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Have you ever stood outside and looked at the stars and wondered
how far away the objects are, where are they in relationship
to each other, and how you could explain to a friend where
you are looking in the sky? This last one is easy, because we
just have to define an origin and a coordinate system as we did
before. But now, the objects are NOT on a surface like
that on the Earth. An object with certain coordinates in
the sky can be at ANY distance from us on the Earth. This
new wrinkle makes the study of coordinate systems even more interesting. |
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You are about to learn all about Galactic Navigation using the
CHANDRA web site. While you go through the tutorial, try
to keep in mind the three things you have learned about how to
navigate in any situation. Come back here for a quick review
quiz. Click on the CHANDRA picture on the right to begin
the tutorial. |
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1) What do we use as the origin for Galactic Navigation?
2) Does our coordinate system
use north/south/east/west? What does it use?
3) Is there a scale length for
Galactic Navigation?
4) What are the differences between
navigating the Milky Way and navigating the earth?
5) Can you explain why we see
the bands of the Milky Way in the night sky? Aren't we
part of the galactic plane?
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If everyone uses the same system to navigate our galaxy, then
we have an understanding of how to define the location of celestial
objects. Now that we understand how to navigate the
galaxy, lets use CHANDRA to to find out where objects are in
the sky.
Click here
for an excellent Galactic Map |
Click on the image below to investigate our galaxy
using CHANDRA.
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