Tsuki Yomi And Amaterasu Research Paper

Destiny Wilcox

Mrs. Stalcup

Astronomy

Aug. 16, 2014

Tsuki Yomi and Amaterasu: The Moon and The Sun Many different cultures use deities and legends to explain what was back then unexplainable. Some of the most common deities are related to the heavens, and what lies beyond our human sight. This is why many of the myths we know today describe many gods and goddesses. Today, we know that these gods and goddesses do not exist, because we have scientific evidence to prove what was back then unable to be understood. Japanese legends also use gods and goddesses to explain the unknown, like the two deities Tsuki-Yomi and Amaterasu. Tsuki-Yomi and Amaterasu are two important figures of the Japanese religion Shinto.

Tsuki-Yomi is the god of the moon,

Its diameter is 1,392,000 kilometers in diameter, so it is much larger than the Earth (Cain, “The Sun”). Its mass is also far greater than the masses of all the other objects in the Solar System, and is 333,000 times the mass of Earth The astronomers who believed in the heliocentric theory were indeed right, because everything in the Solar System does revolve around the Sun. The Sun is considered the heart of our universe, because without it the planets would be out of orbit, and if it dies it will consume all the other planets surrounding it. The sun’s temperature is about 5,800 kelvin, and is beginning to heat up as the years go by . This is only the temperature of the outer shell of the sun, the photosphere (“The Sun”) The core of the sun is 15.7 million kelvin, and the pressure makes it a perfect place for nuclear fusion. Protons are merged together in the sun’s core, which forms helium. This helium is what gives the sun its life energy, and if the sun ever runs out, it will turn into a white dwarf star. The sun is highly magnetic due to the fact that it is made of plasma. It has north and south magnetic poles just like Earth (“The Sun”). Sunspot appear on the sun where magnetic field lines break through the Sun’s photosphere, sometimes causing solar flares. The amount of solar flaring that takes place on the sun determines how many sunspots there will be. Our sun might appear to be yellow

It is considered to be the fifth largest satellite in our Solar System, and is also the closet celestial body to Earth (Cain, "The Moon"). It is also the second brightest body (the Sun being the first) in our sky. It has very little atmosphere, so its temperature can vary from -153˚C to 107˚C, sometimes even to -273˚C. The moon’s diameter is one fourth the diameter of Earth, and its mass is only 1.2% of Earth’s mass. The moon’s gravity affects the ocean’s tides, something Galileo Galilei did not know about during his time ("The Moon"). We actually cannot see all of the moon; only 59% of it. The dark side of the moon receives just as much light as near side of the moon, although we cannot see this by looking at it. The moon is very textured, and has multiple types of terrain. Maria are the flat plains once thought to be seas, terre are the highlands, and there are also some mountain-like parts of the moon. The closet thing to water found on the moon is ice. There is no liquid water on the moon because of its lack of atmosphere. The moon also has numerous craters created by asteroids crashing into it. Neil Armstrorng was the very first human being to ever walk on the moon in 1969 (“The