Shane+H

= The Search for Life on Mars =

From Big Bang to Galaxies.
The Big Bang is the cause of our universe. The Big Bang is a huge explosion out of no where. This explosion caused energy, antiquarks, and quarks to be formed. As quarks, energy, and antiquarks bumped into each other, they made new things like protons and electrons. Our universe started to grow from these collisions. As the universe grew, it's temperature dropped. After 300, 000 years, the temperature has dropped so much, that atoms can form and not be burned up. The universe started as unimaginably hot, but because the kept temperature kept dropping, it allowed atoms to form. After 2 billion years, galaxies began to form in a spongy structure. Galaxies broke apart, from the structure and ran into each other, some times even combining to make even larger galaxies.

The Milky Way Galaxy
There is much to know about our galaxy. Let’s start with the main parts. When it's seen edge on and half a billion light years away, you will see a disc with a bulge in the middle. The disc is about around 100,000 light years across and is surrounded by stars. The disc is made up of stars, gas, and dust. The Sun is found to left of the bulge, and a dwarf galaxy merging with the Milky Way galaxy is found to the right. When looking down on the galaxy, four spiral arms come out from the bulge. Inside the bulge is mainly orange and red stars. But, in the center is a massive black hole surrounded by gas.

Lives of the Stars
Stars have an interesting way of forming and dying. Stars are formed when gravity pulls together a interstellar cloud into a core. A core is made by the materials coming off an exploding star. To make the star, the core stars spinning, and the energy heats up the center of the star. Gravity keeps pulling the interstellar cloud into the core, and the star make a ring of gas around it. After nuclear reactions occur in the core, a proto star is formed. Hydrogen is constantly being made in the center of the star to fuel the nuclear reactions. But once a star starts running out of material, it starts to die. Let's stage the sun's, a typical yellow star, death. First, the sun doubles in size, and it's color changes to a darker red; but it's brightness does not change. In another billion years, it will become 100 times bigger than it is now, and 1000 times brighter. It starts to blow off significant amounts of material. It simultaneously becomes bigger and smaller. Soon, it becomes so big, that it will touch the earth. After blowing off all it's material, the star shrinks into a white dwarf star and ends it's death. A giant star is similar to the way the sun dies. But, a giant star instead of shrinking to a dwarf star, it blows up, and forms a spectacular super nova explosion.

The Sun
Learning about our sun is very important. It's a star, and it's made of hydrogen and helium gas. This gas is fuel for the sun, and is made in the core of the sun by colliding quarks. The sun is just an ordinary yellow star, but it's much closer to earth than any other star. During an eclipse, the sun's inner most layer streams out from the visible yellow disc called the photosphere. Around the sun is the chromosphere, and is seen as red glowing flames. The sun commonly When the sun releases gas particles towards earth, the earth funnels them toward the north and south poles. These particles crash into the atmosphere and make aurora light. Like the earth, the sun has it's own magnetic field. It's about 10 times stronger than earth, and is the cause of sun spots. As the sun spins, the magnetic field spins with it. As the sun keeps spinning, the magnetic field gets more and more wound up, causing sun spots to form where the field loops out through the sun. Eventually, the field gets so wound up it disappears and magnetic field is created.

History of the Solar System
Learning how planets and the sun formed is the essentials of the history of the solar system. The sun formed like all stars, once gravity pulled together a interstellar cloud of dust and gas. Rings of dust and gas formed around this huge star. Planetesimals were moving around all over our galaxy, and colliding into each other to break apart. But, when the planetesimals lightly collided, they would combine. This led to the creation of the four giant planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, formed in the outer solar system, got rings of their own, and had a big enough gravitational pull to attract and hold a thick atmosphere of gas. But, in the inner solar system, too many strong collisions happened for huge planets to form, but soon the four terrestrial planets formed. They include Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. Smaller planetesimals became moons for the giant planets, and some terrestrial planets. Other planetesimals stayed flying around the galaxy. Lots of species, including the dinosaurs, became extinct when a flaming planetesimal hit earth.

