CONTENT TOPIC: I.

ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH

A. Universe and Solar System
LEARNING COMPETENCIES:
1. Different hypotheses explaining the origin of the universe. S11/12ES-Ia-e-1
2. Different hypothesis explaining the origin of the solar system. S11/12ES-Ia-e-2

TRADITIONAL VIEWS ABOUT THE UNIVERSE

1. The Geocentric Universe. Many astronomical discoveries have been credited to the
Greeks. Greece was centered as the Golden Age of early astronomy. They held the
geocentric (Earth-centered) view, believing that the earth was a sphere that stayed
motionless at the center of the universe. Orbiting the earth were seven wanderers
(planetai in Greek) including the sun, the moon, and the known planets, Mercury, Venus,
Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

Although many of the Greeks discoveries were lost during the Middle Ages, all the
view/s that centered on the earth proposed by the Greeks became established in Europe.
Presently by Claudius Ptolemy, this geocentric outlook became as the Ptolemaic system
in the second century A.D. and dominated western thought for some 2000 years.

2. The Heliocentric System. The view of the universe in which the sun is taken to be at the
center is called heliocentric system. The model was first proposed by Aristarchus of
Samos (312-230 B.C.) but it never gained wide support because its proponents could not
explain why the relative position of stars seemed to remain despite the Earth’s changing
viewpoint as it moved around the sun.

The first great astronomer who emerged after the Middle Age was Nicolas Copernicus
(1473-1543). He was a priest of Fraunberg Cathedral in Germany. He also spent years
studying the night sky. Having concluded that the Earth is a planet, Copernicus
reconstructed the model of the solar system with the sun at the center and planets
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn orbiting around it. But he retained the
description of planetary motions as being a series of superimposed circular motion,
mathematically equivalent to the Ptolemaic theory.

Copernicus’ monumental work, de Revolution bus Orbium Coelestium (On the

Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres), was published as he lay on his deathbed in 1543.
Johannes Kepler upheld this in his law of Planetary Motion based on the work of his
former employer Tycho Brahe. Kepler’s labor laid the groundwork for Sir Isaac
Newton’s Law of Gravitation (1687) which became possible for astronomers to predict
with great accuracy the movements and positions of the planets. Galileo Galilei in his
first discoveries using the telescope for astronomical purposes has become as essential
tool in planetary studies. The first telescope was made by Dutchman Hans Lippershey.
THEORIES ON THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE

1. Big Bang Theory. Most astronomers believe that the universe began about 15 billion
years ago in a huge explosion they called Big Bang. This theory successfully explains the
expansion of the universe and the observed abundance of helium in the universe. The Big
Bang Theory was first developed in 1927 by A.G.E. Fermaitre (1894-1966) and coined
and revised in 1946 by George Gamow (1904-68).

2. Open Universe. Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) discovered that the galaxies of the universe
are moving farther apart. This means that the universe is getting continually bigger or
getting bigger forever. Alternatively, the galaxies may come together, until finally they
will collide and explode. This event is called the Big Crunch. If the Big Cruch occurred,
the sky would grow as hot as the sun. Finally, everything would vanish into a black hole.

3. Creation Theory. Nowadays, Creation Theory earns a strong influence to scientists

explaining that there was once a Creator, who, through His Word, designed and created
the universe and the vastness of it. According to His Word, He created everything
systematically and with purpose.

4. Steady State or Infinite Universe Theory. Proposed by Hemann Bondi, Thomas Gold,
and Fred Hoyle in 1948, it states that the universe has been present ever since and
therefore has no beginning and no end, and has been expanding constantly.

THEORIES ON THE ORIGIN OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

1. The Dust Cloud Theory. This was formulated by the German physicist Carl Friedrich
von Weizscken and US chemist Harold C. Urey in 1945. It presumed that the nebula was
flattened by its rotation and the planetary in the gas molecules accelerated the fighter
ones so that most of them escaped from the nebula. Meanwhile, the matters in the disc
were clumping together into bigger and bigger lumps, which became the planets and their
moons.

2. The Companion Star Theory. Fred Hoyle proposed that the sun once had a companion
star. As this star collided with the sun, it eventually exploded and its materials were held
by the sun’s gravitation. From these materials, various planets and other bodies in the
solar system were formed.

3. Theory of Vortices. This was formulated by Rene Descartes. This theory postulated that
the space was entirely filled with matter in various states, whirling about the sun like a
vortex. Once the particles in the chaotic universe began to move, the overall motion
would have been circular, so whenever a single particle moves, another particle must also
move to occupy the space where the previous particle once was. This type of circular
motion, or vortex, would have created the orbits of the planets about the sun with the
heavier objects spinning out towards the outside of the vortex and the lighter objects
remaining closer to the center.
 4. The Solar Nebular Theory. This theory explains that the solar system evolved from a
nebula that disintegrated due to the fall of its own gravity about 4.5 billions of years ago.
This vast cloud of dust contained light elements with trace amounts of heavier elements.
Cloud contraction due to gravitational attraction occurred, forming the denser atoms
through clumping of atoms together. As it happened, the matter began to move in a giant
circular manner. As the gas cloud continued to spin and contract, it flattened and became
a disk with a lump in the middle. It is estimated that the process sustained for about 50
million years until the center contained high enough energy causing nuclear reactions.
A few thousand years after, the sun and the rest of the disk began to cool down. The
disk’s edge emerged much cooler than the center of the disk due to great distance from
the sun. With it, various temperatures were present in the disk causing materials to
become solid, dust-like particles, rocky dust particles, icy particles containing water and
frozen gases. It took about 500 million years for the planets to form in their current
location and orbits.

THE SOLAR SYSTEM

The solar system consists of an average star called the sun, the planets and satellites of
the planet, numerous asteroids, meteoroids, and the interplanetary medium. The sun is
considered the richest source of electromagnetic energy that is mostly in the form of heat and
light in the solar system

TWO KINDS OF PLANETS.

1. Terrestrial or Rocky Planets/Small planets/Inner planets. They are composed

primarily of rock and metal and have relatively high densities, slow rotation, solid
surfaces, no rings, and few satellites. The small planets have diameters less than 13,000
km. These are the planets between the sun and the asteroid belt. These planets are
Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.

2. Jovian or Gas Planets/Giant planets/Outer planets. The gas planets are basically
composed of hydrogen and helium and generally have low densities, rapid rotation, deep
atmospheres, rings, and numerous satellites. They have diameters greater than 48,000 km.
These are the planets outside the asteroid belt. Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus are
these planets.