gas cooled and the nebula began to shrink. As the nebula became smaller, it
rotated more rapidly, becoming somewhat flattened at the poles.
• A combination of centrifugal force, produced by the nebula's rotation, and gravitational
force, from the mass of the nebula, caused rings of gas to be left behind as the nebula
shrank. These rings condensed into planets and their satellites, while the remaining part
of the nebula formed the sun.
NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS—For many years the nebular hypothesis was a leading
theory. According to it, the sun and its planets supposedly condensed out of swirling
eddies of cold, dark, interstellar clouds of gas and dust.

Fission Theory
• according to George Darwin, he stated that the sun burst open and planets and moons
shot out a high speeds and went to their respective places, then stopped, and started
orbiting the sun as the moon began orbiting the planets. The moon lifted out from the
Pacific Ocean on a high tide and began orbiting the Earth. 
• The "fission theory" says that our sun burst one day, and all our planets came from it.
Then the moons shot out from each planet, stopped, turned sideways and began
circling the planets they came out of. Our moon is said to have emerged from an
explosion in the Pacific Ocean.

Capture Theory
• planets and moons were flying around, and some were captured by our sun and
began circling. 
• The "capture theory" says that our planets and moons were wandering around in
space and the planets were captured by the gravity of our sun, and the moons were
captured by the planets.

Accretion Theory
• a pile of space dust and rock chunks pushed together into our planet, and another pile
pushed itself into our moon. Then the moon got close enough and began encircling the
Earth.
The "accretion, condensation, nebular contraction," or "dust cloud" theory says that
small chunks of material separately formed themselves into our earth and the moon.
"According to this idea, a dust cloud began to rotate. . When the mass had swept up
most of the material in an eddy, a planet was formed."—*M. Bishop, *B. Sutherland, and
*P. Lewis, Focus on Earth Science (1981), p. 470.
It is said that the moon is just a pile of dust, and "just happened" to wander near and
begin circling our world, another "pile of dust." But two huge spheres—earth and moon
—so close to each other, would fly apart or, being so close to each other, would soon
crash. They would not endlessly circle one another, neither colliding nor separating.

Planetary Collision Theory 

• our world collided with small planet, and the explosion threw off rocks which became
the moon, and then it began orbiting us. 
• The "collision theory" of the origin our moon theorizes that our world is said to have
collided with a small planet. The resulting explosion threw off rocks which formed our
orbiting moon.
 
Stellar Collision Theory 
• our planets, moons, and suns spuns off from the collision between stars. 
 
Gas Cloud Theory 
• gas clouds were captured by our sun but instead of being drawn into it, they began
whirling and pushing themselves into planets and moons.  
• The "gas cloud theory" of our planets and moons teaches that gas clouds were
captured by our sun, which then mysteriously formed themselves at a distance into
planets and moons.

TYPES OF PLANETS 
1. Terrestrial planets are composed of rock, metals, with high densities, slow in
rotation, with weak magnetic field and absence of rings; namely, Mercury, Venus, Earth,
and Mars. 
 
• MERCURY
o The smallest terrestrial planet in the solar system, about a third the size of Earth. 
o It has a thin atmosphere, which causes it to swing between burning and freezing
temperatures. 
o Mercury is also a dense planet, composed mostly of iron and nickel with an iron
core. 
o The surface of Mercury has many deep craters and is covered by a thin layer of
tiny particle silicates. In 2012, scientists found extensive evidence of organics — the
building blocks of life — as well as water ice in craters shaded from the sun. 
o Mercury is so close to the Sun and its gravity, it wouldn’t be able to hold on to its
own moon. Any moon would most likely crash into Mercury or maybe go into orbit
around the Sun and eventually get pulled into it.
 
• VENUS
o  The hottest planet in the solar system. 
o About the same size as Earth.
o Venus has no known moons. Venus doesn’t have a moon is a mystery for
scientists to solve
o which is about the same size as Earth, has a thick, toxic carbon-monoxide-
dominated atmosphere that traps heat, making it the hottest planet in the solar system. 
o The planet is hostile to life as we know it.
o  Much of the planet's surface is marked with volcanoes and deep canyons. 
•  
• EARTH 
o The Blue Planet
o The only one planet with extensive regions of liquid water. 
o Has a rocky surface with mountains and canyons, and a heavy-metal core. 
o Earth's atmosphere contains water vapor, which helps to moderate daily
temperatures. 
o Have one Moon.
o The planet has regular seasons for much of its surface; regions closer to the
equator tend to stay warm, while spots closer to the poles are cooler and in the winter,
icy. The Earth's climate, however, is warming up due to climate change associated with
human-generated greenhouse gases, which act as a trap for escaping heat. 
o Water is necessary for life as we know it, and life is abundant on Earth — from
the deepest oceans to the highest mountains. 
o 332,946 Earths match the mass of the Sun. The Sun’s volume would need 1.3
million Earths to fill it.
 
• MARS
o The Red Planet
o Has the largest mountain in the solar system.
o While scientists have found no evidence of life yet, Mars is known to have water
ice and organics — some of the ingredients for living things.
o Mars has two small moons, Phobos and Deimos
o Has the largest mountain in the solar system, rising 78,000 feet (nearly 24 km)
above the surface. 
o Much of the surface is very old and filled with craters, but there are geologically
newer areas of the planet as well. 
o At the Martian poles are polar ice caps that shrink in size during the Martian
spring and summer. 
o Mars is less dense than Earth and has a smaller magnetic field, which is
indicative of a solid core, rather than a liquid one. 
o Evidence of methane has also been found in some parts of the surface. Methane
is produced from both living and non-living processes. 
o THE RED PLANET . is also a popular destination for spacecraft, given that the
planet may have been habitable in the ancient past.
 
 
2. Jovian planets are composed of gases, with low densities but fast in rotation,
have strong magnetic field and has many rings namely, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and
Neptune. 
 
• JUPITER
o The largest Planet
o The planet’s strong winds blowing east to west create the banded structure in the
atmosphere.
- Jupiter is 11 times larger than Earth in diameter.
- They have lots of moons. Jupiter, for instance, has 79 known moons.
- The most well-known of Jupiter's moons are Io (pronounced eye-oh), Europa, and
Callisto. 
- Jupiter also has the biggest moon in our solar system, Ganymede
o At great depths within Jupiter, for example, the hydrogen gas is compacted so
tightly that it exists in a rare metallic form.
o the brown clouds on Jupiter are deeper in the atmosphere than the planet’s white
ammonia clouds.
o Jupiter has 53 named moons and another 26 awaiting official names. Combined,
scientists now think Jupiter has 79 moons.
 
• SATURN
o Bright rings are the most visible and well known.
o The next largest, at nine times bigger than Earth.
o Has 53 moons that have been named. Saturn will have 62 moons.  And that’s not
counting Saturn’s beautiful rings.
o Saturn’s moons have great names like Mimas, Enceladus, and Tethys. 
o One of these moons, named Titan, even has its own atmosphere, which is very
unusual for a moon.
o Saturn also has nine moons awaiting confirmation. They’re unconfirmed because
we’re waiting to get more information about them. If all of these moons get confirmed, 
 
• URANUS
o Methane gas in the atmosphere gives the planet its blue-green color.
o Uranus is roughly four times larger than Earth.
o Uranus has 27 moons that we know.
o Some of them are half made of ice.
 
• NEPTUNE
• The clouds in Neptune’s atmosphere are made up of methane ice crystals
• Neptune is roughly four times larger than Earth.
• Neptune’s pink white methane ice clouds are higher in the atmosphere than its
blue gaseous atmosphere.
• Neptune has 14 named moons. One of Neptune's moons, Triton, is as big as
dwarf planet Pluto.
• The clouds in Neptune’s atmosphere are made up of methane ice crystals, which
appear pink in the image because they are reflecting near-infrared light.

