Keegan+K

=The Search for Life on Mars= By //Keegan K//

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In the video From Big Bang to Galaxies, it talks about how the universe was first formed and how it then created galaxies. It says that our universe began 15 billion years ago. It talks about how in the Big Bang, matter went from being the size of the atom to about the size of a planet in less than a second. The universe became a dense mixture of radiant energy and particles such as quarks. Before the universe was a tenth of a second old, protons and neutrons were beginning to form. The energy advanced itself by mixing and creating new things. After one second, the universe becomes dominated by radiant energy and lighter particles such as electrons. After three minutes, the protons and neutrons combine together to make helium nuclei. For the next 300,000 years, nothing much happens except the particles continue to combine and the temperature drops. Eventually the first hints of structure in the universe were formed, detected by the minute ripples in the radiation. With the change, galaxies eventually started to form. This started to happen 2 billion years after the Big Bang. There are three types of galaxies and it is how they are classed. The three types are are elliptical, spiral, or irregular. Over time, about three billion years after the Big Bang, our galaxy was formed. ======

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In the Milky Way Galaxy video it explains how Milky Way is an inside view of our galaxy, and it also explains many other things about our galaxy. The Milky Way we see in the sky is made up of a huge number of individual stars, and the dark spots we see in the Milky Way is made up of large amounts of opaque dust. The Milky Way we see in the sky is really an insider's view of the galaxy. In the Milky Way, there is a flat disk which is 100,000 light years across and 1 or 2 thousand light years thick. There is also a thin layer of dust covering this flat disk. In the center there is a bulge that is 20,000 light years across. Around the galaxy there are globular clusters of stars that form a halo around the Milky Way. If you look down on the Milky Way, you would see four spiraling arms come out of the center. In the center of the Milky Way, it is most likely made up of a black hole surrounded by gas clouds and a clump ring of dust. The galaxies rotate, but that is because each and every star and gas cloud has its own orbit. Our galaxy is so big that our sun takes 50 million years to orbit around once. ======

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In the History of the Solar System video, it explains the creation of the planets and the creation of the moons, rings and comets. The sun formed when gravity pulled together a cloud of interstellar gas and dust. It explains how the thin ball collapsed into a disk with a proto-star at the center, and how clumps of objects began to collect, known as planeticibles. Over time, the planeticibles collided and crushed each other or formed larger planeticibles. Also, in the outer solar system the four first planets (the giant planets) were formed and came out and began to use their gravity to collect a layer of dust and moons. Then, the four terrestrial planets came out. Earth was one of these planets. It most likely got its moon from a collision with a planet in which the moon broke off and started orbiting the earth. Also, the rest of the planeticibles which had almost destroyed themselves became moons when they got pulled in by the gravity of other planets. These are all parts of the history of our Solar System.======

The Early History of Rockets
The history of rockets stretches over thousands of years, and the modern rockets we have achieved today are all because of the many experiments done in the past. One of the first machines to use to ideas essential to rocket flight was the Hero Engine. It was invented by Hero of Alexandria around 100 B.C. It works by the fire underneath turning the water into steam, which then goes through the tubes into the sphere in the middle. The steam then goes through the L-shaped tubes which makes the sphere spin. The next advancement in rockets was made by the Chinese by accident. The Chinese had a simple form of gunpowder made up of saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal dust. When they realized the power this could produce, the Chinese began to experiment with the gunpowder. At some point in their experimentation, they discovered that these bamboo tubes with gunpowder could launch themselves just by the power from escaping gas. The first use of these rockets was in 1232 in a battle between the Chinese and the Mongols. The Chinese used the rockets with their arrows, and the psychological effect it had on the Mongols gave the Chinese a great advantage. After seeing the power of the rockets, the Mongols then began to experiment with them also. All over the world people began to experiment with rockets and many advancements were made.



Modern Rockets
Many advancements in rockets have been made in the past few hundred years. In 1898, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, father of modern astronautics, proposed the idea of using rockets to go out into space. He then suggested that they should use liquid propellants in order to make a greater range. Also, early in the 20th century Robert H. Goddard began to experiment with rockets. He started with solid propellant rockets, but he became soon convinced that the rockets would work better with a liquid propellant, and so he began to experiment with them. After much difficulty, in 1926 Goddard managed to launch a rocket for a short amount of time with liquid oxygen and gasoline. For all his experiments Goddard has been named the father of modern rocketry. Goddard continued to experiment with liquid propellants and he developed many new things for rockets, such as a parachute recovery system. Also, while Goddard was experimenting many new rocket societies were formed. In Germany, the society for space travel developed many new rockets, such as the V-2 missile, but they were used too late to change the events of WW II. After these events, both the United States and Soviet Union saw the potential of rockets as military weapons, but after advancements they saw the use of them in space. On October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first Earth-Orbiting artificial satellite called Sputnik 1. Soon the Soviet Union began launching living things into space, such as the dog Laika who survived in space for seven days. The USA also began to launch rockets into space, such as Explorer 1. The USA then created NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. After more experiments, people began to land on the moon and machines landed on other planets. These advancements could not have been possible if not for the many advancements in rockets over the years.

