Justin+T

=//**__The Search For Life on Mars__**//=

//**__Crash Course in Astronomy Part 1:__**//
Once, before earth, the sun, everything, there was a small pocket of hot air, packed together into an area smaller then a nucleus. But then, that small pocket of hot air experienced something people today call the Big Bang. The hot pocket of air started expanding, and very fast. As it expanded, the temperature decreased and particles of matter were created. This was the start of the universe.
 * From Big Bangs, To Galaxies:**

The Milky Way Galaxy is a large grouping of individual stars and planets together. It looks very interesting. The lights of the Milky Way come from the stars glowing, while the interesting pink/black/grey patches in the middle come from the clouds of dust. Four spiral arms come out from the center of the Milky Way, called the bulge. These spiral arms are many stars in an orbit together, moving very slowly. The bulge then is a group of tightly packed red and orange stars. They are packed thousands of times closer then the stars around the sun. In the center of all this, is the nucleus of the entire galaxy. It is believed to be a massive black hole surrounded by a ring of gas clouds and a disk of dust. This one nucleus holds together the entire Milky Way Galaxy.
 * The Milky Way Galaxy:**

Stars form in cold, dark clouds of dust in space. When a disturbance ripples through the clouds of dust, clumps/cores are formed. A proto star forms in the clump of the clouds of dust. The temperature of the proto star increases enough for nuclear reactions to start. Finally, the new star settles down to a period without much change, where it turns Hydrogen into Helium, giving it a large supply of nuclear energy. A series a dramatic change happens when the star begins to run out of Hydrogen fuel. These changes indicate that the star's life is coming to an end. The sun starts growing and shrinking over and over again, and the color starts turning a darker orange color. The final layer around the core of the star creates a planetary nebula. The core is then exposed and starts cooling down in temperature and the brightness fades.
 * Lives of Stars:**

The sun is a star close to earth that provides energy, light, heat, and more to the life on earth. It is essential to our living, and without it, life on earth would be impossible. But people think of the sun as a very large star, when really, it isn't that big. We see it as very big because it is the closest star to the planet earth, but really it is a lot smaller then most stars. But still, like most stars, it is a big ball of gas which is 76% Hydrogen and about 23% Helium. The other 1% is a mixture of many gases. It is super hot and man would die before even getting close to it. But even though it can kill us, it is still essential to our living.
 * The Sun:**

Our entire Solar System was formed when gravity pulled together a cloud of interstellar gas, forming the sun. Then, four large masses formed. They were the first four planets and they were named Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. These four planets orbited in the outer Solar System. But after these four planets formed, it became harder to make these large masses because of so many collisions, so the next four planets were smaller then the ones in the outer Solar System. They orbited in the inner Solar System and they were named Earth, Mars, Venus, and Mercury. They were still large, but not close to the size of the sun, or even the size of some of the larger planets in the outer Solar System. And eventually, the Solar System couldn't make many more large mass like planets anymore. But there were smaller masses created. And when these masses combined with the planets, they went into orbit around the planet. These are the masses we call moons.
 * History of the Solar System:**

=//**__Hubble Deep Field Academy__**//=

In the Orientation section, the astronomers asked questions like "How are the objects identified," or "How far away are the objects." On the first level, the astronomers estimated that there were 50 - 100 billion objects in the picture. On level 2, the three objects classified were elliptical, star, and spiral. On the third level, I found out that astronomers measure distance by looking at the light that the object emits. The brightness of the object indicates how close the object is. And on level 4, I learned that the color of the galaxy indicates the brightness of the contained stars. I also learned the formula used to estimate the number of galaxies the universe. It is the amount of objects x12, then x3, then x30 million.



= Rocket History: =

The first rocket/rocket-like object was created around 100 B.C. by a man named Hero of Alexandria. He mounted a sphere above a pool of water with fire under it, and tubes attached the sphere and water. The water turned into steam and the steam went up the tubes, and caused the sphere to spin. This was similar to modern-day rockets.