UNIVERSE
Universe is described as an enormous empty space that holds small particle to the
biggest galaxy. Scientists   believe   that about 13.7 billion years ago the big explosion
happened   that set the universe into motion which is known as Big Bang explosion. 
 
History of the Universe 
 
The Big Bang Theory 
 
Many scientists considered this theory to be the most   scientifically correct explanation
of how the universe was generated through a ―Big Bang.  
 
The Big Bang Hypothesis states that all current and past matter in the universe came
into existence  at  the  same  time  about  thirteen  point  eight  billion  years  ago. All
matters were compacted   into   a   very   small   ball   with   infinite   density   and 
intense   heat   known   as Singularity. About 15 billion years ago, a cataclysmic
explosion occurred, hurling the material in all directions. The big bang marks the
inception of the universe; all matter and space were created at that instant. The ejected
masses of gas cooled and condensed, forming the stars that compose the galactic
systems we now observe fleeing from their birthplace. 
Astronomy 
 
It is a natural science of celestial body, such as stars, galaxies, planets, moons,
asteroids, comets and nebulae, and processes, the physics, chemistry, and evolution of
such objects and all phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of the Earth.  
 
Three Branches of Astronomy: 
• Astrophysics is a branch of astronomy that studies the physical nature of stars and
other celestial bodies.  
• Celestial Mechanics deals with the calculation of the motions of celestial objects such
as planets.  
• Cosmology deals with the study of the origin and development of the universe.
 
Sun 
• is referred as the star at the center of the solar system.
• Its gravity holds the solar system together, keeping everything from the biggest planets
to the smallest particles of debris in its orbit. 
• Electric currents in the Sun generate a magnetic field that is carried out through the
solar system by the solar wind—a stream of electrically charged gas blowing outward
from the Sun in all directions.
• The connection and interactions between the Sun and Earth drive the seasons, ocean
currents, weather, climate, radiation belts and aurorae. Though it is special to us, there
are billions of stars like our Sun scattered across the Milky Way galaxy.
• The planets, which condensed out of the same disk of material that formed the Sun,
contain only 0.135% of the mass of the solar system. Jupiter contains more than twice
the matter of all the other planets combined. 

Size and Distance

• With a radius of 432,168.6 miles (695,508 kilometers).
• The Sun is 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from Earth
Orbit and Rotation
• The Sun, and everything that orbits it, is located in the Milky Way galaxy. 
• Sun is in a spiral arm called the Orion Spur that extends outward from the Sagittarius
arm. 
Formation
• The Sun and the rest of the solar system formed from a giant, rotating cloud of gas
and dust called a solar nebula about 4.5 billion years ago. 
• Contains 99.85% of all the matter in the Solar System. 

The Regions of the Sun 

• The Photosphere occupies the interior surface and includes the special features like
sunspot, granulation, faculae, and pores. 
• The Chromosphere is the middle layer and includes the special features like
prominences and flares. 
• The Atmosphere or corona is the outermost layer and its interesting feature is the
coronal hole.
• It is composed of carbon or iron and   rocky materials. It remains in the Asteroid belt
between Mars and Jupiter 

Asteroids 
-     These are thousands of small planet like bodies, ranging in size from a few hundred
kilometers to less than a kilometer, whose orbits lie mainly between those Mars and
Jupiter. 
 
The Asteroid belt 
refers to the group of rocks that appears to have never joined to form the planet.  
• According to astronomers, there are three asteroids that hit the Earth every one million
years. 
• When an asteroid crashes the Earth, the part is known as meteoroids. 