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Exploration of Mars Over the years, we have performed many missions to mars. Though it is very difficult to get to mars, with careful planning and lots of time we have been able to get rovers onto mars and have satellites orbit it. In 1965, a probe flyby revealed many things about mars and changed plans for future mars missions. The probe revealed that the temperatures on mars were much lower than expected and there was no magnetic field. It also revealed many other things. After multiple missions my the Soviet Union, the Viking Program in the U.S.A was launched, which consisted of two orbiters and two landers. Also, one of the first rovers to land and operate was the Mars Pathfinder, which had a rover named Sojourner. After the failure of some other orbiters, NASA launched the Mars Global Surveyor, which succeeded on its mission and saw some landforms that suggested water. After some extra phases, on November 5th, 2006 NASA lost contact with MGS. In 2001 though, NASA Mars Odyssey arrived at Mars. After some time on orbiting Mars, it found that there was large amounts of hydrogen, which indicated there was large amounts of water-ice on Mars. The finding of water on mars is a huge success and a step towards proving or disproving that there is or ever was life on Mars. Changes have been made to the ships going to mars over the years, and many advancements have been made that make it possible for us to orbit and land on Mars while still communicating back to Earth. Multiple other ships have gone to Mars, and while some have failed, many ships have been successful in communicating more information back to Earth and other ships, such as Curiosity, are on their way to Mars now.

The purpose of this experiment was to tell how mass affected the altitude of the rocket. The experiment was performed by building our rockets. The mass changed between each rocket because each group painted their rocket differently, making the weight different. With the rockets fully built, we launched all the rockets outside and used trigonometry to determine the height of the rocket. Though there was a lot of variation throughout the results on how the mass affected the flight, I believe that it was parabolic and around the mass of 45 it flew the best. The farther away you got from that point the lower you would go. Though some of the rockets on the graph don't have much to do with the parabola, this has to do with inconsistent measurement of the data and some differences at launch.



Overall, our rocket flew very well. We connected the rocket and when we went to liftoff it launched perfectly. It flew up with only a few wiggles, and it also didn't go straight up because of the wind. It hit apogee and then the parachute ejected which again went well. It landed with the rocket in good condition.

Rocket Fin Experiment
After we did the rocket experiments I determined that the less fins the rocket had the more stable it was, and the less weight also made it fly higher. This is because Jack's and Michael's rocket flew very high, and it had a low weight and only three fins. Though you may argue that Liam's and Bryce's didn't flew very high but had less fins then the others, it doesn't make it better because the design of those fins made it very hard to fly straight. Also,Jackie's rocket and Jilly's rocket, which weighed the most and had the most fins, did not fly very high at all. This proves that the less fins and less weight made the rockets fly higher.

Also, my rocket didn't fly very well. This is partially because of the design, and the fact that there 9 fins and it weighed 58.8 grams. This made it so that when our rocket took off, it quickly spun out of control and crashed without going very high at all. The best part of the flight was when the rocket did a few flips and then landed, but otherwise our rocket was not very successful.

Robot History
Robot History is a very long thing and has many spanned over many years. The first time robots could really be built was after the Industrial Revolution, which allowed there to be more complex mechanics and electricity to make robots. These first robots that were built were used for industrial uses and building other machines. Also, during the 1500's through the 1800's there were some attempts at machines/robots that worked somewhat successfully. One such attempt was the wooden beetle by John Dee that could actually fly. There were also other advances made by Nikola Tesla, who created a radio-controlled boat and planned to make radio controlled torpedoes. After the 1800's there started to be more advances that allowed there to be robots that instead of just doing a few tricks, could perform tasks and had much more advanced capabilities.



The first actual robot was built in the United States in 1927. It was called Televox and was operated through the phone system. These new advances in technology also helped in war time. One example would be the Robinson machine, which was created in the UK and was used to crack the Enigma Codes that were used by the Germans. During this time there was also a great advancement in robots, which was one of the first computers. It was built by Konrad Zuse in 1941 and was a fully programmable digital computer. Since then there have been many advancements to computers to make the ones we have today. One example would be IBM's 701 computer, which is a good example of the advancements we have made. Another advancement in machines would be Unimate, which is considered to be the first industrial robot ever and was built by George Devol. The first PC was made by IBM in 1981 which is very important to many people today. There has also been many advances in the past 20 years, such as the robot revealed by Cornell University in 2004 that was capable of self-replication. Another example would be Robonaut 2, which was the first humanoid robot in space. These advances show that over the years we have gone from small machines that can perform small tricks to robots that can travel into space.