It is unclear when exactly rockets were created, but the first ones recorded were used by the Chinese in 1232 (Although there was talk that the Chinese had them before that). The Chinese and Mongols were at war and the Chinese used them against the Mongols, and scared them away. The Mongols started developing rockets too, which made it spread all throughout the western hemisphere. As rockets spread, more and more experiments were being done. People were trying to invent more accurate and more long-ranged rockets. In the 20th Century, rockets were becoming very big, as the rocket society grew. Countries like the U.S. and Russia were starting to use many rockets. However one of these countries was Germany. During WW2, the Germans started making rocket-propelled-grenades which were used against the Allied Countries. This led to the creation of the V2 rocket. The V2 rocket was used towards the end of WW2. The V2 rocket was the most advanced rocket at that time. One rocket could wipe out an entire city block! They were used against London in WW2, and had the war not ended fast enough, these rockets could have changed the outcome of the war. But, they were created too late, and the Allied Countries won the war. After the war, the U.S. took the German scientist and rocket models and improved on them. Soon the U.S. had thousands of the rockets to use in case of a war. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first rocket into space. It was called Sputnik, and it orbited around the Earth. This led to what is now called, "The Space Race." All of the countries wanted to get rockets out into space, so it was almost like a competition to see who could get there first. In this "Space Race", a world-wide organization was formed, called NASA. Ever since the creation of NASA, the US, and many other countries have been sending rockets and robots into space. And this all started, with a small machine created 2,113 years ago by a Greek Scientist.



=__** Model Rocket Labeled Parts **__=



=__** Rocket Experiments **__=

The purpose of the experiment was to determine if the mass of the rocket affected the maximum altitude the rocket reached when launched. Different rockets were created with different masses. After the mass of the rocket was taken in grams, it was launched upwards to see how high it would fly. To do this, we used Trigonometry. We took the angle from 100 meters away, then found the Tangent of the angle, multiplied by 100 (For example, our rocket flew up and the angle taken from 100 meters away was 26º. We found the Tangent of 26º and multiplied it by 100 to get the altitude which was 48.8 meters). This gave us the height the rocket flew which let us compare the mass with the height of flight.

After comparing the mass of the rockets to the altitude, I wasn't able to find any patterns. It looked like the mass had nothing to do with the altitude the rocket reached. The only pattern I sort of saw was that the rockets which weighed a little less seemed to move farther, but this was also with the rockets which weighed a little more. I had to eliminate outliers to see this though. Either way, this made my Hypothesis wrong, that the greater the mass of the rocket, the higher it would fly.



During Ignition, the rocket made a loud shhhhhhh noise, and in less then a second, started lift-off. It moved very fast, probably close to 90 mph and you could see smoke and sparks coming out of the bottom as it rose. After reaching an altitude of about 49 meters, the rocket slowed down because the engine had stopped igniting, but, the rocket still went upwards. But it didn't coast as long before the top popped off. This was the rockets Apogee. Then the parachute and nose cone came out the top and it floated it's way down to the ground. The only thing that sort of went wrong during flight was that the Coasting stage seemed a lot faster then the other rockets. I think that the nose cone and parachute were released a little too early, but flight was still successful.

=__**Programming Robots**__=

How Motors Work
Motors are a very essential piece in the world of NXT Programming. Without the motor, the robot can't move or collect data. This makes it one of the most important parts of the robot. But how the motor works is very interesting. It has three main parts inside; the motor (the part that makes everything move), a Tachometer (detects the rotations or degrees the motor moves), and build-in gearing (geared so that when the back part moves, the front part moves to make preciseness movement). With this, the motors can receive commands from the NXT Brick. Commands like move forward, backward, turn right, or turn left are able to be used when sent from the NXT Brick. And with the Tachometer, you can set how much or how far you want to do a command. For example, the robot can use rotations. This is how many times the wheel completes it's way around completely. So you can say "move forward 5 rotations" and the wheel will complete it's rotations five full rotations before stopping. This makes using motors very useful. Sensors are attachments to robots that help it function. Each has a different use. One can detect light, one can detect sound, one can detect distance, etc. Each one is useful in it's own way. For example, my personal favorite sensor is the Touch Sensor. It's one of the most reliable NXT sensors available. When in use, it gives the robot the ability to detect where objects other then itself are with it's sense of touch. This gives it many of programming options. With it's ability to tell when it bumps something, when it's pressed, and when it's released, it can be extremely helpful in programming. Example, you can set a program where it moves forward using the motors for unlimited time. Then you can set it to stop when it touches something. So instead of bumping into something like a wall, it can touch it lightly, turn around and go the pother direction. And this is just one sensor! You can have up to four sensors on at once! And they all have different uses. This adds so much more to your normal robot. Sensors are very helpful and useful in NXT Robotics.