Meteors 
• It refers to small interplanetary rocks smaller than asteroids.  
• When the meteoroid burns in the earth’s atmosphere it is called meteors. These are
rocky materials mainly made up of iron and nickel. 
• One of the interesting features is the meteor; shower which i s the result of the earth
passing through the orbit of the comet, which has left debris along the path. 
•
Comets 
• It refers to dirty snowballs of dust and rock in methane, ammonia, and ice 

• Halley's Comet is arguably the most famous comet. It is a "periodic" comet and returns
to Earth's vicinity about every 75 years.
• The comet is named after English astronomer Edmond Halley.
• Halley's Comet is arguably the most famous comet. It is a "periodic" comet and returns
to Earth's vicinity about every 75 years, making it possible for a human to see it twice in
his or her lifetime. The last time it was here was in 1986, and it is projected to return in
2061.
• The comet is named after English astronomer Edmond Halley, who examined reports
of a comet approaching Earth in 1531, 1607 and 1682. He concluded that these three
comets were actually the same comet returning over and over again, and predicted the
comet would come again in 1758.
• Halley didn't live to see the comet's return, but his discovery led to the comet being
named after him. (The traditional pronunciation of the name usually rhymes with valley.)
Halley's calculations showed that at least some comets orbit the sun.
• Further, the first Halley's Comet of the space age — in 1986 — saw several spacecraft
approach its vicinity to sample its composition. High-powered telescopes also observed
the comet as it swung by Earth.
• While the comet cannot be studied up close for many decades, scientists continue to
perform comet science in the solar system, looking at other small bodies that can be
compared to Halley. A notable example was the Rosetta probe, which looked at Comet
67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko between 2014 and 2016 and concluded that the comet
has a different kind of water than Earth's water.
 
 
    Telescope 
A telescope is an optical instrument that helps magnifies distant object. It also collects
and focuses light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation. 
 
Types of Telescope  
Refracting telescope this was invented by Galileo. It provides view by looking through
a lens or series of lenses that focus on one eyepiece. 
Reflecting Telescope. This was invented by Sir Isaac Newton. It provides view by focusing
light through a concave mirror. 

EARTH SYSTEMS 
 
This is the combination of interacting components that form a complex whole.  For
example, the human body is a system composed of   many   organs. All the organs
interact to produce a living human. Blood nurtures the stomach; the stomach helps
provide energy to maintain the blood. 
 
The flow of matter and energy drives the system. Thus a person ingests food, which
contains both matter and chemical energy, and inhales oxygen. Waste products are
released through urine, feces, sweat, and exhaled breath. Some energy is used for
respiration and motion, and the remainder is released as heat. 
 
Humans interact with their environment like a Stone Age hunter-gatherer who was living
in a small valley. The ecosystem is composed of the plants and animals which interact
with their physical environment   Therefore, to understand the human system, we must
study smaller systems that exist within the body and also must appreciate how humans
interact with larger ecosystems. 
 
The Earth has four major systems: geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and
biosphere. It is further subdivided into great many interacting smaller ones. For
example, a single volcanic eruption is a part of a system. Energy from deep within Earth
melts rock, magma rises, and gases escape from deep Earth layers and react
chemically with surface materials. But this volcanic eruption is driven by mantle
convection and movements of tectonic plates that are components of Earth’s interior,
which is also a system. At the same time, ash spewed skyward from the volcanic
eruption cools the Earth and becomes a component of the climate system.  Looking at
the eruption from yet another perspective, a volcanic mountain alters drainage patterns
and erosion rates and is thus part of the hydrologic system. 
 
Earth’s surface systems- the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere- are ultimately
powered by the Sun. The   wind is powered by uneven solar heating of the atmosphere.
Earth receives continues influx of solar energy, and it will continue to receive this energy
for another 5 billion years ago or so. 
 
Several energy and material cycles are fundamental to our study of Earth systems. The
energy moves throughout the ecosystem through water, nitrogen, carbon and the rock
cycle. During the course of these cycles, matter is always conserved- however, matter
continuously and commonly changes form. 
 
