Chapter 1: The Solar System
The Solar System chapter contains three segments:
The Earth covers direct measurement, triangulation, and geometry to find distances to objects across the globe. It includes distance to lightening, the height of the atmosphere, and the size of the Earth as calculated by Eratosthenes.
The Solar System covers the distance to the Moon where we define and use parallax. It then covers distances to all the planets. The size of Jupiter is examined and Lagrange Points are introduced. An Earth-Venus-Sun triangulation to calculate the distance to the Sun is used. With that, additional Sun dimensions are calculated, including the obit of the Earth. With that, we calculate the speed of light using Jupiter’s moon Io.
The Heliosphere covers the Earth’s Magnetosphere and the fleet of satellites that monitor the Earth-Sun environment. This includes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. The Bohr atom is introduced, and the Aurora Borealis is explained. The solar system distances is reviewed, and a look at the Earth from Voyager is included along with Carl Sagan’s words.