Hubble Deep Field Academy
How many objects are there in the HDF? How can the objects be classified and identified? How far away are the objects? These are some of the questions that the astronomers asked. Once you are done reading this wiki entry, you will know the answer to of all three of these questions. The exact answer to the first question is unknown. But, the astronomers estimate that the number of objects in the HDF is 3,000. These objects can be classified into 4 different categories. They are classified by their shape and color. The shape categories are circle with spikes, circle, oval, spiral, and irregular. The color categories are red, blue, yellow, and white. An example of how an object could be classified is if it is white and a circle, it would be classified under white circle. Some actual objects in the HDF include white circle, blue spiral, and red irregular. The answer to the last question is pretty simple. Scientists use the object's size and the light it emits to figure out how close it is to earth. They use the size to tell because if it's size is bigger, it must be closer than something really small. Think of when you are in an airplane. The houses look really small, but that's just because they're far away. This method is good, but they can't entirely depend on it. What if there's a really small object that's close to earth? So, we must study the light it emits as well to find it's distance away from earth. The color of a galaxy can tell us a lot about it's stars. It shows us how old the stars are. If the stars are young, the galaxy will appear blue. If the stars are old, the galaxy will appear red. Sometimes, the galaxy can be a mixture of blue and red, if the stars have varying ages. The stars orientation makes up a galaxy's shape. Astronomers use shape to classify the galaxies. There are spiral galaxies, elliptical galaxies, and irregular galaxies. To find out how many galaxies there are in the Universe, astronomers use a method called "representative sampling". Using this method, you divide the sky into equal sections, and count the number of galaxies in the one section. Then you multiply it by the number of sections. It's pretty simple, right?

[[image:sjh_hero_engine.gif width="183" height="248"]]
One of the first devices to successfully employ the prinbiples essential to rocket flight is the Hero Engine. It was made by a greek inventor named Hero of Alexandria. To make the Hero Engine, he used steam as a propulsive gas. He mounted a sphere on top of a water kettle. A fire below the water kettle turned the water into steam. After traveling through pipe to get to the sphere, the escaped through to L shaped pipes coming out of the sphere. This gave thrust to the sphere, so it could rotate. In the first century, the chinese reported a form of gunpowder. They put it in tubes and through it into the fire to make explosions during religious festivals. Then, they would attach them to arrows for war. Soon, they found out the bamboo tubes could shoot themselves by the powder produced from the escaping gas. Thus, the true rocket was born. They used it in warfare and fireworks. In 1898, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky proposed the idea of space exploration with the rocket. He also suggested they use liquid propellants to earn greater range. But that's not all! After careful research, Tsiolkovsky stated that the speed and range of the rocket were limited only to the velocity of the escaping gases. On March 16, 1926, Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid propellant rocket. This rocket was fueled by liquid oxygen and gasoline. It flew for 2.5 seconds, climbed 12.5 meters, and landed 56 meters away in a cabbage patch. While this flight was unimpressive, it was the first start to a new era in gasoline propelled rockets. As Goddard continued to perfect this rocket, small rocket clubs appeared around the world. A German club "Verein fur Raumschiffahrt" (Society for Space Travel) developed a liquid propelled rocket. Unfortunately, the German Army came in and took the designs and made the V-2 rocket, a liquid propelled rocket with a guidance system and an explosive warhead. They used this rocket to bomb London during World War 2. When Germany lost WW2, many german scientists came to the US or went to the Soviet Union. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched an earth-orbiting satelite called "Sputnik I". The US was scared of what qualites this satelite could hold, so they launched a satelite too. Then, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was formed with a goal of peaceful exploration of space for the benefit of all humankind. Mainly, just so we could match up with whatever the soviets are doing in space. = Labeled Rocket = == = Model Rocket Experiment = Our main goal in performing this experiment was to see if changing the mass of the rocket would affect it's altitude. We first painted our rockets to make them have different masses. Then we weighed the rockets, and put the data in a table. Now, we were ready to do our experiment. We decided to use Trigonometry to find the altitude of our rocket. All we needed to get was how far we were standing away from the launch pad and the angle of the rocket at apogee. If we put this data into the equation, length away * tan(rocket angle) = altitude. We decided to stand 100 meters away from the rocket. We measured this distance using a trundel wheel. What a trundle wheel does is you roll the wheel on the ground and every time you hear a click, it has been a meter. How did we get the angle of the rocket at apogee? We used angle guns. We used the angle guns 100 meters away from the launch pad. To find out the angle, you had to hold the trigger down and point the gun at the rocket at ignition. Once lift off occurs, you have to follow the rocket with the angle gun (move the angle gun with the rocket). At Apogee, you let go of the trigger, and the angle gun will tell you the angle. Me and Matt's rocket's angle was 31 degrees. To find the altitude, we plugged in the data in the formula. For Example, to find the altitude of me and Matt's rocket, you would enter "100 * tan(31)" into your calculator. This is how we got an altitude of 60.1 meters for our rocket. After recording all our data into an excel document, and making a scatter plot, we found out that the less massive the rocket, the higher it flies. I hypothesized that the less massive the rocket, the higher it will fly. So, this experiment's results have proved my hypothesis to be true.

