Sam+S

The Search for Life on Mars //by Sam S// In this first post I will be summarizing the three videos //From Big Bang to Galaxies, The Milky Way Galaxy,// and//The Solar System.//

//From Big Bang to Galaxies//
It's hard to believe the Universe we are in today came out of something smaller than an atomic nucleus. About 15 billion years ago, the Universe exploded out of this tiny thing in a process known as the Big Bang, and within a fraction of a second, the Universe was about the size of Earth. Quarks, antimatter, protons, neutrons, and energy all came to be in about 1 minute after the Universe's creation. For the next 300,000 years, the Universe continues to expand to the impossibly large size it is today. After 3 billion years, galaxies begin to form as massive clouds of gas and stars.

//The Milky Way Galaxy//
Our Milky Way galaxy is a large galaxy that is around 100,000 light years across. Looking at it from the side, our Sun is on the left side of the bulging nucleus, and on the right, there is a dwarf galaxy merging with the Milky Way. The bulging nucleus holds a lot of stars and a black hole. Our galaxy spins counter-clockwise. The disc is the center layer of stars, surrounded by immense clouds of hydrogen, helium and dust. Finally, in the central bulge, there are lots of old red and orange stars in close proximity of each other, and in the very middle of the bulge, is a huge black hole that is 20 light years across.

//The Solar System//
Our solar system consists of 8 planets and a Sun. Before anything else, the Sun was forming, with enormous rings of rock and gas. From this, the Sun slowly formed, attracting other terrestrial planets with its gravity. These planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. The other 4 planets in our solar system are gas giants, formed when their gravity was strong enough to attract huge clouds of gas from their surrounding nebulae and rings. The moons of planets are large chunks of rocks that are trapped by a planet's gravitational pull. Comets are also icy chunks of rocks that get close to the sun.

Alright, on to the second post. In this one, I'll be summing up the history of rockets in a few paragraphs.

The first step in rocket history is when the first propulsion device was made. That would be the Greek Hero Engine, made by the inventor Hero of Alexandria. The Hero Engine worked by placing a sphere on a boiling water kettle and allowing the steam to go through two tubes to the sphere. The steam escaped through two L-shaped tubes on the sphere, thus giving it thrust. However, the Chinese were the first to really employ rockets. They filled bamboo tubes with saltpeter, sulfur, and coal dust, and tossed the tubes into fires at religious festivals. Some of the tubes popped out of the fire and skittered about because of the force, and the Chinese must've thought this was pretty cool, because they attached the tubes to arrows and fired them at the Mongols during the battle of Kai-Keng. Rockets would not be brought up again in history for quite a while, until the Russian professor Konstantin Tsiolkovskys figured that space exploration would be possible if liquid propellant were to be used in place of solid propellant, reason being that liquid propellant would have much farther range and would give the rocket much more thrust and velocity. For his research and contributions, he is known as the father of modern rocketry. On March 16th, 1926, scientist Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid propelled rocket. By today's standards, this was a very unimpressive launch (2.5 second flight, 12.5 meters high, landed 56 feet away) but it paved the way for liquid propellants and started a new era of rocketry. In World War II, the V-2 rocket was made by the Germans in order to attack London. It traveled by burning around 2,000 pounds of alcohol and liquid oxygen per seven seconds and packed an explosive payload that could obliterate several city blocks. Unfortunately for the Germans and fortunately for the Allies, the V-2 came too late to alter the course of the war.  NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) was formed as a civilian agency with the hope of peaceful space exploration for the benefit of all mankind. NASA is still going on today with that same hope. However, whether any more rockets are to be launched is still undecided.

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The History of the Exploration of Mars
Over the last 40 years, there have been numerous missions to Mars. Three of these missions include Mariner 4, Mars Odyssey, and Curiosity.

The first step in learning about a planet is to send fly-by spacecraft to check out the area. Is it safe to land? Are there any signs of life or hospitable climate? These general questions can be answered with a fly-by mission. Mariner 4 was a successful fly-by spacecraft that flew past Mars on July 14, 1965. It provided us with black-and-white photos of Mars that showed us craters from asteroid impacts. While it might not seem very important, these were the very first up-close pictures of Mars and they showed us that landings might be possible with further investigation.

The second step is to send an orbiter, that is, a spacecraft that stay’s in the planet’s gravitational field and orbits, taking pictures of physical geography as it goes. Mars Odyssey was one such spacecraft, and it has earned the Longevity Badge for being operative for so long. It arrived in Mars’ orbit in 2001, and is still operating to this day in 2012. It has told us that there are vast amounts of hydrogen located near the poles, telling us that there is water ice on Mars. This was a huge step in the exploration of Mars because life cannot thrive without water, so it tells us that there could be life.

The third and final step is to send a lander. Curiosity, a lander/orbiter combo launched on November 26, 2011, is on its way to Mars right now and likely won’t be there until August 2012. However, rovers such as Sojourner have been able to move about freely on the surface of Mars and have sent us lots of useful information.

Wiki Entry 6- Rocket Experiment
The purpose of this experiment was to determine if the mass of a rocket affected its maximum height. We put all of our rockets together the same way, we painted them differently, and we launched them all in succession so weather conditions would not have too much affect on the results. We then measured the angle of the rocket at the apogee with an angle gun. The results of the experiment was that the mass of the rocket did not affect the maximum height of the rocket, because the rocket that weighed 43.9 grams achieved the same height as a rocket with 50.6 grams of mass. My hypothesis was that masses in the middle would achieve the greatest height, but as proven in the experiment, the mass does not really matter. My rocket had 2 fins, so it didn't fly straight and got caught by the wind. The ejection phase occurred, but not the recovery, so the parachute did not deploy. It hit the ground hard and lost another fin. Overall, I think that we put a reasonable amount of paint on the rocket (and we made it look like a shark-dragon thing), and I think that the rocket was easy to construct. I do wish that the fins had not fallen off, because I think that affected how high my rocket flew.

