Bulletin 5 11 November More about Shannon Lucid Dr. Lucid has been in New Zealand for a week now. We caught up with her to find out how she’s enjoying it . . . It’s a week in to my New Zealand tour and I’m really enjoying myself. I’ve spoken to hundreds of children at Auckland, Wellington and at a marae-based school in Cambridge. There have been many highlights of my trip so far - and the powhiri I’ve taken part in have been particularly special. I’m impressed with how interested New Zealand children are with the world, and I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to listen to them and their questions during my school visits and the weekly audioconferences. Everyone I’ve spoken to has been so friendly - a real pleasure to talk to - so I’m just having a great time here. I’ve only seen New Zealand from space, and of course, pictures so I’m enjoying experiencing it for myself. It really is a lovely country. This week I’m in Christchurch, Invercargill, Dunedin and back to Wellington, so I'll get to see more of the country and meet many more of you. Bye for now - Shannon Lucid Frequently asked questions about space Two more commonly asked space questions . . . Question: What are the names of the Space Shuttle orbiters? Answer: Their names, in the order they were built, are Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavor (American spelling). The Enterprise was flown only within earth’s atmosphere, during Shuttle approach and landing tests conducted in 1977. Columbia flew the first five Shuttle missions, beginning in April 1981, and was modified to fly extended duration missions as long as 16 days. Challenger was built as a vibration test vehicle and then upgraded to become the second operational Shuttle. The Challenger and her seven-member crew were lost in a launch accident on 28 January 1986. Discovery made her first flight in August 1984, and Atlantis followed in October 1985. Endeavor, built to replace Challenger, first flew in May 1992 with a dramatic mission that featured the rescue of a stranded Intelsat 6 commercial communications satellite. Question: Why hasn’t the United States developed a way to rescue astronauts who are in trouble on space missions? Answer: NASA has a range of systems that could help astronauts in danger. Following the Shuttle Challenger accident, NASA developed an emergency escape hatch for the Shuttle fleet that lets crew members get out of the side of a Shuttle on a parachute during certain types of emergencies during landing. Space activity As a class, develop a list of space terms and words along with their meanings that could be placed onto a large mural or drawing of a planet or spaceship. These could be used as a resource database of words for other language activities completed during the programme. Mars team answers your questions Got a burning question about the team of people involved in the Mars project featured in last week’s bulletin? You can email questions to the team until December and you can check out answers to questions that have already been asked. A collection of previously asked questions with answers is available at http://quest.acr.nasa.gov/mars/ask/question.html The Mars researchers have developed some guidelines for schools emailing new questions. Before you send your questions assess what you want to know, why you’re asking the question and what you want the information for. You could ask yourself if there is another way of finding the same information - through an encyclopaedia for example. Obviously lots of school pupils and teachers want to know similar things so if you ask a common question you’re likely to get a standard reply. Original questions will get individual responses. These experts are keen to communicate with schools but their time and energy is extremely valuable. Before emailing your question, why not see if it has already been asked. If you can’t find an answer then email your message to the team who’ll be happy to answer it. Question format: You can email questions to: [email protected] The team will acknowledge and answer all questions as quickly as possible - in most cases answers are available within one week to 10 days. In the email’s subject field, please put the letters "QA:" before your subject and in the body of the message please include your age so the experts can make sure their response is at an appropriate level. Here’s an example question email: TO: [email protected] FROM: your email address SUBJECT: QA: People in control room Hello, I am an 8th grader from Mt.View, California. In the recent television programme, it seemed like there were a lot of people in the control centre to control the mission to Mars. How many people normally work in this room? Thanks, Kelly Valentine Please send one question per email message to make it easier for the experts to respond. And please limit your questions to a maximum of 20 for an individual teacher. Planet profile All about . . . Pluto Pluto is the ninth planet from the sun and outermost known member of the solar system. Pluto was first discovered as the result of a telescopic search in 1905 by the American astronomer Percival Lowell who thought slight disturbances in the motions of Uranus might be caused by a distant planet beyond Neptune. Members of the Lowell Observatory staff, continued to search and in 