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=The Search for Life on Mars =

From Big Bang to Galaxies
The universe began with the big bang, forming galaxies over millions of years. It was created when it exploded out of nothing, beginning smaller than a nucleus but expanding rapidly and creating matter in the form of quarks, anti-quarks and energy. The temperature of the universe fell, forming protons and neutrons out of the quarks. After 3 minutes, where the universe consisted mostly of energy and electrons, a quarter of the protons and neutrons had formed helium nuclei. Nothing much changed from there, though the dropping temperatures and the electrons created a fog of radiation. At 3000 ̊ Kelvin electrons began orbiting nuclei because the temperatures were cool enough at 300,000 years. The galaxies began to form, strung together between dark voids. Galaxies began as huge gatherings of gas, and stars were scattered through the spherical shape. The gas settled into a disc with arms surrounding it. The complicated universe all began with an explosion as small as a nucleus and expanded into the massive universe today.

The Milky Way Galaxy
In the universe, we are located in the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way is constructed of large numbers of stars and patches of opaque dust that appears dark in the sky. It is made up of a disk of stars surrounded by gas and dust, and in the middle there is large flattened bulge. The stars within the bulge are older, mainly red and orange and very old and packed in. The nucleus of the galaxy is probably a black hole surrounded by dust. The Milky Way galaxy is turning slowly. Within in the galaxy, the sun goes around every 250 million years. The galaxy is surrounded by a large corona made up of matter, dust and stars that we can't see, and something is pulling on the Milky Way. The turning, growing galaxy is the place we call home within the universe.

Lives of the Stars
Stars are hot spheres of gas that produce ligh = = t and radiation and provide life to planets like earth. Stars form in cold dark gas and dust clouds of space when its disturbed by a ripple from an exploding star or something else in space that causes clumps to form. The ripples cause the gas to be pulled together by gravity, and it begins to rotate and heat up, hot enough for nuclear reactions and surrounded by dust. The dust is cleared away as gas is shot out of the poles as it gets hotter, and it then consistently turns hydrogen into helium for a long time. The biggest stars are blue with 40,000̊ surface temperature. White stars are smaller, and yellow stars are even smaller. The smallest stars burn red. The lower the star's mass, the lower the surface temperature and the dimmer they are. The sun will eventually run out of hydrogen for fuel, and it will begin to expand and darken to orange. It will eventually get rid of its mass and blow off its outer layer, which will become a nebula. The core of the sun will become a white dwarf star which will cool down and fade. In larger stars, it expands and becomes a super-star while pulsating at different levels of brightness regularly. At the core, a ball of iron is formed, and as it shrinks, it explodes and creates a super nova, a huge explosion. Stars of all sizes are scattered about the solar system, dying and forming continuously.

The Sun
The sun is a ball of hot gas at the center of our solar system. 76% of its mass is hydrogen and the rest is helium. Its outer layer, the corona is the outer layer of gas around the ball, the photosphere is the ball, and the chromosphere is a layer of red flames. The sun burns the hottest and brightest in the center where the temperature is 15 million degrees. = = Hydrogen nuclei and single protons crash together to create helium nuclei, releasing energy. The energy radiates out from the center, creating rolls of hot gas that rise to the surface and sink back as they cool. The surface of the sun consists of spicules, which shoot up thousands of kilometers, sun spots, where the surface is thousands of degrees cooler, and prominences where large jets of gas shoot out. The sun constantly sends out gas into the solar system, which is deflected by the earth's magnetic system. The sun has magnetic field lines like the earth. They get tangled up around the sun as it rotates, creating sun spots. The field lines return to normal again after 11 years and the cycle begins again. The number of sun spots increases and decreases as the cycle of the magnetic field changes. The sun supports the life on our planet, continuing as it has been for millions of years.

