The Sun is the ultimate source
of loads of our energy
The Sun has
been giving out
loads of
energy-mostly
heat and light
Some of
that energy
is stored
here on
Earth as
fossil fules
We can also
use photocells
and solar
heating
You can capture the suns energy
using photocells
Photocells generate electricity
directly from sunlight
They generate diret current (DC)
Direct current means the current flows
the same round the circuit all the time
Photocells are usually made of silicon
The silicon atombs absorb some of the energy, knocking loose some electrons
These electrons then flow round a circuit-which is electricity
The current and power output of a photocell depends on
It's surface area
The bigger the cell the more electricity it produces
The intensity of light
brighter light=more electricity
The distance from the light source
The closer the cell, the more intense the light hitting it will be
Advantages
There are no moving parts
Sturdy, low maintenance and lasts a long time
You don't need power cables or fuel
Solar power won't run out and it does not pollute the enviroment
Disadvantages
No sunlight, no power
Curved mirrors can concentrate energy from the sun
Solar and Wind power
Passive solar heating
PSH is when energy from the sun is used to heat something directly
Glass lets heat and
light in from the sun
Wind Farms
Lots of little wind turbines
Uses wind to produce electricity
Producing and
Distributing Electricity
The national grid connects
power stations to consumers
The national grid allows
electricity to be supplied
anywhere around the
country
There are
different
power
sources
Fossil Fules
Produces a lot of energy
Releases a lot of carbon-dioxide
Biomass
It is a renewable source
You need a lot of it
Nuclear Power
Does not produce a lot of CO2
Can make a lot of energy without producing a lot of CO2
Risk of leaks and disasters
Photo cells
Advantages and disadvantages in Red
Wind Power
Cheap to run
1500 turbines=one coal powered stations
The Dynamo Effect
Electromagnetic Induction
The creation of a voltage in a
wire which is experiencing a
change in magnetic field
Move the wire or the magnet
Two ways to get EMI
An electrical conductor (a coil
of wire is used often) moves
through a magnetic field
The magnetic
field through
an electrical
conductor
changes (gets
bigger,
smaller or
reverses
To get a bigger voltage
The strength of the magnet
The umber of turns on the coil
The speed of movement
Generators
move a coil
in a
magnetic
field
Every half turn, the current in
the coil swaps direction
This means that generators produces an alternating current (AC)
Turning the coil faster produces
More pearks
A higher voltage
A higher current
The frequency of AC is measured in Hz
Electricity in the UK is 50 Hz
Meaning
that the
coil is
rotating
50 times
per
second
Supplying
electricity
efficiently
Electricity is
transformed to
high voltage
before
distribution
To transmit a lot of
power you need
A high voltage
A high current
But a
high
current
means
the
cables
get hot
It is cheaper to
increase the voltage
To bring down voltage
you need a step-down
transformer (AC)
This is why mains energy
is AC so that transformers
work
To increase
voltage you
need a
step-up
transformer
(AC)
Power
stations
aren't
very
efficient
Power
stations
make a
lot of
waste
energy
Total
Energy=Useful
energy output +
waste energy
output
Efficiency=Useful energy output/total energy input (x 100)
Electrical Power
Running
costs depend
on an
appliances
power rating
Power (W)
= Voltage
(V) x
Current (A)
Kilowatt-hours (kWh) are
units of energy
Energy Supplied
(kwh) = Power
(kW) x Time (H)
Cost = number of units x price per unit
kWh = amount of
energy converted by
1 kW appliance left on
for 1 hour
Off-peak electricity is cheaper
The green house effect
Global warming and climate change
Upsetting
the
greenhouse
effect has
led to
climate
change
Evidence
shows that
the rising of
CO2 is
causing
global
warming.
There is a scientific
consensus the humans are
causing global warming
Changes to
the weather
can have
human and
natural causes
Changes in
temperature
can have
large effects
on weather
Some
crops
won't be
able to
grow
Nuclear radiation
Nuclear radiation
causes ionisation
Ionisation is
when alpha, beta
or gamma
radiation hits
atoms causing
them to lose
(positive) or gain
(negative)
electrons
Alpha particles
are big and heavy
Strongly ionising
Easily stopped
Beta particles are electrons
Moderately ionising
Mediumly stopped
Gamma rays are very high
frequency electromagnetic waves
Weakly ionising
Hard to be stopped
When
radiation
enters
human skin
it damages
cells, can
cause
mutations
Uses of nuclear radiation
Alpha
radiation
is used in
smoke
detectors
Beta radiation is used in
tracers and thickness
gauges
Gamma
radiation has
medical and
industrial
uses
Can treat cancers
Sterilise medical instruments
Non-destructive testing
Nuclear power
Nuclear power uses Uranium as fuel
Uranium atoms split in 2
Water used as coolant to
produce steam
Steam
powers
turbine which
produces
kinetic energy
This then goes into a
generator which
creates electrical
energy
Advantages
Doesn't release alot of CO2
Realises a lot of energy
It is cheap
Plenty of
uranium left
Disadvantages
Expensive to build
and maintain
Expensive to decomision
Longer to start up
Risk of leaks
Uranium non-renewable source
Danger from radioactive matirials
You should always protect yourself
Handle with tongs
Store safely
Keep at arms length
Don't look at it
Industrial workers have
Full protective suits
Lead-lined suits
Lead/concrete barriers
Thick lead screens
Remote-control robot arms
Radioactive waste is hard to dispose of
High level
Stored underground in glass cases
Low level
Put in land-fill sites
The Solar System
Planets reflect sunlight
and orbits the sun in
ellipses
Our star (the Sun) has lots of stuff orbiting it
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Asteroids
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
The solar system is held together by
gravitational attraction
Gravity pulls everything in the
universe towards everything else
