UNIT NINE "AN ASTRONOMER’S VIEW OF THE UNIVERSE"
By: JAMES JEANS
SHORT-ANSWER QUESTIONS:
Q: 01. Why it is improbable that one particular stat will ever come close to another?
Ans: It is improbable that one particular star will ever come closer to another because the Universe is so spacious and stars are voyaging very far away from each other, each all alone.
Q: 02. What is Jeans’s explanation of how the planets came to be formed from the sun?
Ans: According to Jeans, when two thousand million years ago one star by chance came closer to another, it raised huge tides on the other’s surface and when it started moving away, these huge tides of burning matter got torn away in pieces and fell into space (Big Bang Theory). Later these burning masses got cooler and became planets of our Solar system including earth.
Q: 03. How does a planet, such as earth, derive its warmth?
Ans: A planet, such as earth, derives its warmth from the radiations Sun pours on it.
Q: 04. What does Jeans imagine the first forms of life on earth to have been like?
Ans: According to Jeans, the first forms of life on earth to have been like simple unicellular organisms that reproduced themselves and soon died. These were like small particles of living beings.
Q: 05. Why are our first impressions of an astronomer’s picture of the universe likely to make us feel that humanity is insignificant?
Ans: Our first impressions of an astronomer’s picture of the universe likely to make us feel that humanity is insignificant as he observes fearful and meaningless distances between heavenly bodies, vast durations of time that are much longer than the history of life on Earth and the complete loneliness of the Earth without any companion heavenly body around.
Q: 06. How does Jeans justify his assertion that ‘the universe appears to be actively hostile to life like our own’?
Ans: Jeans justifies his assertion that ‘The universe appears to be actively hostile to life like our own’ by telling that the Universe appears to be hostile to life like our own because our world is extremely small in comparison with the universe and its indifference to our world and life.
Q: 07. Why does a planetary system seem to be the only kind of environment on which life could originate?
Ans: A planetary system seems to be the only kind of environment on which life could originate because a planetary system has suitable physical conditions required for life like proper temperature, air and food available and present in it.
Q: 08. What is the temperature of most of space?
Ans: The temperature of most of space is some four degrees above absolute zero, about 484 degrees of frost on our Fahrenheit scale and even lower in the vast distances of space.
Q: 09. Why does it seem incredible to Jeans that the universe was designed primarily to produce life like our own?
Ans: It seem incredible to Jeans that the universe was designed primarily to produce life like our own as he believes that the origin of planets was a Stellar Encounter and the pieces by and by cooled down to become planets. As the suns and the stars in the universe are very hot and earth has cooled down by losing her warmth so the life can only exist on the earth due to the favourable conditions of life present here.
Q: 10. Why is the origin of life still a riddle to the scientists?
Ans: The origin of life still a riddle to the scientists because they cannot decide even till today that how life came into being when the earth began cooling after getting separated from the sun. There are two different schools of thoughts among the scientists about the origin of life.