History of the Solar System
The sun was created by gravity, and collapsed into a disc. Particles in the disc started building together to make planetesimals. The icy planetesimals survived further away from the sun while the ones closer were made of metal and rock. They collided gently and combined to make planets, and smashed into each other and destroyed each other. In the outer rings, four huge planets were formed, which had moons and because of their mass. They also collected gas from the nebula to make the ir rings. Large planets couldn't form easily in the inner solar system, so the four planets formed were smaller. Their temperatures were hotter because of being constantly hit and the radioactivity inside, but eventually rock rose to the surface and made the outer layer of the planets solid. All of the planetesimals were now gone into the galaxy, the asteroid belt or destroyed or made into moons. The icy ones became comets, and they were torn apart to make the rings around planets. The lives of the planets began with the creation of the sun.

=Making Predicti <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 130%; line-height: 1.5;">ons with the Hubble Deep Field Academy = <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The Hubble Deep Field Academy introduced us to identifying objects in space by showing the Hubble Deep Field (HDF), the picture taken by the special part of the Hubble Telescope. We asked 5 questions about the HDF, and then we compared our questions with those asked by scientists. The questions we asked and the questions of the astrono <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; line-height: 1.5;">mers were very similar ours, like what the objects were and how far away they were. Some of the places that we differed from the astronomers was that they wanted to know how to classify the objects, while we wanted to know why the image had a strange shape. In the first level, Stellar Statistician, we determined how many objects were in the HDF image. First, we divided the picture into three parts, and then the three section into nine sections. We then counted about 75 in the smallest section, and multiplied it back in, getting about 2,700 objects in the HDF image, and about 81 billion in the universe. In level 2, Classifying and Identifying Objects, we identified different types of objects, three being stars that were different colors, spiral galaxies (which had the most out of all objects) and irregular galaxies. In level 3, Estimating Distances to Objects in Space, we learned how an astronomer would identify how far away objects are. Mostly, the bigger objects are closer, but if a smaller object is very bright, it is close because its light can get to our planet more quickly and we can see it better. In level 4, Identify a Mystery Object, we learned that the color and shape of a galaxy indicates different things.The color of a galaxy indicates its age, as younger stars appear blue and older stars appear red. Sometimes the galaxies can appear mixed, which means that the stars within it are different ages. Astronomers use the shape of the galaxy to classify it. Galaxies can be spiral, elliptical, or irregular. Spiral galaxies have arms that extend out, elliptical galaxies are either round or oval and smooth, and irregular galaxies are shaped randomly. Astronomers estimate the number of objects in the universe using a method called "representative sampling". They divide an image like the HDF into sections, count one section and then multiply the objects in the section by the total number of sections. Astronomers think there are 50 to 100 billion objects in the universe.

== =<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 130%;">Summary of Rocketry History =

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Rockets are considered to be some of the most advanced technologies today, but they have been around for thousands of years. Around 100 BC an inventor named Hero created one of the earliest rocket devices. A water-filled kettle was placed above a fire, boiling off the water into steam. In the middle of the kettle a large sphere was connected to the kettle by a large pipe. The steam travelled up the pipe, and moved the sphere by escaping it through 2 L shaped tubes on the side of the sphere, which made it turn. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; line-height: 1.5;">The Chinese first used rockets around the first century A.D, a simple mix of saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal dust that made early gunpowder. They filled bamboo tubes with these mixtures and tossed them in the fire during religious festivals, which led them to notice the way the tubes behaved. The Chinese made the earliest form rockets out of these tubes, made up of a simple solid propellant rocket attached to a stick for guidance. They used them during war against the Mongols, which must have been terrifying in battle. The Chinese inspired rocket scientists to come after them and helped with the design of the modern rocket.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a Russian teacher and eventually rocket scientist, was one of the first people to introduce the idea of exploring space by rocket. He believed that liquid propellants would work better than solid because it would help the rocket travel further. He's been called the father of modern rocketry. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; line-height: 1.5;">The V-2 rocket was invented in the early 20th century by Vrein fur Raumschiffahrt (Society for Space Travel), a German rocket society. The V-2 was used as a weapon during World War II. The V-2, though small in comparison to modern rockets, could destroy whole city blocks, and thankfully was designed too late to change the course of World War II for the worse. In October of 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite in Earth's orbit, called Sputnik I. A month later, a satellite carrying a dog named Laika was launched into Earth's orbit also. These events set into motion the race for space between The U.S. and Russia. The U.S. Army launched the first American satellite, Explorer, but there was a need for an official American space exploration organization. NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) was created, a civilian organization dedicated to peaceful exploration of space. This set into motion the fast exploration of space by machines and humans. But the exploration of space couldn't be possible without the rocket.



