Our Place in the Universe

 From the first day of class I learned more about the basic vocabulary we will be using in this class, such as stars, planets, moons, asteroids, and comets. I also learned how large the Earth is, compared to the entire solar system, and the Milky Way Galaxy. When compared, we can see how minute our solar system truly is. 

Another topic I learned more about was the idea of where we, as well as our Earth came from. The demonstration of the rubber band helped me to understand how exactly the universe expanded, and why the distance between planets is expanding, but at the same rate. From the "Big Bang", we can estimate that the beginning of the planets to be about 14 billion years ago.  The universe began with only two chemical elements, which are hydrogen and helium. All other elements came to be from recycled stars. Our solar system came to be only 4.5 million years ago. Humans came to be from those simple two elements, and we are said to be made from stars that have died.