Gravity makes things that are
already moving change course
Asteroids and Comets
There's a belt of asteroids
orbiting between Jupiter and
Mars
When the solar system was formed the large rocks between Jupiter and Mars didn't form a
planet as the large gravitational pull from Jupiter kept interfering
This left millions of asteroids orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter
Asteroids usually stay in their orbit but
sometimes they are pushed or pulled into
others
Meteorites are rocks that have
crashed down to Earth
As the enter Earth's atmosphere they burn up
These are known as shooting stars
Sometimes, rarely, they don't burn up and they crash into the Earth's surface
They can start fires, throw lots of
hot rocks and dust into the air
They make big holes in the
ground called craters
The dust and smoke can block out
the sun for many months
This causes climate change and can
make animals extinct
Comets
orbit the
sun in very
elliptical
orbits
Comets are balls of rock, dust
and ice which orbit the Sun
They come form objects orbiting around the sun way beyond the planets
As comet approaches Sun, it's ice melts
leaving a bright tail of gas and debris which
can be millions of KM long
This is what is seen from Earth
Comets speed up when the get closer to the
Sun as of it's gravitational pull
NEOs and the Moon
Near-Earth objects could
colloid with Earth
NEOs are
meteors or
comets that
are o course
to crash into
Earth
Scientist calculate the
trajectory of the NEO
using powerful telescopes
Small NEO are harmless but the big ones can make
an explosion bigger than a nuclear bomb
We could tr to deflect the
NEO using a bomb to
nudge it off course
The moon may have
come from a colliding
planet
Scientist think the moon came from
another planet colliding with the
Earth soon after the planet was
formed
In the
collision it
is believed
the Earth
core was
created
when the
planets
collided
The less dense
material was
ejected as really
hot dust and
rocks which
orbited the Earth
eventually came
together to form
the Moon
Evidence to support this
The Moon has a lower density than the Earth
It does not have an iron core
Moon rock contains few
substances which evaporate
at low temperatures
Suggesting that the moon was
made from hot matirials
Beyond the Solar System
We're in the
Milky Way
Galaxy
Our Sun only one of
millions of stars in the
Milky Way
Gravity keeps Galaxies together
The
Universe
has more
than a
billion
Galaxies
Distances
in space are
measured in
Light Years
Km are hard to measure between Galaxies
Scientists use light years
Light Years=The distance light travels through a vacuum in a year
Stars can
explode and
sometimes
leave behind
black holes
When a big
star runs out
of fuel it
explodes and
what is left it
really dense
Sometimes it is so dense nothing can
escape it's gravitational pull.
This is called a black hole
Black holes have a
Large mass
Small volume
Very high density
They are not visible not
even light can escape it
The origin of the Universe
The universe seems to
expanding because of
redshift
Red shift is when
scientists look at
what colour
galaxies are and
this determines
how far away it is
using the visible
light spectrum
The further away the
galaxy is the more red it is
There are
microwave
radiation
everywhere-it is
known as cosmic
background
radiation
As the universe and cools, the
background cools and drops in frequency
The universe
started with the
big bang
This is when all
that was in the
universe was all
gathered in one
small space
It then
exploded
and started
expanding
and the
expansion
continues
The big bang allows us to
see how old the Universe is
It is about
14 billion
years old
It is hard to estimate as it is hard to tell the change in the
speed of expansion since the start
The life cycle of stars
Exploring the
solar system
We can explore space using
manned spacecraft
The solar system is big
Sending a manned spacecraft
to Mars would take years
It would have to carry
A lot of fuel
This makes it heavy
and expensive
Lots of food,
water and oxygen
To keep the astronauts
alive and healty
A sheild
To protect
the
astronauts
from
radiation
The astronauts will lose
bone tissue and muscle
wasteage from the low
gravity
A tiny area with the same
people could become
stressful
Sending unmanned
probes is much easier
Advantages
They don't have to carry
food, water and oxygen
Can withstand conditions
that humans can't
Without people, more
instruments can be fitted
They're cheaper
No one gets hurt if the probe
burns up in the atmosphere
Disadvantages
They can't think
for themselves
A spacecraft can't
do maintenance and
repairs-people can
Galileo and Copernicus
Ancient Greeks thought the Earth was
at the centure of the Universe
Most Ancient Greeks believed the
Sun, man and other planets and stars
all orbited Earth in perfect circles
The Ptolemaic model was the
model of the Universe of the
Ancient Greeks until the 1500s
Copernican Model
This model states that Earth and the planets orbit
around the sun, which is at the centre of our Universe
The idea had been around for 2000
years but it was first published in
1543 in a book by Copernicus
Galileo noticed that Venus has
phases-where the amount off
the planet that was lit by the Sun
seemed to change over time
Copernicans' ideas weren't
very popular as the others had
been their for a long time
The model was also condemned b the
church. They claimed that the model
went against the bible, and said that
Earth was at the centre of the universe
Evidence for Copernican model increased
thanks to more technological advances
The current model says that the
planets still orbit the sun but these
orbit are elliptical rather than circular
Galileo fond one of the best
pieces of evidence for this theory
Galileo was observing Jupiter using a
telescope when he saw some stars in a
line near the planet
He looked again and sore that these stars
never moved away from Jupiter and seemed
to be carried along with the planet
This suggested they weren't stars but moons orbiting Jupiter
This showed not everything orbits around the Earth