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Beginner's Guide to Space

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NOT FOR SALE BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO SPACE A PUBLICATION OF PAKISTAN SPACE & UPPER ATMOSPHERE RESEARCH COMMISSION BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO SPACE A PUBLICATION OF PAKISTAN SPACE & UPPER ATMOSPHERE RESEARCH COMMISSION BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO SPACE PUBLICATION Pakistan Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission REVIEW AND EDITING TEAM Kiran Zehra Zaidi Hassam Muhammad Khan Illustration by : Aley Ali Public Relations & Media Management - SUPARCO Publication Year : 2015 PAKISTAN SPACE & UPPER ATMOSPHERE RESEARCH COMMISSION Space Information Booklet CONTENT Section 1 OUR UNIVERSE 1.1 OUR SOLAR SYSTEM 01 1.1.1 The Sun 01 1.1.2 Mercury 02 1.1.3 Venus 02 1.1.4 Earth 02 1.1.4.1 The Earth's Moon 03 1.1.5 Mars 03 1.1.6 Jupiter 04 1.1.7 Saturn 04 1.1.8 Uranus 04 1.1.9 Neptune 04 1.1.10 The Kuiper Belt and Beyond 05 1.2 ASTERIODS 06 1.3 METEOROIDS AND METEORITES 06 1.4 COMETS 06 1.5 STARS 07 1.5.1 Constellations 07 1.5.2 Colors of Stars 08 1.5.3 Distance between Stars 08 1.6 BLACK HOLE 08 1.7 ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE 08 1.7.1 Hubble's Law 09 1.7.2 The Big Bang Theory 09 1.7.3 The Inflation Theory 09 1.7.4 Properties of Universe 10 1.7.5 Dark Matter 10 1.7.6 Dark Energy 10 1.8 GALAXIES 11 Section 2 SPACE EXPLORATION 2.1 OVERVIEW OF SPACE EXPLORATION 12 2.2 EARLY ARTIFICIAL SATELLITES 12 2.3 PLANETARY STUDIES 12 2.3.1 Missions to Mercury 13 2.3.1.1 Mariner 10 Mission 13 2.3.1.2 MESSENGER Mission 13 2.3.1.3 BepiColombo Mission 13 2.3.2 Missions to Venus 14 2.3.2.1 Early Flybys, Landers and Orbiters-Soviet and NASA Missions 14 Pakistan Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission Space Information Booklet 2.3.2.2 Other Soviet missions 15 2.3.2.3 Magellan probe 15 2.3.2.4 Venus Express 15 2.3.3 Missions to Mars 16 2.3.3.1 Mariner program 16 2.3.3.2 The Soviet Mars Program 16 2.3.3.3 Viking Program 16 2.3.3.4 Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Pathfinder 17 2.3.3.5 Mars Odyssey and Mars Express 17 2.3.3.6 Mars Exploration Rover Mission 17 2.3.3.7 Mars Science Laboratory-Curiosity Rover 17 2.3.4 Missions to Jupiter 18 2.3.5 Missions to Saturn 18 2.3.6 Mission to Pluto-New Horizons 19 2.4 SUN OBSERVING SATELLITES AND OTHER SOLAR SYSTEM MISSIONS 19 2.4.1 Solar & Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) 19 2.4.2 Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) 20 2.4.3 Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) 20 2.4.4 NEAR Mission 20 2.4.5 Deep Impact Mission 21 2.4.6 Rosetta Mission 21 2.4.7 Dawn Mission 21 2.4.8 The Voyager Program & the Voyager Interstellar Mission 21 2.5 ROCKETS 22 2.6 SCIENTIFIC SATELLITES 23 2.6.1 Earth Observing Satellites 23 2.6.2 Astronomical Satellites 23 2.6.2.1 Hubble Space telescope 24 2.6.2.2 Chandra X-ray Observatory 24 2.6.2.3 Spitzer Space Telescope 24 2.6.2.4 Herschel Space Observatory 25 2.6.2.5 Planck Observatory 25 2.6.2.6 Kepler Observatory 25 2.6.2.7 James Webb Telescope 25 2.7 LUNAR MISSIONS 26 2.8 SPACE STATIONS 26 2.8.1 Salyut Space Station 26 2.8.2 Skylab Space Station 26 2.8.3 Mir Space Station 26 2.8.4 International Space Station 27 2.8.5 Chinese Tiangong Space Station 27 2.9 SPACE SHUTTLES 28 Pakistan Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission Space Information Booklet Section 3 THE EARTH 3.1 EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE 29 3.2 COMPOSITION OF ATMOSPHERE 29 3.3 LAYERS OF ATMOSPHERE 29 3.3.1 Troposphere 29 3.3.2 Stratosphere 29 3.3.3 Mesosphere 29 3.3.4 Thermosphere 30 3.4 BEYOND THE ATMOSPHERE 30 3.5 ROTATING EARTH 30 Section 4 SATELLITE SYSTEMS 4.1 INTRODUCTION TO SATELLITES 31 4.2 ORBIT TYPES 31 4.2.1 Geostationary Orbit 31 4.2.2 Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) 32 4.2.3 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) 32 4.2.4 Elliptical Orbits 33 4.2.5 Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) 33 4.3 SATELLITE LAUNCH VEHICLE 33 4.3.1 T ypes of SLV with respect to Propellants 33 4.4 OPERATION OF SATELLITES IN SPACE 34 4.4.1 Power 34 4.4.2 Direction or Orientation 34 4.4.3 Heat Dissipation 34 4.4.4 Radiation Protection 34 4.5 RE-ENTRY AND SATELLITE DISPOSAL 34 4.6 TYPES OF SATELLITES 35 4.6.1 Communication