=<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 130%;">Model Rocket Labeled Par <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 130%; line-height: 1.5;">ts =

== =<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 130%;">Rocket Experiment = <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">We constructed and flew rockets as part of our Mission to Mars unit as a way to get to Mars. The purpose of the experiment was to determine whether the mass of the rocket affected the maximum altitude of the rocket. We built the rockets from kits, so they were all the same, and then we painted them differently, so the amount of paint used on each rocket varied and made the mass of the rocket vary. My hypothesis was that if the rocket had more mass, it would go further because inertia would keep it going further because a larger mass would mean more inertia.To measure the altitude of our rockets, we used trigonometry and the tangent of a triangle. Using a trundle wheel, we measured out 100 m, to be one of the legs of the triangle we would create. When the rocket was launched, 2 people measured the angle of the rocket from 100 m away, finding the angle of the hypotenuse and the 100m leg, so the other leg of the triangle could be calculated. The angle measurements were averaged, and all of the numbers were plugged into the formula, A=B* tan. For example, our rocket had an angle of 39.5̊. B=100 in the formula, so when plugged in it looks like this: A= 100 * tan(39.5). Using a calculator, we found the tan of 39.5, and then multiplied by 100 to get the final altitude of our rocket, 82.4m. Overall, we found the that the rockets flew from 14m to 91.6m, all with varying heights. When the data was made into a graph, it showed that there was no correlation between the mass of the rocket and its final altitude. The group data shows that there is no direct relationship between the mass of the rocket and the maximum altitude. The scatter plot showed how the altitude for the rockets were all over, and it didn't increase or decrease based on the mass of the rocket. Rockets with almost the exact same mass had maximum altitudes that were over 60 m apart, proving how there is no direct relationship between the maximum altitude and the mass of the rocket.

=<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 24px;"> = <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I believe that overall, our rocket did fairly well. During ignition, our rocket stalled for a few seconds before lifting off. It coasted up quickly, and mostly straight. On apogee, the rocket reached 82.4 m. The parachute came out smoothly, and the wind blew the rocket about 40m away from the ignition point. When we built there rocket, the fins were glued on a little bit unevenly, so it might've made the rocket fly up at a slight angle instead of straight and hindered its max altitude. We used a little more than the median amount of paint, and our rocket flew the second highest. I think we used about the right amount of paint, and if we had used maybe .5 g less it would have flown even higher. Because of the way we painted the rocket, the paint job was somewhat rough and might have made more turbulence when the rocket flew. Overall, I'm satisfied with how our rocket flew and if we had just adjusted the wings and smoothed out the paint job, the rocket would have flown even higher. =<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Mars Rover Drop =

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">For the Mars Rover Drop, we designed a vehicle that would safely land an egg on the tarp below without breaking it, and we had to be able to take the egg out within 45 sec. The egg drop represented designs for a vehicle that would drop a mars rover on mars to continue our mission to mars unit. Our vehicle was made up of a large parachute and 2 balloons all connected to a capsule for the egg made of 2 cups taped together and filled with bubble wrap. The large parachute was important because the bigger the area, the more air a parachute will catch and slow down the vehicle. The balloons helped cushion the fall of the vehicle because they would hit the ground along with the cups and keep all of the force from going through the cups and hurting the egg. I think the parachute was the most important part of our design that worked well, because it slowed down the vehicle a lot and gave it a softer landing. The one issue we had with our design was that the paper towels we used in the parachute tore when we taped on the string, and we had to re-tape and tie it on again so the parachute wouldn't fall apart. We used paper towels in the parachute to let it be more flexible, and not stiff like only paper. If I were to do the mars rover drop again, I would spend more time on the capsule that holds the egg, possibly using the balloons or the plastic bag as airbags so the egg container itself never hits the ground alone, but has other parts that are filled with air that can take most of the impact. Below is a picture of our mars rover, before the drop.