Robot Progamming
The robots we used could do many things and were easily programmable. The motors could be programmed using the NXT brick, but this only allowed us to have 5 actions. The Mindstorms program allowed us to program the motor with much more variety of movement and a virtually unlimited amount of actions. The robot could do things such as go forward, reverse, turn slowly, perform a point turn, and other actions. The Mindstorms program made it easy to program the motors of the robot. One example of the motor being program would be the turning while moving. When it turns while moving, one motor goes faster than the other making it turn. The Mindstorms made it able for us to program this movement with only a few mouse clicks. Another cool program was the action replay, in which the robot copied the movements that we made told it. This was a cool program that I thought was very interesting. One of the main challenges of programming the robot was understanding how far it would turn and how far it would go. I could easily get it to move forward 5 in the program, but when the robot actually did this physically, it either did not go as far as I thought it would or not far enough. This also happened for turning, where I thought it would turn at about 90 degrees, but it would either turn more or less. It took multiple uses for me to get used to distance the robot actually goes. Overall, it was an exciting experience being able to program the motor and make the robot move, even though it was somewhat difficult.

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Geology on Mars
There are many different ways that geologists identify minerals on earth. One, of course, is the color of a mineral. This is a pretty basic way, but it can tell you which mineral it is unless they are similar in color. Another similar way would be luster, which is how the mineral reflects light. This could be summed up in shininess or transparency. Another important way would be the way mineral is shaped. The rocks could be similar in color, but have very different shapes, which could tell you which rock is which. Another way that is affected by shape is its feel/roughness. If one rock is powdery while the other is rough, you could feel the difference and know they aren't the same rock. Another way to identify these rocks would be the color of its streak, which can be different than the rocks actual color. If none of these other ways work, you could tell the difference by putting a chemical on the rocks and seeing which one reacts. These are some of the ways that geologists identify rocks and minerals on earth.



The Curiosity video talks about how the Curiosity rover will identify and collect minerals on mars to see if there is the possibility of life on mars. The robot is programmed to do what its human creators do when exploring and examining minerals. Their plan is to land it in a safe place but go to more geologically interesting places so that the robot can see if it is possible for their to be basic life on mars. The robot will have to determine if any of the minerals have organic molecules that could make life possible. The robot has different methods of getting these minerals, such as a drill it has that goes into the ground and takes out minerals. The robot is much bigger than past robots, and because of this has a lot more items and ways t identify the minerals, such as acid to see if it reacts. Another part of the rover's arsenal is a laser that they use to shoot rocks that are farther away to see its chemical composition. This is very helpful for rocks that are in places that the robot can't get to. All of these tools and preparation will help Curiosity identify minerals on mars.



= Life =

Overall, there is a total of 8 properties a living must have. These properties are; Made of Cells, Need Materials, Homeostatic, Respond to stimuli, Reproduce, Grow, Adapted, and Respiration. Made of cells means that the living is made up of the fundamental living cells, which would be Animal Cells or Plant Cells, or even Bacteria Cells. The next property is needs materials, which would mean that the living thing would require water, minerals, and gases. The third property is homeostatic, which means that the insides of a living thing do not change or try not to change despite changes in the environment. The fourth property is that it has to respond to stimuli, which means that when there is a stimulus that provokes the living thing, the living thing reacts in either a positive or negative way. The fifth property is that the living must be able to reproduce, either through sexual reproduction or Asexual reproduction (Forever Alone Reproduction). The sixth property is that the living thing must be able to grow, which means that it must be able to develop over their life to a higher more complex organism. One example would be how humans go from embryo-newborn-child-adolescent-adult. The seventh property is that it has to be able to adapt. This means that the organism must be able to change so it survives in its environment. An example would be evolution, which makes it so that the characteristics of a species slowly change over time. The eighth and final property is respiration. This means that organisms either have to be consumers, which take food to survive, or producers, which make their own food. These are the eight properties of life.



There are many ways to determine if there is life somewhere. On Nasa's Viking 1 and Viking 2 missions, they both had LR apparatuses, which can determine whether there is life somewhere. This works by taking a bit of soil from somewhere and then mixing it with a drop of water that contains nutrients and radioactive carbon atoms. The Viking would then tell if it was living by if whether it produced radioactive carbon dioxide or methane gas. The machine had a device that detects when the soil emits those objects. This is one of the ways that we can detect life on other planets, and this way was used on mars. Another method that was tried was heating up the soil. Heat was used to define if it was living by either putting the soil in dark places for months or heating the soil up greatly. These are conditions that would normally kill of life. Another way the LR results made some scientists believe there was life on mars is that some of the tests came back with a circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm is a internal clock found in all life forms that makes up all biological processes. The LR pointed to an internal clock in the soil attuned to the longer Martian day, and many scientists believe that a circadian rhythm points towards a real life form. These different ways help determine life on other planets and especially mars, but there are also many ways that we haven't used to their full capability on mars. It is also harder to determine if there is life on mars because though some evidence suggests it, it is hard to just make that claim. Overall, these are just some of the methods scientists use to determine if something is a living creature.