Wiki Entry 6.5 - Rocket Fin Experiment
The purpose of this experiment is to see what kind of fin design allows the rocket to fly the highest. The data we got from this experiment (shown in the graphs below) allows us to clearly see that there is no relationship between the mass and the maximum altitude of the rocket, but there was an inverse (going down) relationship between the amount of fins and the maximum altitude. In general, rockets that had about 4 fins flew much better than rockets with 6-10 fins.

This is the mass-versus-altitude graph.

This is the fins-versus-altitude graph.

Since our rocket had 6 fins, it was in the group of rockets that flew, to put it in simple terms--terribly. It spiraled and flew sideways on its way up, only achieving an angle of 3.5 and a total height (in meters) of 7.We had added 3 extra fins to the front end of the rocket in the hopes that the extra fins would allow the rocket to fly straight, but it didn't. We glued the fins on better this time and they didn't pop off, but it didn't really help too much. I think by taking off the 3 fins in the front and adding an extra fin to the initial 3 it had in the back, then we could have a very successful flight.

Wiki Entry 7 - A Brief History of Robotics
Robots have been mentioned all throughout history in a variety of texts. Accounts of ancient robots that actually existed have been found, such as an account dating back to 400 B.C. of Greek mathematician Archytas making a mechanical pigeon that was powered by steam and capable of flight. In ancient China, one account exists of an encounter between King Mu of Zhou and an engineer known as Yan Shi. Yan Shi presented the king with a robot that could sing and walk. It was made of only leather, wood, glue, and lacquer. However, modern robotics are far different than they were thousands of years ago.

A picture of a robotic water clock from China

Even during the Industrial Age, robotics was really starting to take off. Richard Arkwright built the first water-powered weaving machine, which set off the Industrial Revolution. During this time, many robots and automatons were produced that could act, draw, fly, and play music. Now, in the 21st century, we have robots such as the rovers on Mars and the probes exploring deep space. We have robots that can perform surgeries and other delicate tasks. It’s amazing how far robotics has come since the very first notion of it, and it will be interesting to see some of the robots which will be produced in the future. A picture of factory robots from 1983.

Robots can be programmed to use a robot. A good example of this would be the Lego Mindstorms NXT robots, which use the Mindstorms programming language and the NXT brick to move and do stuff. The Lego robot can go forward, backwards, do a point turn, and a curve turn. By doing these simple things, robots can accomplish a more complex task, such as completing a driving course (shown below). Some challenges of using a motor would be if the motor starts malfunctioning, or if it doesn't follow what it told you to do, or if it runs out of power in the middle of what it needs to do.

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Wiki Entry 9- Geology on Earth and Mars
The primary job of a geologist on Earth is to identify rocks and minerals and what they are made up of. Geologists can do this by closely examining the rock/mineral, identifying the color and luster of the rock/mineral, the hardness of the rock/mineral, the streak that the rock/mineral leaves, whether the rock/mineral is magnetic or not, light refraction of the rock/mineral, what the rock/mineral tastes like, and perform acid tests on the rock/mineral.

The rover that is currently on its flight to Mars--MSL Curiosity--can identify rocks and minerals by drilling a one-centimeter in diameter hole into the Mars dirt. The dirt will go back into the rover along with the drill, so that the laboratory equipment inside of the rover will be able to do tests on it to find organic life-forms. If a rock is in a hard-to-reac h place for Curiosity, that's no problem either. It can use the laser it has to catch the light refraction from the rock and use it to identify the rock.

Wiki Entry 10- Life on Earth and Mars
There are eight distinct characteristics that scientists use to determine whether something is living or nonliving. The first characteristic is whether or not the thing is made of cells. Living things are made of cells, so if something doesn't have cells, it is obvious that it's nonliving. The second characteristic is whether or not the thing needs materials. Living things take in what they need from the environment, such as food, water, and oxygen. The third characteristic is whether or not the thing is homeostatic. Homeostatic means that internally, living things stay the about the same despite environmental changes. The fourth characteristic is whether or not the thing responds to stimuli, such as a plant moving into the sunlight or a person running away from an angry grizzly bear. There are two types of response to stimuli: positive and negative. Positive means that you move towards the stimuli, and negative means you move away from the stimuli. The fifth characteristic is whether or not the thing reproduces. Plants and animals reproduce, so they are living things. The sixth characteristic is whether or not the thing grows. All living things develop from a lower or simpler form to a higher or more complex form. The seventh characteristic is whether or not the thing adapts. Almost all living things have adapted at some point, such as humans being able to walk on two legs. The eighth and final characteristic is whether or not the thing uses respiration. No, that does not mean it breathes. It means that the living thing releases energy stored in the bonds of food. Some living things are consumers, which means that they take in food to sustain life, and some living things are producers, which means they make their own food.

In this picture, the Venus fly trap responds to stimuli when the fly touches it, causing it to slam its "mouth" shut and trap the fly.

We can detect life on Mars. by sending rovers to those planets that have the materials necessary to find life. For example, you could scoop up some dirt and perform tests on the dirt to see if you could find any microbes. You could also look around and see if you could spot any intelligent life-forms taking a casual stroll across the surface of Mars. However, that's likely not to ever happen. This picture is of the Viking rover sent to land on Mars in 1976. The results it sent back originally were thought to be inconclusive, but recent tests have shown that it may have discovered microbes on Mars. = Well, that's the end of this science wiki. I hope you enjoyed it and gleaned some useful or interesting knowledge from it! =