== =<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 130%;">Programming Robots =

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> During our Robotics unit, we used Lego and Mindstorms software to program robots. This program allowed us make our robots do tasks by themselves. On the robot there are 2 motors, and a tachometer that measures the distance it goes. To make the robot go forward or backward, we program the motors to turn clockwise or counterclockwise, which is measured in rotations. To make a point turn, we program the motors so one side turns and the other goes backward or doesn't move. For a curve turn we program the motors to both go at the same time, but have one move at a higher speed so it is imbalanced and the robot turns. Turns are measured in degrees. Using the program, we can also make the robot repeat actions or replay actions we made the robot do. Some of the challenges with programming motors are that if the robot is confused by a program, like if it is asked to do 2 things at once that it can't do, it will just shut down. Also, if the robot is overloaded with programs then sometimes the program you are trying to run won't work correctly because the robot is trying to process too much information.



<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">A sensor is able to convert environmental energies, like mechanical energy, and convert it into electrical energy. Sensors on the robot do this so the robot can understand the information its getting from the sensors and do commands. The first sensor we used was a sound sensor, which can detect sound waves that we can hear. Inside the sensor is a small ceramic disc, almost like a human ear, that absorbs the waves and lets them be changed into electrical energy, which the robot can understand. For the sound sensor we played music and the robot would do different actions depending on how loud the music was. The next sensor we used was an ultrasonic sensor, which detects ultrasonic sounds that are too high for the human ear. It works the same way as the sound sensor, but it has two smaller discs that allow it to find distance by measuring how long it takes for sound waves to bounce of an object and come back. For this we were able to navigate our robots through an obstacle course by telling it to turn and move forward when it got too close to obstacles. The third sensor we used was a light sensor, which could distinguish between light and dark. The light sensor has two light bulbs, a red and a clear. The red bulb emits a laser, and when the laser bounces back and hits the clear bulb a measurement of the surface is taken depending on how much of the light bounced back. This allowed the robot to do commands only on a certain color, like moving forward on a dark line.

= = = = =<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 130%;">Identifying Rocks and Minerals =

