Thursday 17th, 2011 - Science Class

Hello 8th graders,

Thursday in science class we learned many things;
Ms. D. started off by updating us about the news in Japan; and to know more about it, click here.
Next, Ms. D. showed us an example of a well-done APOD. To write and do well an APOD, we should concentrate more on the subjects hyperlinked, not on the actual picture we choose. Here you can find the Moodle page in which the APOD example is saved.
And this is the website of the Astronomy Picture Of the Day.

Then, we received an article (which is in Moodle) about the satellite MESSENGER, that has finally made it to Mercury.
The satellite was launched in 2007, but because of the speed of Mercury, it took very long for it to actually reach the planet.
At a first glance, Mercury seems very close to Earth and very easy to reach, but it actually travels at an average speed of 106,000 mph (miles per hour), and is very close to the Sun. Also, a curious fact about Mercury is that one side of the planet is extremely hot and the other side is extremely cold. So, the satellite had to have features that could stand both temperatures to get close to it. Scientists from NASA, in order to make MESSENGER reach Mercury, had to speed the satellite up to 65,000 mph and make sure that it could stand extreme temperatures. You can find a video about future movement of the MESSENGER to study Mercury here.

Later on, we looked at some pictures about world time zones and latitude and longitude.

World time zones:

In this picture you can see all the world time zones. They are labelled in different colors, and chosen by the actual country. Every color corresponds to a number listed underneath the world map with the same color. Some countries have time zones labelled as -3 1/2, or +9 1/2, just because the country chose so.


And latitude and longitude:

This picture, then, shows the latitude and the longitude of Earth. The latitude goes from North to South, while the longitude goes from West to East.








After looking at these pictures, we corrected our homework.
The homework was to label summer solstice*, winter solstice*, autumnal equinox* and vernal equinox* in the map we drew in class and to answer these questions:

1) How many different divisions of NASA are there and where are they located?

2) What does ESA stand for, where is it located and what countries are involved in it?

Here are the answers.

1)

- NASA Headquarters: Washington D.C.

- Marshall- Huntsville, AL

- Ames- Moffett Field, CA

- Goddard- Greenbelt, MD

- Johnson- Houston, TX

- Kennedy, FL

- JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab)- Pasaden, CA

- Langley- Hampton, VA

- Glenn- Cleveland, OH

- White Sands, Cruces, NM

- Stennis- MS

- Dryden- Edwards, CA

- Wallops- VA

- IV & V Facility- Fairmont, WV

- Plum Brook- Sandusky, OH

2) ESA - European Space Agency

Headquarters in Paris; Austronauts Centers - Cologne, Germany; Astronomy Center - Madrid, Spain; Space Operations - Germany; Center for Earth Observations - Rome, Italy; Space Research and Tech Center - Netherlands.

The countries involved are: Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Italy, Ireland, Israel, Luxemburg, Norway, Netherlands, Portugal, Czech Republic, Romania, England, Sweden, Switzerland.

Finally, on Moodle, is posted all of the homework for this week and next week.

Some useful links would be:

ESA, NASA, and APOD.

The next scribe is Iva.

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*Summer Solstice: occurs when the axial tilt of Earth is most inclined towards the sun, on June 22nd/23rd. (Longer day, shorter night)

*Winter Solstice: occurs when the axial tilt is farthest away from the sun, on December 27th. (Longer night, shorter day)

*Autumnal Equinox: occurs when the axial tilt is neither towards the sun nor far from it. Happens on September 23rd. (Equal night and day, 12h each)

*Vernal Equinox: occurs when the axial tilt is neither towards the sun nor far from it. It happens on March 21st. (Equal night and day, 12h each)