commom misconceptions about space (Myth vs. Reality)?

Answer 1

Well, there are too many!

Here are some.
1. The position of the stars in the sky when you were born has an effect on your future.
= A person's beliefs about this have an effect, not the stars themselves.
2. The Universe is expanding away from us. = As if we are in the center of the Universe? People are too egocentric!
3. Space is empty except where there are stars and planets.
= Space is full of things we can't see. Energy, particles, dust, Magnetic and gravity fields etc.
4. The Earth goes in a circle (nearly) around the Sun.
= The Sun is moving too. It is in orbit around the Milky way Galaxy. The path of the Earth is like a slightly stretched out Slinky.
5. The seasons, Spring, Autumn, Summer and Winter, are caused when the Earth is closer to or farther from the Sun.
= Seasons are caused by the tilt of the Earth's axis.

;-D How's that for a start?

Answer 2

MYTH: There is no gravity on the International Space Station, or any other place in orbit, that's why people feel weightless.
FACT: People feel weightless in orbit because they are falling around the earth, just as the Earth falls around the sun. If there was no gravity, satellites wouldn't orbit the earth.

MYTH: The planets orbit the sun in highly elongated circles.
FACT: The planets orbit the sun in ellipses that are almost circles.

MYTH: Pluto was demoted to "dwarf planet" because it is too small.
FACT: Pluto was demoted for several reasons. First, in the words of the International Astronomical Union, it hasn't "cleared the neighborhood of its orbit, meaning that there are debris in and around Pluto's orbit that mark the early stage of planetery evolution, far different from the clear orbits of the other 8 planets. Second, since the discovery of Pluto in the 1930's, several other smiliar spacial objects have been discovered. But, like Pluto, their orbits are far more elliptical, and they are much further out, than the other 8 planets. For consistency's sake, allowing Pluto to be a planet would have meant having to allow these other obscure bodies to be planets as well, despite their differences from the other 8 planets.

Answer 3

1. The universe was created as an explosion called the Big Bang. The Big Bang was NOT an explosion
2. There is a center place in the universe. There is no center to the universe. At the first instant of the Big Bang all of space was created. Before that there was no "where," therefore the Big Bang happened every "where" at once.
3. All of the Apollo manned lunar landings were faked by NASA. There is overwhelming evidence that men did land on the moon.
4. When the sun ends its life it will explode as a supernova. The sun doesn't have enough mass to do that. Instead it will end its life as a 'white dwarf' star, about the same diameter as Earth.

Answer 4

The distances are so big that people fail to comprehend how big they really are.

Gravity does not end when you reach the altitude of satellites. Gravity goes on for as far as we can see with the most powerful telescopes we have created. Weightlessness is brought on by traveling at just the right speed to have the falling to earth take a quarter of the time it takes to go around the orbit.

Answer 5

Follow the link.

Answer 6

myth--Light Propagrates through space via a unseen medium known as "Luminiferous Aether."

fact--Luminiferous aether does not exist.

Answer 7

Can you please state the myths that you are referring to?