Liz+J

=**__The Search For Life On Mars __**=

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This is my paragraph about the Big Bang and how galaxies were formed. Our world began very hot and it was packed in a very small space, then it began to expand very quickly and particles of matter were then created. Overtime while the universe was being created and the temperature began falling and protons and neutrons begin to form and then electron orbited them and created atoms. Two billion years after the Big Bang galaxies began to form. Our galaxy started as a huge sphere of gas. Galaxies are classed by their shape as elliptical, spiral, or irregular and their arms can be anywhere from very tight to extremely lose. Many galaxies have also collided and merged to create larger galaxies like the ones we see today. ======

This is my paragraph about the Milky Way Galaxy and how it was created and what it is. The Milky Way is made up of a long disk of stars and then a layer of gas and dust that cut through the center. There is a central bulge that is in the very center for the Milky Way. The sun lies in the disk about halfway out of the center disk and on the other side, this is a dwarf galaxy merging. Star cluster are scattered around the central bulge. The Milky Way is also made up of four arms and the central bulge is made up of many stars the color of red and orange mainly. Finally the nucleus of the galaxy, which is believed to be a massive black hole.
 * __The Milky Way Galaxy __**

This is my paragraph about how stars form and their whole life style. Stars are formed in cold dark clouds of gas and dust. Larger stars form and change much more quickly than smaller stars. Stars that have the most amount of mass are bluish white. Stars that have the least amount of mass and red. About five billion years ago, the sun formed from an interstellar cloud and became a yellow star.
 * __Lives of the Stars __**

This is my paragraph about what the sun is and what it is made off. The sun is a star like any other star in the universe except it is much closer to use. The sun is a ball of hot gas. In its central core, the temperature is fifteen million degrees. The Earth’s magnetic fields pull the sun particles downward to its north and south ends. The sun also has a magnetic field but it is much stronger than the earths. The sun also spins about once a month.
 * __The Sun __**

This is my last paragraph about the entire history of the planets and when they were created. The sun started as a thin disk with a proto sun in the middle. In the disk, there were solid material and these solid materials started to become larger particles. In the outer solar system, four large masses formed and these masses are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The inter solar system had to many collisions for large planets to forms but finally the four smaller planets formed, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. The moon was probably created in a collision with Earth and another newly formed planet the size of Mars. Venus, Earth, and Mars got their atmospheres at a much later stage. Large rocks were thought to have crashed the Earth during the time of the dinosaurs, leading them to extinction.
 * __History of the Solar System __**


 * __The Hubble Deep Field Academy __**

This website was all about one picture the Hubble Space Craft discovered. In the beginning of our journey in discovering what this picture was, we some questions and compared them to the astronomers. One example of one of their questions was "How objects are there in the HDF?” In the next level, we hypnotized and guessed how many objects were in the image after looking at it closer in smaller pieces. After making our guess, we learned that astronomers estimated that there are 3,000 objects that appear in the image. In level two we learned about the types of objects classified in the image. Three different objects that were classified to be in the image are stars, spiral galaxies, and elliptical galaxies. In level three we figured out how close some of the objects were. Astronomers estimate distances from objects by the light it emits. This can then tell them which objects are the closest and which are the farthest. In level four we ended with a review on galaxies. The color of a galaxy indicates its age and the shape of a galaxy indicates what type it is. When astronomers estimate the number of galaxies in the universe they divide the sky into equal sections and count the number of galaxies in each one. They then multiply that number by the number of sections. 

= History of Rocketry =



The first thing that sparked ideas for rocketry was created by a Greek inventor named Hero of Alexandria. What he did was used steam as a propulsive gas. A sphere was on top of water kettle which was on top of a fire. The fire turned the water into steam and then the steam traveled through tubes into the sphere. The sphere had two L-shaped tubes on the end where the steam came out and made the sphere turn. In the first century the Chinese created explosions during religious festivals. To create these explosions, they used bamboo tubes and filled them with a mixture and tossed them into the fire. These tubes started to shoot out of the fire like what we know as fireworks today. After learning what they could do with this they attached bamboo tubes to arrows and launched them with the bows. In 1898 a Russian schoolteacher proposed an idea. His idea was space exploration by rocket. He published a suggesting the idea of liquid propellants fro rockets because of their weight and to be able to achieve a higher range.



After this one idea a man named Goddard conducted many experiments on rocketry. On March 16, 1926 Goddard achieved the very first successful flight. It was fueled by liquid oxygen and flew for about 2 seconds. It got 12.5 meters o f the ground and landed 65 meters away in a cabbage patch. This might have been only a small step towards rocketry but it inspired others to build rockets. In Germany the Society for Space Travel built the V-2 rocket. This society created this rocket for fun and experiments but Germany soon took this rocket and used it against London in WW ll. ON October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite. A few months after they did this the United States launched their own satellite and later that year organized their space program (NASA). NASA became a strong agency with a goal of peaceful exploration of space for humankind.

**Rocket Labels**



Rocket Launch The purpose of this experiment was to learn how a rocket works and to see what affects how high a rocket flies. We took a couple days making our rocket and learning what each part in our rocket did. After it was all assembled, we got to paint them. Some people put a lot of paint on theirs but some people only put small amount. This is important to know because the weight of the rockets might affect how high they fly. When we first went outside the first thing we did was measure 100 meters away from out launch pad. We did this by using a trundle. Every time you rolled the trundle 1 meter it made a clicking sound so we counted to 100 for every time it clicked. Then the people 100 meters always used angles guns to measure the angle of the highest point of the rocket. Finally once the rockets had all launched and we knew the angle of each of them we used trigonometry to find out how high they went. Our results showed that a rocket that weighed 43.5 grams flew about 100 meters but a rocket the weighted 46 grams only flew about 40 meters. This information shows that the weight does matter and the lighter the rocket the higher it will go. Once we pressed the button there was a slight pause and then there was smoke and our rocket slowly lifted off of the launch pad. I flew pretty straight up it the air and didn't spin much at all. Once it reached the highest point our rocket tilted slightly and then the parachute popped out very quickly. During the recovery process it floated down slowly and it was tilted to it's right the whole time because of the wind. Once it dropped on the ground one of the fins broke off.

= Mars Rover Drop =

Our Mars Rover Drop vehicle was designed to safely and smoothly deliver a egg to the ground. We also had to get our egg out in 45 seconds. Our vehicle was designed a little like a real hot air balloon. Our egg was tightly secured in a cup with bubble wrap inside. Connected to the top of the cup was two strings which were connected to the bottom of another cup. Connected to the top cup was a parachute, that was a plastic bag, and two balloons. On the bottoms cup we also attached a wooden frame for extra support and cushion for when it falls. I think that the way we carried our egg by putting it in the cup and attaching it to another cup worked really well. However I think we could have done without the wooden support on the bottom because it just weighed the whole thing down.

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= Programming Robots =

Motors can do all sorts of different things. You can program a motor to do different things and move robots and make them different things. You can program them to make the wheels go faster, turn the wheels a certain way, make the robot rotate using a wheel and do many other things. Some of the challenges to programing and using motors is when you try to turn your robot. You always have to remember to change rotations and degrees and its hard to figure out how far you it to rotate.

Robots can always have things added onto them. You can add different sensors to robots. Some sensors are sound sensors. Sound sensor s allow your robot to hear things. You can program your robot to do certain task based on what they here. There are also Ultrasonic sensors. These sensors measures how close or how far away different objects are. If your robot is about to hit a wall it can measure how far away it is and then turn away when it gets to close. Another sensor is a light sensor. Light sensors give your robot vision. The robot will do different things based on the light and how it changes in the room. The last sensor you can attach to your robot is a touch sensor. It gives your robot a of touch. It can be used to make your robot pick up different objects and move them.



= Geology on Mars =

There are many different ways minerals can be identified. You do a color and luster test where you look at the minerals and observe their color and luster. You can do a hardness test also. A hardness test is where you scratch different minerals on common day objects to find out their hardness. Then you can compare how hard a mineral is and identify it. Another useful test geologist use is the streak test. The streak test is where you streak a mineral on a black or white streak plate and based on the color streak is how you identify it. You can also identify minerals with a magnetism test. This is a test you see which minerals are magnetic and which ones are not to identify them. Light reflection is another great test to identify minerals. A way to do this test it to place the minerals over a piece of writing and see how the rock changes or morphs the writing as an identification tool. Another test that is very useful if the taste test. Some minerals taste salty and some don’t so the taste test can be very useful. The last identification test is the acid test. An example of this test is dropping hydrochloric acid on different mineral to see which ones are carbonate compounds. These are some of the many test geologist use to identify minerals.

Currently exploring Mars is Curiosity, the NASA rover. Curiosity is a very smart and high tech rover that can do many different things like geologist can do on earth. Curiosity can shoot a rock with a laser and when light reflects back and it can guess what the chemical composition is. Curiosity is able to drill into rocks faces and then takes the dust from the drill. Curiosity then puts half of it into a test for mineral composition. The other half goes into a test for biological life. These are just some of the ways Curiosity will preform geology on Mars.

= Characteristics of Life =

All livings things show the same eight characteristics in anyway or anytime. The first characteristic is that it is made of cells. Cells are the fundamental units of living things. The second characteristic is need materials. This means that all living things have to have something to live like water, minerals, and air. They take what they need from the environment. The third characteristic is homeostatic. Homeostatic means that internally living things stay about the same despite environmental changes, basically being normal. Most living things expend a great deal of energy to maintain homeostasis. The fourth characteristic is being able to respond to stimuli. Responding to stimuli means reacting to anything that causes living things to react. There are two types of responses, positive and negative. A positive response moves towards stimuli. A negative response moves away from stimuli. The fifth characteristic is being able to reproduce. Reproduce is the process by which organisms produce offspring of their own kind. Plants and animals can reproduce in a variety of ways. Reproduction can either be sexual or asexual, one or two parents. The sixth characteristic is grow. Growth means that all things develop from a however or simpler to higher or more complex form. It goes from embryo to newborn to child to adolescent to adult. Even though all things grow not all things grow at the same rate or reach the same size. The seventh characteristic is adapted. Adapted means that it makes modifications that makes it suited to it's way of life. Sometimes adapting can lead to evolution, the process by which characteristics of species change through time. The final characteristic is respiration. Respiration is releasing energy stored in the chemical bonds of sugars or foods. There are consumers and producers. Consumers must take in food to sustain life. Producers create their own food.

There are many different scientific methods you could use to discovery life on another planet. One way is to do a LR experiment. LR stands for Labeled Release. A LR experiment is when you pick up a little bit of soil on other planets and mix it with a drop of water. The water is not just regular water, it contains nutrients and radioactive carbon atoms. If the soil contains microbes then the life-forms will metabolize the nutrients. Then the soil would release methane gas or radioactive carbon dioxide. The release of one of those two things can be measured by a radiation detector. Another scientific method is an easy one. Finding water is really important and shows that living things are able to live there because needing materials like water is a characteristic of life. Another scientific method is to check for minerals in rocks. Some minerals can only be made with water. If you find a mineral that can only be made water then you have discovered one characteristic of life on that planet. There are many other ways to discover life of other planets.