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; line-height: 1.5;">There are many different ways that minerals can be identified, not just by their physical appearance. We've learned about 8 of some of the different ways to identify rocks and minerals. One of the most common ways to identify rocks and minerals are by their physical appearance, looking at their color and shape. We used a magnifying glass with 2 different lenses to see the rock at different levels of magnification. The second way is to identify them by their luster, or how light is affected by them. We identified rocks and minerals using a collection based on their luster, as some weren't the same color but were shinier than others. The third way to identify rocks and minerals is by using the Mohs scale, which identifies its hardness from 1-10. We scratched rocks with objects and other rocks, and by whether it was scratched or scratched other rocks we were able to identify what they were. The fourth way to identify rocks and minerals is through a streak test. When any rock is scratched on a ceramic plate (that is harder than it), it leaves behind a streak. The streak isn't always the same color as the rock, so it is helpful if multiple rocks are the same color but have a different streak. The fifth way is by testing whether or not certain rocks or minerals are magnetic. Using a strong neodymium magnet, we found that only about 12% of a 75 - rock/mineral collection are magnetic, so it would be useful to identify rocks and minerals that are similar. The sixth way to identify rocks and minerals is through their light refraction. When we placed a few different rocks and minerals on text, some refracted light in a way that made the words appear doubled up. The 7th way to identify rocks and minerals is through tasting them. We dipped a wet toothpick in 2 different minerals rocks and tasted them, because some minerals and rocks, like halite (or table salt) have a very distinctive taste. The last way that we used to identify rocks and minerals was by doing a basic acid test. We put 5 drops of hydrochloric acid on two different rocks and minerals and one fizzed. This told us that it was a carbonate compound, because acid and a carbonate compound mixed create gas, water and a salt. These are just some of the many ways to identify rocks and minerals. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Curiosity, the current Mars Rover, has a goal of finding signs of life in the soil of Mars. Equipped to travel long distances over challenging terrain, the robot's main goal is to find signs of life, or organic molecules, in the Martian soil. Curiosity uses many different techniques to find out information about the rocks and minerals on Mars. The robot drills a small hole in a rock, and the dust that is created is picked up and put in the rover. The mineral or rocks is then split between 2 different places in robot where it is then tested to find out about its mineralogy and in the other to identify any organic molecules. The robot uses tests that geologists use, so it is as closest thing to a geologist that NASA could get to identify the rocks and minerals on Mars. The rover has a whole laboratory inside it to conduct experiments. For example, the rover has a laser that shoots light at rocks that are hard to reach, and then the light that bounces back helps tell about the chemical composition or other important information about the rocks and minerals that will help tell us whether there was life on Mars. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;"> = = = = =<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 130%; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;">Characteristics of Life = <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">There are 8 different classifications that an object must have to qualify as living. It has to have all 8 at some point in its life, so even it is missing one it isn't considered living. To be living, an object must first be made of cells. They are the fundamental parts of living things. There are animal or plant cells. To be classified as alive, something must also need materials to survive. Something must need materials like water, minerals and air that they take from the environment. To be considered living, something must also be homeostatic, which means that internally everything stays the same even if the environment outside changes. Living things spend a lot of energy on staying homeostatic, because they would die if they couldn't keep things living internally homeostatic. Something must also respond to stimuli to be classified as living. A stimulus is anything that can cause a living thing to react, and the response is the living thing's reaction to the stimulus. Living things usually have two reactions to stimuli - they either move toward it (positive) or away from it (negative). Plants respond to stimuli too, but they move more slowly than animals. To be classified as living, something must also be able to reproduce, or produce offspring of their own kind. Something can produce sexually, with two parents, and have variety in the cells, or asexually, with only one parent, where the new cell is exactly the same as the old one. Something must grow from a simpler form into a more complex form to be considered alive. For example, humans begin as an embryo and end at the most complicated form, an adult. Something must also be able to adapt to be considered living. Adaption is the modifications that an organism makes to help it fit into its way of life. Evolution is how living things adapt over time. Lastly, respiration is the last thing that something must be able to do to be considered living. It is when a living thing converts food into energy by releasing the energy in the chemical bonds of sugars. Something must fit into these 8 classifications at one point in there life to be considered living. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">There are many different ways to determine whether or not there is life on other planets. From Earth, making observations about the planet by its appearance is the easiest way of determining whether there is life, though it isn't the most accurate. With a telescope, scientists were able to identify places on Mars that had deep ridges that stretched in wavy lines - indicators that water once flowed along the surface of Mars. Polar ice caps on Mars were also identified. Water is important to almost all life forms, and when there is water on a planet there is a much bigger change of life being there too. One of the more direct ways scientists determine whether there is life on planets is by sending rovers to investigate the planet and conduct experiments to see whether there is life on a planet. While on other planets, the robots would conduct experiments that would identify life forms. One experiment done was the Labeled Release apparatus, done by NASA's Viking missions from 1976. The robots mixed Martian soil with water filled with radioactive carbon atoms and nutrients. Living organisms, or microbes, in the soil would metabolize, or use the nutrients and release them as methane gas or radioactive carbon dioxide, which could then be measured. Many other tests like this can be performed on the soil of other planets to determine if it has life, like the rover Curiosity is doing on Mars right now. The search for life forms on other planets continues today with many different methods, but one common goal.