It has been a long and interesting semester, filled with learning about everything from the laws of gravity, to the instruments of astronomy, and even alien life. Over the course of this semester, my view of the Solar System has changed drastically, both in detail and much more generally. I’ve learned many surprising facts about the Solar System, from the actual sizes of the planets (which are very different from what media often shows) to some of the fascinating geological features we’ve examined on various worlds, there is no shortage of stunning things to learn about our home. Beyond these details, though, this class has changed the way I view of the Solar System’s history and evolution. Before this class, it was easy to think of the Solar System as always being the way it is, the result of the initial conditions of the Solar nebula. In reality, the creation of the system as we know it was the end of a long and complicated series of chances, any of which could have resulted in a very different system than the one we see today. This view of the solar system as a dynamic and constantly changing system is completely different than what I thought before this class, and it has made me stop taking things, even things as seemingly immutable as the planets, for granted.
Vandy Astronomy 