The Four Spheres of the Earth 
 
Earth is sometimes called the water planet or the blue planet because azure seas cover
more than two thirds of its surface. The only planet with rain falling from clouds and
water that runs over the land top collect in extensive oceans is the Earth or the Moon. 

The Geosphere 
 
The Sun was formed as gravity pulled material toward the swirling center.
Simultaneously, rotational forces spun material in the outer cloud into a thin disk. When
the turbulence of the initial accretion subsided, small grains stuck together to form
fistsized masses. These planetary seeds  then  accreted  to  form  rocky  clumps, 
which  grew  to  form  larger  bodies  called planetessimals, 100 to 1,000 kilometers in
diameter. Finally, the planetessimals collected to form the planets. This process was
completed about more than four billion years ago. 
 
As Earth coalesced, rocky chunks and planetesimals were accelerated by gravity so
that they slammed together at high speeds. Particles heated up when they collided, so
the early Earth warmed as it formed. Later, asteroids, comets and more planetesimals
crashed into the surface, generating additional heat. At the same time, radio-active
decay heated the Earth’s interior. As a result of these processes, our planet became so
hot that all or most of it melted soon after it formed. 
 
Within the molten Earth, the denser materials gravitated toward the center while the less
dense materials floated toward the top creating a layered structure.  Today, the
geosphere consists three major layers: a dense metallic core, a less dense rocky
mantle, and an even less dense surface crust. 
 
The Earth temperature grows increases with depth.  The outer core is about 1400 miles
thick and combination mainly of iron, alloy, and nickel.  However the inner core is about
750 miles thick   and made up primarily of iron .Although the   pressure is intense, the
metal iron sustains in a solid state. 
 
The mantle accounts the big volume of the earth. It covers the core and lies beneath the
crust. The physical characteristics of the mantle vary with depth. From the surface down
to a depth of about 100 kilometers, the outermost mantle is cool, strong, and hard. In
contrast, the layer beyond 100 kilometers is so hot that the rock is not stable, soft,
plastic (a solid that will deform permanently), and flows slowly- like cold honey. Even
deeper in Earth, pressure overwhelms temperature and the mantle rock becomes
strong again. 
 
The crust is the outermost layer, a thin veneer below a layer is soil and beneath the
ocean water. It is composed almost entirely of solid rock. Even a casual observer sees
that rocks of the crust are different from one another. Some are soft; others are hard.
They come in many colors. 
The uppermost mantle is relatively cool and its pressure is relatively low. Both factors
combine to produce hard, strong rock like that of the crust. The lithosphere refers to the
outer part of Earth, including both the uppermost mantle and the crust. The lithosphere
averages about 100 kilometers thick. 

According to a theory developed in 1960s, the   tectonic plates were derived from the broken
lithosphere. These tectonic plates float on the weak, plastic mantle rock beneath, and glide
across Earth. For example, North America is currently drifting toward China about as fast as
your fingernail grows. In a few hundred million years- almost incomprehensible long on a human
time scale but brief when compared with planetary history- Asia and North America may collide,
crumpling the edges of the continents and building a giant mountain range 

The Hydrosphere 
The hydrosphere   is the liquid water component of the earth which circulates among
oceans, continents, glaciers, and the atmosphere. The ocean makes up the 71 percent
of Earth and contains 97.5 percent of water. Ocean currents transport heat across vast
distances, altering global climate. 
 
About 1.8 percent of Earth’s water is frozen in glaciers. The glaciers cover about 10
percent of Earth’s land surface today.  They cover much greater portions of the globe as
recently as 18,000 years ago. The   Earth’s total water exists on the continents as liquid
is about 0.64 percent. Although small proportion, freshwater is essential to life on Earth.
Lakes, rivers, and clear, sparkling streams are the most visible reservoirs of continental
water. The ground water, compose the upper few kilometers of the geosphere, is much
more abundant. Only a minuscule amount,   exist in the atmosphere, but this water is so
mobile. It profoundly affects both the weather and climate of our planet. 
 
