Jackie+R

Summaries of //From Big Bang to Galaxies,// //The Milky Way Galaxy, //and // History of the Solar System //

__From Big Bang to Galaxies:__ 15 billion years ago our universe was formed out of nothing. In a tiny fraction of a second the universe began to grow rapidly. This is commonly known as the big bang. Particles of matter started to be created such as antiquarks, energy, and quarks. By the time 3 minutes helium nuclei are already formed. For the next 300,000 years the universe stays the same and very little happens. Then the first atom is created and more and more are. They form together to become the universe. 2 billion years after the big bang the formation of galaxies start. They form unevenness in matter and gravity forms it into a galaxy. They were much closer together than now so they would collide. After time they spread apart and didn't collide anymore.

__The Milky Way Galaxy:__ Our universe, the milky way can be seen on a clear and dark night. The milky way is made up of huge number of individual stars, clouds of dust, and gas. There is a flat disk of stars about 100 light years across and it is 1 to 2 thousand light years thick. A thin layer of gas and dust cuts across the middle of the disk. At the center of the milky way there is a big flattened bulge about 20,000 light years across. The sun sits in the disk about half way out from the center. On the side opposite of the sun a dwarf galaxy is merging with the milky way. Stars are spread out as much as 30,000 light years from the center of the galaxy. Four spiral arms come out of the bulge which are made out of bluish young stars and pink clouds of hydrogen gas. In the center of the bulge there is believed to be a giant black hole.

__History of the Solar System:__

The sun was formed when gravity pulled together gas and dust. It collapsed from a ball to a disk about 4 and a half billion years ago. Inside the disk solid material started to form into larger and larger materials. In the outer solar system four big masses were formed. These became the plants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. There were too many collisions for plants to form in the inner solar system. But eventually Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars were formed. Their surfaces were heated and on the inside there was radioactivity that also generated heat. They cooled off when the metal sank to the middle and the rocks rose to the top. The moon was most likely created in a catastrophic collision. The moons surface was crated by heavy bombardment for about a million years. Venus, Earth and Mars got their atmosphere at a later stage, maybe form the gasses blown out of volcanos. On Earth oxygen was produced by plants breaking down carbon-dioxide. Large rocks crashing down of the Earth are far less common then in the early stages.

__Rocket History:__ ** One of the first machines ever to be similar to a rocket was something called an aeolipile. It was invented around 100 B.C. when a Greek inventor named Hero of Alexandria used steam as a propulsive gas. He then put a sphere of a water kettle. You light a fire below and then water turns to steam which travels through the pipes into the sphere. Two pipes of the sides of the spheres allow the steam to go out which causes the sphere to move. ** ** Rockets have been known to appear in stories throughout history. Some rockets are believed to be accidents like in the first century A.D. the chines were believed to have a similar form of gunpowder. The Chinese started to experiment with gunpowder and put tubes filled with gunpowder on arrows. They light a fuse stuck in the gunpowder and it propelled the arrows forward which was how the first true rocket was born. During the war of the Mongolians and the Chinese the Mongolians reported "arrows of flying fire" in the air. These arrows were a simple form of rockets we have today. Though we have advanced much. **



Rocket Stages: media type="custom" key="13889754"

Mars Rovers: Over the past 40 years there have been many expeditions to Mars. Three are, Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity. Once the rovers are launched out into it takes 7 months for the rovers to finally reach Mars. In the expedition with Spirit we discovered rocks and minerals on Mars. With this new rover, Curiosity, we are going to search for the possibility of there being life on Mars a while ago.

Rocket Assembly:



The purpose of this experiment was to see if the mass of a rocket affected how high its altitude was. The experiment was preformed by us building a rocket. All the rockets were made the same. Then we got to paint each of our rockets differently so the mass was different for each one. Then each rocket was shot up in the sky and calculated how high it went. After all of the results were looked at it was found that the rocket with the biggest mass flew the highest. Our rockets mass was 46.1 grams. When our rocket was laded onto the launcher we connected the wire and stood back. Then we launched it into the sky. Once it was in the sky if flew straight. It then reached its apogee and started to fall. The parachute then popped out from the top and the rocket landed on its side.

Rocket Fins Experiment

The purpose of this experiment was to see how the fins affected the altitude. The control was the main construction of the rocket. The independent variable wasthe number of fins on the rocket. The dependent variable was the altitude of the rocket. The maximum altitude was reached by a rocket with only 3 fins. My hypothesis was not correct. I thought that the rocket with the biggest mass and the most fins would go the highest. This was not true the rocket wit the highest mass and most wings went second to lowest.



Our rocket had a mass of 61.6 and had 18 fins that were placed at random. My hypothesis was that our rocket would fly the highest because it had the biggest mass. When our rocket was launched it did not fly straight. It flew sideways and did not go high up it fell to the ground. After it hit the ground the parachute deployed. It had a total maximum altitude of 7 meters.

__Robots Throughout History__ Robotics as we know were first reported to be seen during the industrial revolution due to countries advancing in technology. The first industrial robot reported was made in 1926 by George Devol who was an American inventor. This robot was called Unimate. It was the first digitally operated programmable robotic arm. Unimate represented the foundation of the modern robotics industry. Ever since then robots have been becoming more and more advanced.

New inventions of robots include one that is in space right now. Curiosity was sent to Mars from NASA in November. It is now cursing in outer space. Curiosity is the biggest robot that NASA has sent to Mars. It has the ability to scoop up soil and test for life. This is a big improvement of how much robots have improved.



Mars Rover Curiosity



George Devol with Unimate

Motors and Robots:

** Motors can be programed to do amazing things. Some things such as make robots move. They can be programed by a computer and recognize lots of commands. The motor can make the robot do things such as point turn, a curve turn, drive forward, and reverse. To go forward or backward the motor has to be moving at the same time and same speed. To do a point turn one motor is not moving but the other one is. For the robot to do a curve turn on motor is turning faster than the other one. **

Minerals and Rocks

Minerals and Rocks can be identified in many ways. They can be identified by their taste, looks, magnetism, acid reactions, streaks, and texture. You can tell if it is a mineral because it will be made naturally and usually not magnetic. Rocks are usually hard and can be magnetic. Some other ways are if its name has the word stone in it like limestone means it is a rock. Light also travels through a mineral differently than a rock. With clear minerals if you put it on print then it make the words look differently then if you did it with a clear rock.





When Curiosity gets to Mars it will use similar techniques to discover if there was life on Mars. When it gets there it will scoop up soil and process it. When it is processing it, it will test all of the things that minerals and rocks do that makes them minerals and rocks. Curiosity can also use many instruments like a laser to detect other things.

__**Life**__

Living things must possess certain characteristics to be considered living. To be alive it must have some DNA and be able to do work. It also needs to be able to re-produce. All living things have to grow, they are all organized, they all react, they all use energy, and all of them have to be able to move in some form. There are some exceptions though which have been debated for a long time such as mules. Mules can not reproduce so people are wondering whether they are living things or not.



There are many ways we could find out if a planet had life. One way would be to send a robot like curiosity to a planet. The robot would scoop up soil and sift through it. Once it has sifted through it, it can tell if there has ever been life here. Things it would look for first are water of moistness in the soil. It looks for this because we believe that every living thing needs water to survive.