1930 American astronomer Clyde William Tombaugh found Pluto near the position Lowell had predicted. The new planet’s mass, however, seemed insufficient to account for the disturbances Lowell had witnessed and the search for a possible tenth planet continues. Pluto revolves about the sun once in 247.7 years at an average distance of 5.9 billion km. The orbit is so irregular that at certain points along its path Pluto is closer to the sun than Neptune - however there is no possibility of the two planets colliding. Visible only through large telescopes, Pluto is seen to have a yellowish colour. For many years very little was known about the planet, but in 1978 astronomers discovered a relatively large moon - they named Charon - orbiting Pluto at a distance of only about 19,000 km. The orbits of Pluto and Charon caused them to pass repeatedly in front of one another from 1985 to 1990, enabling astronomers to determine their sizes fairly accurately. Pluto is about 2284 km in diameter, and Charon is about 1192 km in diameter, making them even more closely a double-planet system than Earth and its moon. Pluto is apparently made of much rockier material than the other planets of the outer solar system. This may be the result of the kind of cold-temperature/low-pressure chemical combinations that took place during the formation of the planet. Many astronomers think Pluto may be a former satellite of Neptune, knocked into a separate orbit during the early days of the solar system. Charon would then be an accumulation of the lighter materials resulting from the collision. All about . . . Uranus Uranus ranks seventh in order of distance from the sun, revolving outside the orbit of Saturn and inside the orbit of Neptune. Uranus was accidentally discovered in 1781 by British astronomer Sir William Herschel and was originally named the Georgium Sidus (Star of George) in honour of his royal patron King George III of Great Britain. The planet was later, for a time, called Herschel in honour of its discoverer. The name Uranus, which was first proposed by the German astronomer Johann Elert Bode, was in use by the late 19th century. Uranus has a diameter of 52,200 km, and its average distance from the sun is 2.87 billion km. Uranus takes 84 years for a single revolution, or orbit, and 17 hr 15 min for a complete rotation about its axis. Uranus’s atmosphere consists largely of hydrogen and helium, with a trace of methane. Through a telescope the planet appears as a small, bluish-green disk with a faint green periphery. Compared to Earth, Uranus has a mass 14.5 times greater, a volume 67 times greater, and a gravity 1.17 times greater. In 1977 American astronomer James L. Elliot discovered the presence of five rings around the equator of Uranus. Named Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon (starting from the innermost ring) and four more rings were discovered in January 1986 during the exploratory flight of Voyager 2. Uranus also has 15 moons (the last 10 discovered by Voyager 2); all revolve about its equator and move with the planet in an east-west direction. The two largest moons, Oberon and Titania, were discovered by Herschel in 1787. The next two, Umbriel and Ariel, were found in 1851 by the British astronomer William Lassell. Miranda, thought before 1986 to be the innermost moon, was discovered in 1948 by the American astronomer Gerard Peter Kuiper. Explorers mystery quiz - Bulletin 5 Answer the Explorers Mystery Quiz questions below correctly and be in to win a Panasonic cassette recorder for your class. You will find the answer to this week’s first question on your Explorers and Adventurers Mystery Trail poster. You might need to do a bit more research to answer question two. Fax your answers to the Telecom Adventure Line: 0800 253-020. Entries close at 5pm on Friday 14 November. The classes whose students correctly answer the most Explorers Mystery Quizzes during the Explorers and Adventurers programme will go into the draw for a grand prize in December. So good luck everyone. This week’s questions Question one: What was the name of the dog which travelled in space in 1957? Question two: What was Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei the first person to do? Last week’s winner The winner of last week’s Explorers Mystery Quiz was Room 8, Stanhope Road School, Mt Wellington, Auckland. Last week’s answers Answer one: The term for a collapsed star is a Black Hole. Answer two: Mars is named after the Roman god of war. Stop Press! There’s good news for Wairarapa schools. we’ve managed to arrange for NASA astronaut Dr. Shannon Lucid to visit Masterton on Thursday 13 November. If you’d like to come along from 1.30pm to 2.30pm to hear Dr. Lucid talk about her space experiences fax Danielle on the Adventure Line Wellington 0800 253-020. Presentation details Date: Thursday 13 November Time: 1.30pm to 2.30pm Venue: Hiona Intermediate School, Te Ore Ore Rd, Masterton Fax your response to the Adventure Line 0800 253-020 Don’t forget to include: School Name Contact Name Phone Number Number of adults and children attending Keep in touch If you’ve got an inquiry or want more information about the Space Explorers programme, the best way to get in touch with Danielle is through the Adventure Line fax (0800 253-020) or email her on: [email protected]