 
The Atmosphere 
The   Earth’s atmosphere is made up   of   nitrogen,   oxygen, and   smaller amounts of
argon, carbon dioxide, and other gases. It has four vertical layers. 
 
The atmosphere supports life because animals need oxygen, and plants need both
carbon dioxide and oxygen. In addition, the atmosphere supports life indirectly by
regulating climate. Air acts as blanket and a filter, retaining heat at night and shielding
us from direct solar radiation during the day.  Wind transports heat from the equator
toward the poles, cooling equatorial regions and warming temperate and polar zones. 
 
  
The Biosphere 
The biosphere is the part that life inhabits. It produces the succession of life- forms needed to
keep the planet habitable. Plants and animals also live on the Earth’s surface. Large
populations of bacteria live in rock to depths of as much as 4 kilometers.  Some organisms live
on the  ocean floor. Plants and animals are clearly affected by Earth’s environment. Organisms
breath air, require water, and thrive in a relatively narrow temperature range. Terrestrial
organisms ultimately depend on soil, which is part of geosphere. Less obviously, plants and
animals also alter and form the environment they live in. for example, living organisms
contribute to the evolution of the modern atmosphere. 

 MINERALS AND ROCKS      

      
 

Minerals: The Building Blocks of Rocks 

 
A mineral is a solid matter possessing a definite chemical structure that occur naturally
but does not have life. It is commonly found in rocks. Some rocks are composed of two
or more minerals. The building blocks of minerals which is made up of an  atom is called
element.  Each atom has a nucleus containing protons and neutrons. Orbiting the
nucleus of an atom are electrons. The number of protons in an atom's nucleus
determines its atomic number and the name of the element.  
 
Considerations about Minerals: 
 
• It occur naturally 
 
• It is inorganic (never alive) 
 
• Intenal structure is in orderly pattern 
 
• It has a characterestic of a definite chemical composition  
                        
The properties of minerals include the following traits which are used to identify mineral
species. These traits include crystal form, luster, color, streak, hardness, cleavage,
fracture, and specific gravity. 
 
Properties of a Mineral 
 
• Crystal Form describes the growth pattern of the crystals of the mineral species  
 
◦     It is largely determined by the environmental conditions under which a crystal
develop  
 
 
• Luster refers to the is the quantity and quality of light which is reflected from the 
surface of a mineral 
 
◦  Metallic luster  are minerals which are opaque and very reflective possessing a high 
absorptive index 
 
◦ Non metallic luster are minerals described by vitreous (glassy e.g. quartz), pearly,
silky, resinous, earthy (dull). 
 
◦   Submetallic are minerals that has somewhat metallic in luster. 
 
 
• Color is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans.  
 
 
• Streak is the color which the mineral display when it has been in its powdered 
form. It is considered to be much reliable indication of color 
 
• Hardness  defines  the level of difficulty which the smooth surface of the mineral
can be scratched.  
 
◦ This property is determined by rubbing the mineral against common objects like
fingernails or penny  
 
◦     Mohs scale refer to standard hardness Diamond – hardest, having 10 on scale, Talc
– softest, having 1 on scale 
 
• Cleavage is the splitting  of crystals  along the smooth plane 
 
◦   The simplest type of cleavage is exhibited by micas 
 
 
• Fracture takes place when  a mineral splits in a direction possessing difficult
indistinct  cleavage 
 
◦ Conchoidal fracture results in a series of smoothly curved concentric rings about the
stressed point, generating a shell-like appearance 
◦     Irregular  fracture  results in a rugged  or rough surface. 
•  
 
• Specific Gravity refers to the ratio of  the weight of a mineral to the weight of an
equal  of water 
 Other useful properties of minerals are malleable, soapy or greasy and magnetite. 
 