Our rocket flew great! It flew 60.1 meters high at a 31 degree angle, ranking 6th in the class. It did great at the ignition, lift off, apogee, and recovery part of the rocket stages, but it didn't coast very long, and was slow to eject. Once the parachute came out of the rocket, strong winds occured. They kept pushing the rocket farther and farther away until finally it stopped behind the basketball court. Nothing broke off of our rocket, this meaning that it was very well built and was very durable. When we painted our rocket; we didn't use a lot of paint. We only used one coat of paint on our rocket. What made our rocket heavy was the amount of glue we put on it. Since we put a lot of glue on our rocket, it made the rocket durable, but it made it heavier. The weight of the glue we put on our rocket impacted it's flight, making it go a shorter distance, because it is heavy. To improve our rocket flight, I think we could take the fins off our rocket and put them back on with less glue. Also, getting better altitude measurers would probably improve the max altitude. =Mars Rover Drop= While other teams chose to heavily cushion or parachute their eggs down, we chose a different route. First, we lightly cushioned the rocket. This is better than heavily cushioning it, because it easier to get out in 45 seconds. Then, we put the lightly cushioned egg into the plastic bag. We filled the bag with air (so it's like a balloon) so that when we dropped it, it wouldn't hit the lightly cushioned egg but the air inside of the bag. Then comes the unique part of our design. We added a balloon to the bag. Our theory is that if it lands on the balloon first, the balloon will take the blow, and the bag will get a much lighter and easier fall. But, since the balloon is so light because it's filled with air, it always lands on the bag first. To make the balloon heavier, we added a bunch of stuff to it. We put a lot of tape on it, 12 popsicle sticks, the max amount of paper, and the tape dispenser itself! When we tested it in the hallway, our design worked!

Finally, the real egg drop comes. To pass the egg drop, you had to have the vehicle land on the target, be able to get the egg out in 45 seconds, and have the egg still intact (not cracked). When our turn came, we went up to the bleachers, and dropped our vehicle. It landed on the target! But, our design didn't work well. The balloon and the bag landed about the same time, maybe the bag was a little faster. Fortunately, because of our air-bag and egg protection, the egg was still intact, and we were able to get the egg out in under 45 seconds. For next time, I would make the balloon heavier, and add another balloon. We didn't use all the materials, so we didn't make our vehicle to it's full potential. = Programming Robots with Lego Mindstorms NXT =

The Motors
The motors make it possible to make the robot move, and various other things. The motors can be programmed what to do because of the cable that connects the motor to the NXT brick. The NXT brick is the main station. It's what sends the Lego Mindstorms program to the motor. The motor knows what to do because of the tackometer. The tackometer tells the motor when it's been 4 rotations, or whatever it's doing, so the motor can know when to stop, and will be able to excute the program correctly. The motors can allow the robot to go forward, backward, left turn, and right turn. When the robot goes forward, both of it's wheels go the same amount of rotations at the same speed. The motors turn counter-clockwise. When the robot goes backwards, the motors turn counter-clockwise. Again, the motors go at the exact same speed at the same amount of rotations. There are two different kinds of turns. One is a point turn, and one is a curve turn. When the robot does a right point turn, the right motor stops, and the left motor does the degrees. With turns, you have to program in degrees. Also, because there are two motors (for movement) in the robot we are using, you have to program twice the amount of degrees. For instance, if you wanted a 90 degree turn, you would have to program the motors for 180 degrees. If you had 4 motors, then you would have to do 4 times the amount of degrees to get the turn (360 = 90 degree turn). For a left point turn, it's just the opposite. The degree measurement are the same, but instead the left motor stops, and the right motor moves. A curve turn is different than a point turn. In a curve turn, both of the motors move, but the motor on the inside is slower. In a right point turn, the right motor would be slower, and in a left point turn, the left motor would be slower. As you can imagine, getting degrees and rotations exactly right is one of the challenges of using the robot.

