FIFTH GRADE RESEARCH PROJECT TRIFOLD

LESSON 8: HOW FAR IS FAR? THE 5 SPACE PROBES HEADED BEYOND OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

NASA and other space programs have launched many space probes. However, only 5 have flown past Neptune (or will shortly). Here they are:

Four of these have traveled for decades to reach beyond the orbit of Pluto. Voyager I holds the record for furthest extent of human exploration. It is now approaching the borders of our Solar System.

Voyager I

Voyager 2

Artist's view of Pioneer 10 near Jupiter

Artist's view of Pioneer 11 near Saturn

Part 2:

Current Mission to Pluto, Charon, and the Kuiper Belt

New Horizons left Earth in 2006 and  passed the halfway mark to Pluto in 2011. It should fly by Pluto in 2015.

New Horizons will continue past Pluto and will record information about the mysterious Kuiper Belt. Even though we have had 4 previous probes fly through this area, very little is known about this region.

The Kuiper Belt and TransNeptunian Objects are an exciting field for discovery.

Currently, the farthest known LARGE object in this group is Sedna. While Pluto is 3 billion miles out from the sun, Sedna is, at its farthest point, 82 billion miles away from the sun. We are not sure how to classify Sedna and we are not even sure if it is a Kuiper Belt Object.

On the other hand, Eris is considered the most remote dwarf planet in the Solar System. It is roughly 9 billion miles from the Sun. It is in the Kuiper Belt.

NASA has a video about New Horizons and a countdown page at this link:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html

It is too early to start viewing images from of Pluto, but some year in the future, we will finally get our first glimpse of this remote world.

STUDENT SURVEY: SHOULD WE GO BACK TO THE MOON?

Here's our survey question for this month.
Should we send astronauts back to the Moon in the next hundred years?


YES:  IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
MAYBE: IIIIIIIIIIII, (after we fix the problems of the world)
NO: IIII

LESSON 7: THE SPACE RACE PART II

Let's see how much you know about this part of our lesson.

Knock out the incorrect answers to reveal the correct one.

This image shows:

A. the inventor of a new way of making Russian stamps

B. the end of the Russian space program in 1961

C. The first person in space, Yuri Gargarin

D. A NASA astronaut that accidentally went up in a Russian spacecraft

Valentina Tereshkova (the lady on the left) came to visit our NASA program because:

A. she is the grandmother of an astronaut

B. she likes to collect space patches even though she lives in Russia

C. she got lost and ended up in Houston

D. she was the first woman in space (over 40 years ago)

Where is Katherine Coleman in this photo?

A. in a hospital

B. waiting her turn to get her hair done at the NASA space lab in Houston, Texas

C. on the moon base 'Alpha I'

D. on board the International Space Station

This chimpanzee is getting special attention because:

A. he was rescued from falling overboard on a Navy ship

B. he just got back from being in space aboard a rocket

C. he was part of a medical experiment with chimps riding whales

D. it was a Russian chimp rescued from their space program

LUNA 3 was:

A. the first design for houses on the moon

B. an instrument to measure wind speeds on the moon

C. an American probe that first photographed the far side of the moon

D. a Russian probe that first photographed the far side of the moon

E. a lunar probe that would attract aliens with special foods and bait just in case life forms lived there





OPEN HOUSE THIS THURSDAY ~ COME VISIT ~ OCTOBER 20TH, 2011~ 5:00-7:30

Dear Parents,

Thanks for stopping by our Space Mission Control. Tonight you will see a number of projects by grade level:

First Grade: Unit Folder, Rocket, and Planet

Second Grade: Rocket and Asteroid Base

Third Grade: Rocket, Planet, and Asteroid Base

Fourth Grade: Research Poster and Rocket

Fifth Grade: Research Trifold, Rocket and Asteroid Base

Thanks for coming! Mr. Petersen

LESSON 6: THE SPACE RACE ~ PART ONE

I FOUND THESE OLD PAGES THIS WEEK. WHAT'S A SPACE RACE? WHAT DO THE FLAGS MEAN? WHO'S RACING?

WE SHALL SOLVE THESE PUZZLES THIS WEEK.

A TERRIFIC TOUR OF TELESCOPES

In our space unit, we will now focus on how we view our Universe. Since 1610 and Galileo's time, scientists and amateur astronomers have worked to improve the power of  telescopes. New planets have been discovered, along with asteroids, galaxies, and nebulae. Let's take a look at some of the most powerful telescopes in the world.
Any discussion about telescopes MUST begin with the amazing astronmer William Herschel.

William Hershel built over 400 telescopes in his lifetime. With these telescopes, he discovered the new planet Uranus along with the moons Mimas, Enceladus, Titania, and Oberon. He also discovered that the sun gave off an invisible form of heat know as infrared radiation. His work during the late 1700s and early 1800s set the stage for many more larger telescopes in the centuries to come.

This is Herschel's largest telescope. Imagine this in your backyard! Notice it had wheels and a track. Why was this important? This telescope was so large that the astronomer sat in a small house during viewing.

This the HET telescope in far west Texas. It is the 4th largest optical telescope in the world. One of the planned uses for this telescope will be a project on discovering Dark Matter.

Here's the HET at night. The McDonald Observatory has 5 large telescopes next to each other. They have tours open to the public. It's a long drive, but maybe someday you'll go there.

This is the largest Radio Telescope in the world in Arecibo, Puerto Rico.

You can probably guess the name of this telescope. Did you say Hubble?

The European Southern Observatory contains a set of 4 massive telescopes in the remote Atacama Desert in Chile. These are some of the most powerful in the world. Two of them are shown here. Do you know what's shown in the sky behind them?

Why so many telescopes? Well, as you can see in this set of images, different types of telescopes bring us different types of information. Which image do you like the most?

THE FUTURE OF TELESCOPES

The E-ELT (European Extremely Large Telescope) is planned for 2022. It will be 1,500 times stronger than Hubble. The mirrors will be 128 FEET across. Currently, a very large telescope is 128 inches across!

Finally, this is the OWL or OverWhelmingly Large Telescope. It is proposed to be 300 feet in diameter. We don't have the technology to build it...yet. Maybe you will!

Applying what you've learned. Answer the question below:

The VLA or Very Large Array in Socorro, New Mexico are

A. optical telescopes

B. radio telescopes

C. a space telescope

D. a new kind of dish TV

QUESTION 2:

Which of these is on the electromagnetic spectrum?

A. infraviolet

B. y-rays

C. ultrared

D. radio waves

QUESTION 3:

Pick the space telescope's correct name:

A. Hubba-Bubba

B. Hubble

C. Hoover

D. Houston, we have a problem?