Wednesday, March 5, 2008

The Solar System Just Isn't What It Used To Be



One of the reasons we do these blogs, is that we learn more by exploring daily news on astronomy than we ever could learn in a text book. Is it that the textbooks are less informative? No. Rather, with the increasing rate at which new discoveries pertaining to our study of astronomy are made, the textbooks seem to be filled with inaccuracies from the moment they are printed. By doing our own reading of recently published information, the stuff we learn is relevant and up to date. As this article points out, so much of our knowledge regarding the planets and astronomy has changed. Much of what we learned in our youth is now obsolete or inaccurate at best.

"Move over, Copernicus. Your once-revolutionary idea -- that the Earth revolves around the sun rather than the other way around -- has been eclipsed.

Recent years have brought a sweeping revolution in solar system astronomy. The Earth still orbits the sun, as Copernicus declared 400 years ago, but "the entire view of astronomy you learned in high school has changed," said Alan Stern, NASA's associate administrator for science. "We're really in a new age of discovery."

Read the full article here: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080305/NEWS07/803050404/1009/NEWS07




No comments: