Sam+K

=The Search for Life on Mars = By: Sam K

**From Big Bang to Galaxies**

In the beginning our universe exploded out of nothing. It started out pact down into a space smaller than an atomic nucleus. It expanded rapidly and particles were created. In a brief flash it expanded from an atomic nucleus to something about the size of earth. It was a mixture of quarks, antiquarks, and radiant energy. After about 300,000 years the universe finally creates hydrogen and helium atoms. About 2 billion years after our universe was born, galaxies start to form. The action of gravity causes matter, gas, and particles to clump together. Our galaxy starts out as a sphere of gas. Some of the stars clump together to form the center of our galaxy and excess gas settles as spiral arms around the middle of our galaxy. The center bulge of our galaxy formed with gas and clumps of stars. The spiral arms formed with excess gas and stars. Galaxies started out very close and they collided with each other to form into larger galaxies. Theses collisions made galaxies larger and also added more stars and gas to galaxies. This is very less often today, but it might happen very soon between our galaxy and the Andrometer galaxy.

** The Milky Way Galaxy **

The Milky Way Galaxy is a patchy strip of light stars and clouds of dust. The Milky has a flat disk of stars about a 100,000 light years across and 1,000 light years thick. There is an even thinner layer of gas and dust is in the middle of the disk. At the center of the galaxy the central bulge that is about 20,000 light years across. Our sun lies inside the disk. Star cluster and single stars surround our galaxy. Four spiral arms are coming out of the center bulge. The spiral arms are made of gas, dust, particles, and stars. In the center of the bulge old stars are clumped together thousands of times closer than the suns part of the galaxy. At the heart the nucleus of the galaxy is a massive black hole that is surrounded by a disk of dust and a clumpy ring of gas clouds. Of galaxy turns while each other stars turn by themselves in their own orbit. The way the galaxy rotates tells us that our galaxy is surrounded by a huge invisible clump of material that we can’t see. This means our galaxy might be 5 times bigger than it appears, but we cannot find out yet.


 * History of the Solar system **

Our sun formed when gravity pulled together a cloud of gas and dust. The rotating ball collapsed with a ball in the middle and a disk around. Inside the disk materials started to collect into larger particles and these collected into larger clumps known as planitesimles. The clumps then collided gently enough to form bigger clumps, but others collided fast enough to break apart. In today’s outer solar system four very large masses formed into the giant planets. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune formed rings of their own. The rings of these planets were formed when loose particles got too close to the planets and gravity ripped them apart. The loose particles then started orbiting around the planets and moons formed form collision of the loose particles. In today’s inner solar system larger planets could not form because there were too many collisions. But finally, the four terrestrial planets formed. Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars formed eventually. Our moon was formed from loose particles when earth and another planet collided. Most of the other loose particles settled into the asteroid belt between mars and Jupiter. Others were also captured as moons of planets. Large rock collisions are very less common today, but only 56 million years ago a giant rock forced the dinosaurs to go extinct.



Rocket History
** Old Rockets **

 One of the first rocket like inventions was built in 100 B.C. by a man named Hero of Alexandria. He built a sphere like rocket that had two tubes coming out of it. The steam would shoot out of the sphere's tubes and force the rocket to spin around in a circle. The first true rocket was born when the Chinese experimented with gun-powder filled bamboo sticks. They learned that the bamboo sticks would fire by themselves just by lighting the gun-powder on fire. Right around when the first true rockets were born the Chinese were at war. During war the Chinese used gun-powder filled arrows that were used to be shot at the enemies. It is not known how much damage the flaming arrows did, but the flaming arrows had fire, smoke, and sparks shooting out of them which caused a lot of commotion during war. After the war between the 13th and 15th century experiments with rockets were very common all through Europe and Asia. In England the range of rocket's were improved by using better and more gun-powder. In France the accuracy of rocket's were improved by shooting rocket's out of tubes and this is how the idea of the bazooka was born. Most of these experiments with rockets for a long time were used for warfare, but all through Asia and Europe rockets were being born. ** Modern Rockets **

The modern rocket building started early in the 20th century when a man named Robert H. Goddard proposed an idea to explore with rockets. He first tried to use solid fuel to start his rocket, but the results were still not significantly higher. Goddard was then convinced that his rockets would fly higher if he could just fuel his rockets with liquid fuel. In 1926 Goddard's first liquid fueled rocket flew for two and a half seconds, flew 12.5 meters, and landed 56 meters away in a cabbage patch. Goddard experimented with liquid fueled rockets for many years and his rockets became much bigger and flew higher. He designed a gyroscope system for flight control, a payload compartment for scientific instruments, and a parachute recovery system so that the rocket and the equipment could be returned safely. In the early 20th century many rocket societies started to be formed. A rocket society called the Verein developed the V-2 rocket which was used to destroy city blocks in World War 2. The V-2 rocket flew by burning a mixture of liquid oxygen and alcohol at a rate of one ton every seven seconds. After the war the United States and the Soviet Union experimented with many unused V-2 rockets. They both realized the potential of rocketry as a military weapon and they started experimenting with long range intercontinental missiles. These missiles became the building blocks of the U.S. space program. In 1957 the Soviet Union released the first successful satellite into space. Months later NASA released a satellite of its own into space. After the success of the U.S. and the Soviet Union many machines and people were being launched into space. Astronauts orbited the earth and landed on the moon, satellites were used to tell the weather and instantaneously around the world, and robots explored the planets. Space was suddenly the wonder of the world and newer and bigger rockets were being built every day.

Mission to Mars
Rocket Stages media type="custom" key="14080224"

Mission to Mars Summary over past 40 years
Over the Past 40 years many rockets and rovers have been sent to mars to explore this mysterious planet. Many different rockets have been sent, but not all rockets make it to the planet. The process of getting to the planet is very complex and it takes 6 entire teams of specialists to land a rocket. During the past 40 years a team called NASA has been formed and they specialize in all American space programs. This team has evolved space programs from satellites that copy data, to rovers that roll around the surface, and to robots that can do tests on planets. A recent robot that was made is traveling to Mars right now and it’s called Curiosity. Curiosity is the largest robot that has ever been sent to Mars and is the most advanced. Curiosity is able to dig into the ground, do tests on soil, and is able to explore more parts of Mars. The mission to mars over the past 40 years has evolved from small satellites to huge advanced robots. These advances in space travel technology have showed how fast the advancement in space travel will be.

Graph Information
The mass did not effect the altitude of the rocket. There is no relationship between the data of the rocket's highest altitude. There is no relationship because a rocket that weighed about 45 grams flew about 70 meters, but a rocket that weighed about 49 grams flew about 80 meters high. These rockets weight was very different, but the height of these rockets was very close. Another example is a rocket that weighs about 43 grams flew about 40 meters high and a rocket that weighed about 48 grams also flew about 40 meters high. This data shows that no real relationships were made between the different masse's of the rockets.

Rocket Experiment Summary
In our rocket experim ent we all built the same rockets. group of two people had the same rocket in the beginning, but finished with a different one because we all painted them differently. Since each person used a different amount of paint, all of the rockets had a different mass. All of the rockets used an A8-3 engine and had the same parachute recovery system. The purpose was to see how the mass effects the maximum altitude of rockets. We launched the rockets outside off of a launch pad to see how they would fly. We used the Trundle Wheel to count 100 meters away. When the rockets were launched we got the angle from 100 meters away using the angle gun. All of the rockets flew different heights and only a few of the rockets recovery systems actually worked. Most of the rockets landed quite far away from the launching pad. Once we got the angle of each rocket we used trigonometry to determine each of the rocket's apogee. We graphed the data of each of the rockets and made a scatter graph to show how high each rocket flew. The graph was used to see if there was a relationship between the rockets apogee and weight. The data mostly did not have any relationships with each other. The data showed that the weight of the rocket did not affect how high it flew. This is true because one rocket that weight about 43 grams flew about 40 meters high and a rocket that weighed about 48 grams also flew about 40 meters high. My hypothesis is that the weight of the rocket would affect how high each rocket flew. I thought that if a rocket had less weight then it would fly higher because there would be less mass to weigh down the rocket, but this was not true at all. The weight of the rocket did not affect how high the rocket flew.

Rocket Data Graph
= Rocket Experiment with Fins Summary and Data = During the experimental fins rocket experiment we tested to see how the number of fins and how the mass affected the rockets maximum altitude. The data of the experiment had no relationship because a rocket that weighed about 62 grams and had 18 fins flew about 7 meters. A rocket that weighed about 46 grams and had only 1.5 fins flew about 12 meters. This shows that it didn’t really matter how heavy or how many fins a rocket had. The rocket that flew the highest had 3 fins and flew about 73 meters high and weighed about 46 grams. The next highest flying rocket had 9 fins, weighed about 49 grams, and flew about 58 meters.

Our rocket had 9 fins, weighed about 49 grams, and it flew 58 meters high. Our rocket had the 3 fins that we started out with and 6 smaller fins placed above the original fins. The rocket flew the second highest and flew much straighter than most of the other rockets flew. It flew more stable than most of the other rockets, but it was still not as stable as it flew the first time. On our rockets decent the nosecone popped open, but our parachute did not deploy. Since the parachute did not deploy our rocket drifted quite far away from the launching pad, and after it landed it was discovered that part of the parachute was burned. Overall our experiment with fins was quite successful because it flew the second highest and flew more stable than most of the other rockets.

= Robot History = People first started thinking about building robots in 1495 by a man named Leonardo de Vinci. At this time no real robots were made, but plans for humanoid rockets that would move and do things independently were being made around the world. In 1700’s through the 1900’s many different life sized robots were being built that could move on their own including the famous duck robot which could flap its wings, make noises, and even swallow food. Between these time periods robots were not necessarily being used like they are today. Robots instead were just being built and not really used for the benefit of a country or to make things easier like they are today. Today rockets are used to make things easier, build things, and many more things. Robots in the early days were used just for the pleasure of building a rocket and for the pleasure of the person who is watching the robot move. At first is quite amazing just to be able to build a robot that would move on its own, but today robots are used for the benefits of countries, people, and companies. Nowadays robots can help elderly people by guiding them around, build products on conveyer belts in factories, and even fly into outer space to do tests on planets that have not yet been discovered. All of these types of robots have been very beneficial for the person using them. Robots that were very beneficial to people started getting very advanced in the 1900’s. At that time robots like rovers could be used to do tests on planets and many more robots were being built to help out things around the world. The 1900’s was a very popular time for robot building. New robots were being built and the era or helpful robots was born, and in the future robots will only get more advanced and more useful in the future.

=Programming robots= ====Motors can be used to power robots electronically if you program them correctly to do certain motions. The robot will move in different directions depending on which combinations of the motors are running and how fast the motors are spinning. The robot can do a curve turn, a point turn, move forward, and move backward. The robot can easily move forward and backward just depending on which war the motors are spinning and it can even accelerate and slow down depending on how fast the motors are spinning. The robot can turn depending on which motors are running and much faster those motors are running. If the left motors are spinning faster than the right motor then the robot will naturally lean more towards the right. Motors are also very challenging when using robots because if the program you are telling your motors to do isn’t perfect then the robot will not always do exactly what you want it to do. The hardest challenge with using motors is making the program perfect because most of the time it takes a lot of repetition to get the program to be perfect. media type="file" key="100_0022.AVI" width="300" height="300" ====

Identifying Minerals on Earth and on Mars
On earth scientist use many different techniques and perform many tests to determine if a substance is a mineral or not. Scientists may try to test the magnetism of a substance to see if it’s a rock or not. Using a neodymium magnet a scientist will try to test if a substance will stick to the neodymium magnet. If the substance sticks to the neodymium magnet, than it’s most likely a rock and not a mineral. Another test is to test a substances streak or do the acid test. The streak test is where you rub a substance up against a piece of porcelain and depending on the color of the streak you can tell whether it is a mineral or a rock and which mineral or rock it is. The acid test is to see if a substance is a chemical compound or not. If the substance bubbles when the acid is poured onto it then it are a chemical compound and most chemical compound substances are minerals. Since all of the tests to identify a substance do not always stand true for everything, scientists will use multiple types of tests to determine what one type of substance is.

 The new Mars rover Curiosity will be able to do tests on the rocks that are in Mars’s crust. The rover has a drill that will be able to drill into the crust and make a powder composed of the minerals and rocks on Mars. The powder will be sucked up inside of the rover and tested on by the rover itself. The powder will be split into two tests by the rover. One will give a test on the mineralogy and one will test to see if there were any organic molecules. Curiosity has many tools like rock hammers, magnifying glasses, compasses, and other scientific tools. It also has a laser that will be able to get light reflection off of the minerals and rocks on Mars to see what chemical compositions the rocks and minerals have. The Mars rover has many different tools and is able to do may different tests that we do here on earth to decide what minerals, rocks, and if there is evidence of life on Mars. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> =Life= <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> There are eight necessary requirements for anything to be living. Cells are the fundamental building blocks for any living thing. All things in life are either made up of plant cells, animal cells, and bacteria cells. All living things also need materials to survive and without water, minerals, and gasses living things will not stay alive. All the materials that living things need to survive must come naturally and from the environment. Any gas or mineral must come from the environment that the living thing lives in. All living things also grow and reproduce. Every living thing starts out as a lower, smaller, or simpler thing and evolves into a higher, bigger, or more complex thing as time passes. Living things also reproduce to expand and recreate and repopulate their species. All living things create an offspring of their own, but plants and animals reproduce in many different ways using one parent or two parents. Living things can also adapt to change the way it lives. Adaptations are modifications that make an organism suited for its way of life. Over time living things will go through an evolution which is changing over a period of time. All living things also have respiration or release stored energy in the chemical bonds of sugars. Some organisms go through respiration by taking in food to sustain life and these organisms are called consumers. Other organisms create their own food to sustain life and these organisms are called producers. All living things also are homeostatic. This means that any living thing will keep its structure the same on the inside of itself, even if things on the outside change. If the environment or external changes happen then the living thing will expand a great deal of energy so that the inside structure does not change and maintain homeostasis. Living things also need to respond to stimuli. Responding to a stimuli means that a living thing will make changes depending on if the stimuli is positive or negative. A stimulus is anything that effects on of the five senses of a living thing and a living thing will either move away or towards the stimuli. A positive affect is if a living thing moves towards the stimuli and a negative affect is if the living thing moves away from the stimuli. All of these eight characteristics are required for any living thing to be living. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">There are many different types of tests that can be used to test if there is life on mars. One test that NASA has used in the past is called the LR test. The LR test is called the labeled release test where a scoop of the soil from Mars is mixed with drops of water that contains nutrients and radioactive carbon atoms. The idea of this test was that if the soil contained microbes then they would metabolize the nutrients and release either radioactive carbon dioxide or methane gas. This could be measured by a radiation detector on the probe. Other controlled experiments can also be used to test if there is life on an unknown planet. Heating soil to different temperatures and isolating the soil in the dark for months or putting the soil in conditions that would kill microbes that are photosynthesis or that rely on photosynthesis organisms for survival. All of these controlled experiments would force microbes to react and change to the condition that they are in and this would therefore prove that there is life. All of these controlled experiments can also be mixed with a nutrient solution which would also force the microbes to change depending on the condition. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">