 
 
Other useful characterestics used in identifying minerals are taste, smell, elasticity,
malleability, feel, magnetism, double refraction, and chemical reaction to hydrochloric
acid. The eight most abundant elements found in  Earth's crust  are oxygen, silicon,
aluminum, iron, calcium, sodium, potassium, and magnesium.   Silicon  and oxygen are
the most abundant elements that when combine,  they form the framework of most
common mineral group called silicates. While the carbon and oxygen to form
carbonates. 
    
 The Mineral Groups 
 
1. The silicate minerals have the silicon-oxygen tetrahedron as their fundamental
building block. 
 
• Feldspar – the most abundant group  
 
• Quartz – second most abundant mineral 
 
• Muscovite 
 
• Hornblende 
 
 
2. The nonsilicate minerals are  without silicon namely : 
 
• the carbonate  (e.g., calcite which is useful in the foramation of stony coral), 
• sulfides (e.g.,  galena , sphalerite, use as ore for zinc), 
• sulfates (e.g., gypsum, anhydride  use in plaster ) 
• native elements (e.g.,gold, diamond ,use in trade and jelwelry} 
• halides (e.g., halite, use as  common salt ) 
•  
 
The  Ore  refers to the type of rock  that contains useful metallic minerals, like hematite
(mined for iron) and galena (mined for lead), that can be mined for a profit, as well as
some nonmetallic minerals, such as fluorite and sulfur. 

ROCK CYCLE  
• Magma -  are volatiles and solid materials that is found beneath the surface of
the Earth. 
• Crystallization –is a chemical solid –liquid separation  technique in which mass
transfer occurs from the liquid solution to a pure solid crystalline phase   
• Weathering – is the breaking down of rocks at the earth’s surface due to
biological activity 
• Sediments – it refers to the  particles and dissolved substances 
• Lithification –refers to the  compaction of converting sediments to solid rocks  
 
 
 
 
 
Source: wps.prenhall.com  
• Igneous rock forms from magma that cools and solidifies in a process called
crystallization  
 
• Sedimentary rocks  forms from the lithification of sediment. 
• The sedimentary rock is  subjected to great pressures and/or intense heat the 
metamorphic rock is formed. 
 
• Metamorphic Rock  when subjected to a high  pressure and/or temperatures, it
will melt, creating magma, which will eventually crystallize into igneous rock.  
  

Igneous Rocks Composition of Magma and Lava

• Magma is a mixture of melt and the primarily  elements   are silicon,  oxygen, 
aluminum,  iron,  calcium,  sodium,  potassium, magnesium etc. 
• Some gases particularly water vapor, which confined within  the magma with
other surrounding rocks. 
• Magma is less dense than surrounding rocks. It works its way towards the
surface , producing volcanic eruptions 
• Lava is the erupted molten  magma except  that most of the gas component has
escaped. 
• Lava solidifies and classified as volcanic or extrusive- they are extruded as rocks
on  the   surface of the earth. The rocks formed inside the earth is referred as  intrusive
rocks . 

• There are three types of   magma namely; 

a. Basaltic–it has low silica content, low viscosity and  gases escape easily  
b. Andesetic – it has medium level of silica content, intermediate viscosity , and
cause  intermediate explosion 
c. Rhyolitic – it has a high silica content, high viscosity ,and cause explosive
eruption.
• Crystallization of magma 
a. The ions are arranged in an orderly patterns 
b. The rate of cooling is determined by the  crystal size 
 
Rate of Cooling   Crystal Size 
slow  Large crystals 
fast  Microscopic crystals 
very fast  Glass 
          
• Classification is based on the rock’s texture and mineral constituents 
 
—   Texture 
 
◦ Fine grained texture (Rhyolite)– formed at the surface, small masses within the upper
crust, small crystals 
 
◦ Course grained texture (Granite)- formed below the surface 
 
◦ Porphyritic texture (Andesite porphyry) – large crystals embed in a matrix of smaller
crystals 
 
          ◦ Glassy texture (Obsidian, Pumice) – result from rapid cooling (being quenched). 
Granitic rocks – feldspar and silica; rich in silica (70%) 
Basaltic rocks – contains iron (dark appearance), denser than granitic, extrusive
igneous 
 
 
 
  
Source: geology.about.com. 
 
