Fascinating Space

For the last two weeks of term, we are going to engage in a ‘Space Forum’. The world has decided that we have to find a new planet to live on. Which will it be and why? What sorts of things will help our decision? From all your researching four blue, you will be able to come up with why or why not a planet may be good enough to colonise or not. What do you think?

Interesting Facts about Planet Mars

• Mars is situated at a distance of 227,940,000 km away from the sun.
• 1 Mars day is equal to 24.6 Earth Hours.
• 1 Mars year is equivalent to 686.98 Earth Days.
• Mars is recognized by its red and dusty landscape.
• Phobos and Deimos, are two small satellites that Mars has.
• The seventh largest planet in the Solar System is Mars.
• Mars is made up of iron, covered by rock and then a thin layer of atmosphere.
• Carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and argon along with traces of oxygen constitute the atmosphere on Mars.
• Polar ice caps, made up of solid carbon dioxide are found on Mars. These transform with the changing seasons.
• The temperature in Mars fluctuates from a maximum of 0 ° C ( 32° F) to a minimum of -100° C (-148° F).
• The ground on Mars is complex and different. It has deep canyons, mountains, volcanoes and craters. The largest mountain in the Solar System, Olympus Mons, stands on Mars. It stands at an altitude of 24 km (78,000 feet) with a base that is 600 km across.
• A system of canyons, Valles Marineris stretch out over the surface of Mars. It is spread over nearly 2,500 miles (4000 km). These canyons can get up to 200 km wide and 6 km deep too in some areas.
• Once upon a time, there were large amounts of water on Mars. It is said that river systems and even lakes and oceans existed some 4 billion years ago. This has led scientists to believe that Mars may have supported life some billion of years ago.
• In 1965, Mariner 4, visited Mars. It transmitted 22 pictures of life of the Martian surface back to Earth. The pictures unveiled the truth-there were no signs of water or life on Earth.
• Mars nearly takes 687 days to orbit the sun.
• Mars is visible with the naked eye.
• Mars has two moons called Phobos and Deimos.
• The soil on Mars cotains large amount of iron.
• The storm on Mars can last for weeks.
• A meteorite from Mars hit Earth in 1984.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher. His contributions to astronomy include:

-the telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus

- the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter (named the Galilean moons)

- the observation and analysis of sunspots.

He was also the first to report that the moon has mountains and craters, similar to Earth. He worked this out by observing the patterns of light and shadow on the moon’s surface.

Galileo observed our galaxy, the Milky Way and also observed the planet Neptune in the year 1612.

This article from the Sydney Morning Herald explains sunspots and what that means for our planet, Earth.

Please read the article. Please answer the following question as a comment.

What do you understand about sunspots?

Do you think other planets are affected by sunspots?

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/when-the-sun-goes-quiet-earth-shivers-20090912-flhk.html

Follow this link to read about what astronauts said about the ‘smell’ of space.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/smell-of-space-strong-metallic-and-unique-nasa-astronauts-say-20090907-fddm.html

Follow this link and see the astronauts adding an ‘amonia tank’ to the space station!

http://media.smh.com.au/?rid=52933

Well done to those who have successfully added their avatar. We will continue to get this done this week. Our next job is to get all our information onto our pages. Your research that you have been doing in groups will be put on these pages. From there, anyone is welcome to comment on the information or add their own information.

I am very proud of your efforts Four Blue and I know this is going to be alot of fun learning all about space! Please keep up the good work and I can’t wait to see how our ‘blog’ will look by the end of term.

Thankyou to those who have replied to the invitation to our blog. I now have 21 out of 28 of you! What do you all think, was it easy to do?

Thanks Charlie, you were the first to make a comment to ‘Our Responsibilities’. It was very well written. Well done!

Remember to write comments as

I now have all of you registered! Yeah!

If you need help, please ask here. Either another student or I may be able to assist!

Please write any interesting facts that you may know about the solar system…