=Wiki Entry 9=

Minerals have many different characteristics, which allow procedures to be done to find and compare these characteristics to other minerals. But, these characteristics can also be used to identify a mineral. By doing multiple tests on a mineral, you can narrow it down to a few, maybe only one mineral. Tests like the Hardness Test, or the Streak Test can be used to narrow down the mineral's identity. For example, lets say you know a mineral is either Gold, or Pyrite (Fool's Gold), but you can't tell which it is. This is important to know because while Gold is valuable, Pyrite is nearly worthless. Gold and Pyrite share common characteristics, but not all are the same. After running tests like the Streak Test, you can tell whether your mineral is Gold or Pyrite by checking the color of the streak it leaves when rubbed on something. Other tests like this that are helpful are tests like the Acid Test, the Magnetism Test, the Hardness Test, or just comparing minerals with your eyes. Now while all of these tests are effective, you still can't perform them in space by robot. So, when NASA created the Mars Rover, Curiosity, they had to think of different ways to perform Geology experiments. In the end, they ended up creating two tests that allow Curiosity to identify minerals on Mars. These two tests were the Light Reflectivity Test, and the Drill Test. Together, these tests can effectively identify minerals on Mars. The Drill Test it the most common test used. To do this test, Curiosity drills a 1 inch hole into the mineral. After this is complete, Curiosity collects the dust from the mineral, and takes it to his personal lab located inside him. He can process it to find it's Chemical Composition. But sometimes, drilling isn't an option. This brings in option number two, the Light Reflectivity Test. When Curiosity, for whatever reason, can't go directly up to a rock and take a sample, it will shine a laser on that rock. After that, it will record the light reflection of the mineral and use that to identify it.
 * The Characteristics of Life **

Life is a very interesting thing. It gives something the ability to move or do something on its own, or produce something. Life can be similar, or completely different to many things. But the thing that makes life what it is, are it's characteristics. Every living thing shares eight common characteristics. These characteristics are:

-Made of cells

Cells are the fundamental unit for life. They are organized in things like organs, organ systems, organisms, or tissues. There are three types of cells; animal cells, plant cells, and Bacteria Cells

-Need materials

Every living thing needs something to keep itself alive;.

-Homeostatic

Homeostatic - internally living things stay about the same despite environmental changes. Living things expend a great deal of energy to maintain homeostasis.

-Respond to stimuli

Stimulus - anything that causes living things to react. Response - the reaction to a stimulus. 2 types of responses: positive (moves towards stimulus) and negative (moves away from stimulus).

-Reproduce

The process by which organisms produce offspring of their own kind. Plants and Animals reproduce in a variety of ways. Sexual Reproduction (two parents), Asexual Reproduction (one parent)

-Grow

All things develop from a lower or simpler to a higher or more complex form (embro-newborn-child-adolescent-adult). Not all things grow at the same rate or reach the same size.

-Adapted

Modifications that make an organism suited to it's life

Evolution - the process by which characteristics of species change through time.

-Respiration

Releasing energy stored in the chemical bonds of sugars (food)

The thing about these characteristics though is that a non-living thing can have one of them… but, it doesn't have ALL characteristics. For example, a virus is considered non-living, even though it has all of the characteristics above, except for the ability to reproduce. So, even though it has seven of the eight characteristics, it's non-living.

To detect life on Mars, it will be a difficult task. But, we can do things like looking for signs which will make it a lot easier. For example, we can look at pictures and tell if it had the ability to hold flowing water. This give scientists the ability to test life on mars. If they find some of this water, they can take samples of it then test them. All of this helps the search for life on mars.