Ø Mineral Composition 
 
 Ø Bowen’s  Reaction  Series e x p l a i n s t h a t if  a  mineral  remains  in  the  molten 
solution  after crystallization, it will react with remaining liquid to produce the next
mineral. 
 
 
Source: jersey.uoregon.edu  
Source: https://www.google.com/search?q=magma composition&client=firefox-
b&source
Naming of Igneous Rocks 
 
Ø Texture  results  from  different  cooling  histories,  mineral  composition  resulted 
from chemical make up of parent magma and environment of crystallization. 
 
 
 
 
Sedimentary Rocks Compacted and Cemented Sediment 
 
• It is form from sediment or weathered product commonly known as sedimentum
or settling.  
• It  is  the  rock  that  geologists reconstruct  many details  of  Earth’s  history 
because  it is deposited in variety of different setting at the surface.  
• Contains fossils  
• Coal, source of electrical power 
 
HOW IT BECOMES SEDIMENTARY ROCK? 
• Weathering – agents like wind and water can break rock into pieces --- broken
pieces are carried from one place to another – rock pieces (sediments). 
• Settles and/or buried in water basin and/or ocean floor ---- the process is
repeated and sediments are deposited in the same areas forming layers of sediments –
then eventually the sediments hardened and compacted forming sedimentary rocks. 
 
• Lithification  refers to the processes by which sediments are transformed into
solid s rock 
• Strata/beds are layer upon layer of sediments accumulation. 
• Fossils are traces or remains of prehistoric life. 
• Examples of sedimentary rock are Limestones and Coal 
 
Classification Sedimentary Rocks  
• Two principal sources of materials as sediments  
• Solid  particles  from  weathered  rocks  (igneous  rocks)  Detritus  –  detrital
sedimentary rocks  
• Soluble  material  from chemical  weathering   which forms the chemical
sedimentary rocks 
 
Types of Sediments  
• Detrital or Classic sediments - it is formed by the fragmentation of the parent rock
by weathering, followed by erosion or transportation of these fragments over variable
distances to their place of deposition. 
• Chemical sediments – it is formed by precipitation from solution.  
• Biological/organic sediments - these are sediments in which organisms are
involved in their formation or deposition in one way or another.  
 
 
Source: castlelearning.com 
 
Metamorphic Rocks  
• Metamorphism means to change.  
• Most metamorphic changes occur at high temperatures and pressure.  
• These occur deep below the Earth’s surface and extend into the mantle. 
 
Two  types  of  Metamorphism   
• Contact Metamorphism is formed when magma intrudes into existing rock 
• Changes in rocks are minor  
• Regional Metamorphism is formed during mountain building process that occurs
over a large area.  
• Major changes to rocks 
    
    
Source: danasrge.top 
 
 
The Metamorphic Agents 
 
• Heat causes existing minerals to recrystallize or new minerals to form 
• Pressure causes the spaces between 
mineral grains to close= more compact rock= greater density 
• Chemically active fluids promotes  recrystallization by enhancing ion migration 
        
The changes brought about by metamorphic process are: 
1. increased density, growth of larger mineral crystals, 
2. foliation or the   reorientation of the mineral grains into a layered or banded
appearance 
3. formation of new minerals. 
 
Classification of Metamorphic Rocks 
A. Texture  
• Foliated Texture is formed when minerals recrystallize at right angles to the
direction of force .Causes a layered or banded appearance 
 
• Nonfoliated Texture has no banded texture and resembles a coarse-grained
igneous rock. Most contain only one mineral 
 
Common Metamorphic Rocks   
1. Foliated  rocks  -   include  slate,  schist,  and gneiss 
2. NonaffiliatedS rocks - include marble and quartzite.