Bulletin 7 25 November Introducing . . . Alan Gilmore This week’s audioconference guest speaker is Alan Gilmore. Alan Gilmore is the superintendent at Mt John Observatory - Canterbury University’s research station above Lake Tekapo. Alan started star-gazing when he was in the fourth form in 1959 and has been interested in astronomy ever since. The Mt John Observatory is world-recognised and is unique within New Zealand. Although there are other observatories around the country Mt John has New Zealand’s three largest telescopes and has very favourable viewing conditions. A research programme in the 1960’s showed Mt John had low rainfall and cloud cover - providing less atmosphere for researchers to look through. Students and researchers from New Zealand and overseas gather at Mt John to study the stars and changes in the night sky. A current research project is looking at how fast stars move and the directions in which they move. These researchers are studying the night sky to find out more about where we’ve come from and what the future might hold for us. Alan and his wife Pam Kilmartin have worked at the Observatory for 17 years. They have yet to find a comet but have found several asteroids. As well as working for the University the couple also pursue their own research. Frequently asked questions about space Question: What happens to used spacecraft? Answer: Most of these vehicles are displayed at NASA Centres and science museums across the country. For example, the Apollo 11 command module is on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. Question: Why don’t photographs taken on the Moon or in orbit show stars in the back of deep space? Answer: For the same reason they often don’t appear in night time pictures taken on Earth - because the light from brighter objects washes the stars out of the picture. Space activity - Space Shuttle Word Find See if you can find the names of all the Space Shuttles in the word-find below. Circle the names if you can find them. You can move up, down, sideways and diagonally. S E E N I H C A M R E P U S A R E D N I F H T A P I F P I W X B U V K U I D A C H O Q S K Y B J R B C S T H T W A P Y R Z B M D S Q L A R E S O L E O U N X I O A L P R C N M V L S R E T I N L G R H R R O V A E D N E T E I O E E C C T I V F A S A N F L R C A S G E X A L V A G D E O N H I I C J D T K E E F N K Y N D U A S M A V W R L A E N T E R P R I S E U C O L E T K L R S L M T S C H O P Here are the names of the Space Shuttles . . . Atlantis Challenger Columbia Discovery Endeavor (American spelling) Enterprise Pathfinder Planet profile All about . . . Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun, and the largest planet in the solar system. Named after the ruler of the gods in Roman mythology, Jupiter has 1400 times the volume of Earth but is only 318 times more massive. This indicates that the giant planet must consist of gas rather than the metals and rocks of which the earth and other inner planets are made of. Orbiting the sun at an average distance 5.2 times greater than that of Earth, Jupiter makes a complete revolution in 11.9 Earth years but takes only 9.9 hours to rotate once on its axis. Scientific knowledge of the Jupiter system increased enormously in 1979 with the successful visits by the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft launched by NASA. Scientists also collected a large amount of information about Jupiter when fragments of the dying Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into the planet in July 1994. The collisions stirred up the planet’s atmosphere, heating interior gases and bringing them to the surface. Scientists captured detailed images of these gases with telescopes located on Earth and in space. Jupiter’s turbulent, cloud-filled atmosphere is cold. Periodic temperature fluctuations in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere reveal a pattern of changing winds like that in the equatorial region of Earth’s stratosphere. All about . . . Neptune Neptune is the fourth largest of the planets in the solar system, and the eighth furthest away from the sun. The average distance of Neptune from the sun is 4.5 billion km. The period of rotation is about 16 hours, and the period of revolution around the sun is 164.79 Earth years. The temperature of the surface of Neptune is about -218° C, much like Uranus, which is more than 1 billion miles closer to the sun. Scientists assume, therefore, that Neptune must have some internal heat source. The atmosphere consists mostly of hydrogen and helium, but the presence of up to three percent methane gives the planet its striking blue colour. Eight known satellites orbit Neptune, two of which can be seen from Earth. The largest and brightest is Triton, discovered in 1846, the same year Neptune was first seen. Triton is slightly smaller than Earth’s moon. Nereid, the second satellite (discovered in 1949), has a diameter of only about 320 km. Six more satellites were discovered by the Voyager 2 planetary probe in 1989. Neptune is also circled by five thin rings. The discovery of Neptune was one of the triumphs of mathematical astronomy. To account for perturbations in the orbit of the planet Uranus, the French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Leverrier in 1846 calculated the existence and position of a new planet. That same year the German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle discovered the planet within one degree of the position Leverrier said it was. In the news Following Dr Lucid’s visit to New Zealand we’re probably a lot more interested in Mir than we used to be. Here’s what’s been in the news recently. A hatch on the Mir space station that the crew thought it had fixed was leaking oxygen again Wednesday, but Russian officials said the problem was minor. A spokesman for Russia’s Mission Control says it’s not dangerous and doesn’t pose any serious inconvenience to the crew. The leak began when cosmonauts failed to properly seal the hatch separating outer space from the docking chamber when they returned from a spacewalk at the beginning of this month. The chamber is closed off from the rest of the station, so the resulting loss of pressure in the docking chamber did not affect other parts of the Mir. When cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyov and Pavel Vinogradov again ventured into space last Thursday, they found a white powder-like residue on the edge of the hatch. On their way back, they removed the substance and installed several additional clamps to make sure the seal on the hatch was airtight. The crew pumped oxygen into the chamber last Sunday, and the pressure held for two days before falling again late Tuesday. Space officials remain uncertain about the cause of the leak and the nature of the white residue. Solovyov and NASA astronaut David Wolf are to examine it during the next spacewalk - planned for 5 December. The hatchway problem ranks small against the background of recent troubles that have plagued the aging station &emdash; the worst of them being the 25 June collision with a cargo ship which cut Mir’s energy supply by half. Explorers mystery quiz - Bulletin 7 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 28 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 : How long is the longest space flight humans have undertaken? Question two : The Cassini space probe was named after Gian Domenico Cassini (1625-1712). What was he famous for? Last week’s winner The winner of last week’s Explorers Mystery Quiz was Howick Intermediate School, Extension Group, Howick, Auckland. Last week’s answers Answer one : The Apollo 10 mission crew went 39,897 km/H in 1969. Answer two : John F. Kennedy was the American president who called on NASA to have an astronaut on the moon between 1960 and 1970 - a feat that was achieved. Christmas edition Want to know what Amazon adventurer Andrew Mercer and Polar Free’s David Scott are up to now? Then look out for our special Explorers and Adventurers bulletin. Before the end of the year we’ll catch up with the Explorers and Adventurers we’ve followed this year. This special bulletin will also feature answers to this week’s quiz and the Grand Prize winner. 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]