Satellites 35 4.6.2 Earth Observation Satellites 35 4.6.2.1 Earth observation satellite with respect to sensors 35 4.6.3 Navigation Satellites 36 4.6.4 Weather Satellites 36 4.6.5 Military Satellites 36 4.6.6 Scientific Satellites 36 Section 5 SPACE TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS 5.1 SATELLITE REMOTE SENSING 37 5.1.1 Types of Remote Sensors 37 Pakistan Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission Space Information Booklet 5.1.1.1 Passive Remote Sensors 37 5.1.1.2 Active Remote Sensors 38 5.1.2 Information Extraction using Remote Sensing 38 5.1.3 Applications of Remote Sensing 38 5.1.3.1 Agriculture 38 5.1.3.2 Forestry 38 5.1.3.3 Geology 39 5.1.3.4 Natural Disasters 39 5.1.3.5 Cartography 39 5.1.3.6 Geographic Information System 39 5.1.3.7 Environmental Assessment 40 5.2 SATELLITE COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY Page 40 5.2.1 Telemedicine 40 5.2.2 Tele-Education 40 5.3 SATELLITE POSITIONING AND NAVIGATION Page 40 5.3.1 Global Positioning System (GPS) 41 5.3.2 Galileo Positioning System 41 5.3.3 GLONASS 41 5.3.4 COMPASS 41 5.4 SATELLITE METEOROLOGY 42 5.4.1 Advantages of Satellite Meteorology 42 5.4.2 Applications of Satellite Meteorology 42 5.4.2.1 Weather Forecasting 42 5.4.2.2 Drought Monitoring 42 5.4.2.3 Forest Fire Monitoring 42 5.4.2.4 Sea Surface Temperature Monitoring 42 5.4.2.5 Fog and Haze Monitoring 42 Section 6 NATIONAL SPACE AGENCY OF PAKISTAN-SUPARCO 6.1 INTRODUCTION 43 6.2 FUNCTIONS 43 6.3 MAJOR ACHIEVEMENTS 43 6.4 SPACE APPLICATIONS 44 Pakistan Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission Space Information Booklet Section 1 OUR UNIVERSE 1.1 OUR SOLAR SYSTEM Our solar system is the one we know the most about. The Sun is at its centre. Our solar system includes everything that orbits or goes around the Sun. Planets, moons, asteroids; comets and dust are all part of the solar system. Our solar system lies near the edge of the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way is shaped like a whirlpool. All the stars in the galaxy, including our Sun, orbit around the centre of the Milky Way. With the discovery of Pluto in The Solar System 1930, astronomers considered the Solar System to have nine planets. Pluto was classified as the ninth planet and it remained so for 75 years but in 2006, International Astronomical Union classified Pluto as a ‘dwarf planet’ due to its smaller mass. In view of this, our solar system now consists of eight planets. Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are known as the inner planets, as they are nearest to the sun. They form a group of rocky planets. The outer planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. 1.1.1 The Sun The Sun The sun is a bright star, and it is the largest object in our solar system. At sunset or sunrise when it is safe to look at the sun, we can see the sun’s photosphere, the level in the sun from which visible photons escape most easily. Dark sunspots come and go on the sun but only rarely are they large enough to be visible to the unaided eye. The solar atmosphere consists of three layers of hot, low-density gas: the photosphere, chromosphere, and corona. The granulation of the photosphere is produced by convection currents of hot gas rising from below. Larger super-granules appear to be caused by larger convection currents deeper in the sun. The chromosphere is most easily visible during total solar eclipses, when it flashes into view for a few seconds. It is a thin, hot layer of gas just above the photosphere, and its pink color is caused by the Balmer emission lines in its spectrum. Filtergrams of the chromosphere reveal spicules, flame like structures extending upward into the lower corona. The corona is the sun’s outermost atmospheric layer and can be imaged using a coronagraph. It is composed of a very-low-density; very hot gas extending many solar radii from the visible sun. It’s high temperature — over 2 million K — is believed to be maintained by the magnetic field extending up through the photosphere — the magnetic carpet— and by magnetic waves coming from below the photosphere. Parts of the corona give rise to the solar wind, a breeze of low density ionized gas streaming away from the sun. Astronomers can study the motion, density, and temperature of gases inside the sun by analyzing the way the solar surface oscillates.
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