Tychonic system orrery, Star Vega, Ethernet network technology

[Nostromics Newsletter]

Nostromics Newsletter

Nostromics science gifts product news, educational resources & science tidbits

Nostromics Newsletter, 20 April 2011 - You are welcome to share this mail, see newsletter back issues

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An orrery for comparing the Tychonic and Copernican systems

The Tychonic system was a cosmological model proposed in the late 16th century by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. It considered the Earth at the center of the universe, with planets orbiting the Sun and the Sun, in turn, orbiting around Earth. An interactive online orrery application visualizes the motions of the planets in both the Tychonic and the Copernican model, in which the Sun is at the center and all planets move around it.

The orrery application shows by default an animated view of the planets moving in the Copernican universe. Click the "Tychonian" button at the bottom right to switch to this system. Drag the slider at the top left to change animation speed. To get an idea of how fast simulated time is advancing, check the year readout at the top right and toggle the visualization of lunar phases by clicking "show Moon phase" at the bottom left. The "help" button at the top left toggles the visualization of short instructions. Although the Tychonic system included only the naked eye planets known since antiquity, this application shows all of them.

Star Vega

Late at night in spring star Vega rises above the Eastern horizon. Vega, the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, is also one of the brightest in the sky. A group of astrophysicists consider Vega "arguably the next most important star in the sky after the Sun."

Its scientific interest, for example, comes from the fact that it has a dust disk resulting from the collision of nearby objects, it may have at least an orbiting massive planet, and variability in the star's brightness is suspected. Vega also has historical interest because it was the first to be photographed in late 19th century other than the Sun.

The Vega Names Dark T-Shirt and related Vega gifts in the Astronomy section of Nostromics Store feature this important star. More science gifts and products at Nostromics Store.

The Ethernet network technology

Your desktop PC or laptop most likely has a connector for plugging in a network cable to a router or other computer. It is an Ethernet interface, a computer network technology. It is a popular and venerable  standard developed between 1973 and 1975 at the Xerox Corporation Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in California. Ethernet was originally developed in the context of research on computer networking forconnecting not only computers, but also office machines and peripherals like copying machines.

-- Paolo Amoroso & Mauro Arpino (Nostromics), science educators - Milan, Italy

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Copyright (C) 2011 by Paolo Amoroso and Mauro Arpino