The Sensors
A sensor is an object that can sense stuff going on in it's enviroment. Some examples of sensors are a sound sensor, an ultrasonic sensor, a light sensor, and a touch sensor. A sound sensor can detect sound. An ultrasonic sensor can sense objects/walls in front of it. A light sensor can detect dark and light light. A touch sensor can detect the push of a button (touch). These sensors are used to tell the robot when to do something or when to stop something. For example, you could program it so that when the sound sensor hears sound it starts moving. You could also make it so that the robot goes forward infinity until it the light sensor detects a dark line. All the sensors convert whatever energy they have to electrical energy, to return to the program that the process completed (like "return 0" for C programmers). The sound sensor gets mechanical energy from the sound, and converts it to electrical energy to return "OK" to the program. The ultrasonic sensor gets mechanical energy from the vibrations in the air. It works like a bat. It sends a vibration forward, and see how long it takes to receive the vibration to detect how far away the object in front of it is. It converts this mechanical energy to electrical energy. The light sensor gets electrical energy from the light it is seeing, and converts it to a different type of electric energy. The touch sensor gets mechanical energy from the spring moving when you press the button. It also converts it to electrical energy. = Geology on Mars = = =

Geologists are very important, because they can identify an unknown mineral. How do they do it? A mineral can be identified by it's color, luster, hardness, and streak. Some minerals have special properties like fizzing under hydrochloric acid, being magnetic, and being tasteful. These special properties can also help identify a mineral. A mineral's color and appearance can help detect a mineral, but it can also be deceiving. The same mineral can be many different colors. This is why not to identify a mineral just by color. This is when streak can be helpful. When you rub a mineral against a white plate, it leaves a streak. This streak can help identify a mineral because while a mineral's appearance can change, it's streak stays the same. Luster is how light shines off of the mineral. Luster can be helpful to identify a mineral, because some minerals can be more lusterous than others. A mineral's hardness is also vital to identifying the mineral. Minerals have a rating of hardness on Mohs Scale, ranging from 1 -10. Talc is 1 because it is the softest, and a diamond is 10 because it is the hardest. (Only a diamond can scratch another diamond.) To do a hardness test, you see what items it scratches. If it scratches a nail(4.5), but not glass (5.5); then it must have a hardness of 5. Other ways of identifying a mineral are using a magnet to test if it's magnetic, pouring acid on it to test if it's a carbonate compound, and tasting it. (For instance, halite tastes like salt.) Curiosity is a rover that is currently traveling on mars. It's mission on mars is to find out if life could have ever existed on mars. We can learn this by studying the geology of the rocks on mars. But, because we can't have geologists go to mars with the rover, Curiosity must do it. One way that Curiosity does it is by drilling a hole into the rock with a 1 cm in a diameter drill. Then, the powder made by drilling the rock goes into the robot's system. The robot analyzes it and then tells NASA 2 things. They are the neurology of the rock, and if there is any organic molecules in it. Curiosity also has a laser. Curiosity shoots the laser at the rock that's too high up to reach, and see how the light reflects off of it. This is done to get a feel of what the chemical composition is. = Characteristics of Life = To be alive, an object must possess 8 characteristics. These special characteristics are being made of cells, need of materials, being homeostatic, responding to stimuli, can reproduce, grows, is adapted, and can respire. The object has to be able to do these some time in it's life span. For instance, you wouldn't say that a little girl isn't alive because she can't reproduce. She can at some point in her lifespan. What does it mean to have these characteristics? We will go over all of them. First up, being made of cells. The cell is the fundamental units of living things. So, you must be made out of cells to be alive. A living thing must need materials to live. Specifically, living things need water, minerals, and air, and they take what they need from the environment. If you don't do this, you aren't alive. To be homeostatic, you must stay about the same internally, despite enviroment changes. "Homeo" means 'same', and "static" means stay, so "homeostatic" must mean 'stay same'. To do this, living things spend a tremendous amount of energy to maintain normal. Next, you must respond to stimuli. Let's break this down too. "Stimulus" is anything that causes a living thing to react, and "response" is the reaction to a stimulus. Logically, this means that you must react under certain circumstances. Moving on, to reproduce is to produce offspring of your own kind. Plants and animals reproduce in a variety of ways, including reproducing with 2 parents (sexual reproduction) and reproducing with 1 parent (asexual reproduction). To be alive, that reproduce must be able to grow. All living things develop from a simpler/lower to a much higher/complex form. For example, the human life cycle is embyro to newborn to child to adolescent to adult. Please note that not all things grow at the same rate, or reach the same size. (Again, look at humans for an example). A living thing must also be adapted. Adapted means modifications that make an organism suited to it's way of life. One key term you must know about adaptation is evolution. Evolution is the process by which characteristics of a species change over time. Lastly, a living thing must respire. Respiration is the act of releasing energy stored in the chemical bonds of food. Consumers must eat food to live, but producers create their own food.

One way of finding life of mars is to figure out if there is microbes in the soil. This can be done in a variety of ways. I will tell you about 3. These methods all need to be done by a robot, because humans can't go to mars yet. The first method is to scoop up Martian soil and mix it with a drop of water, containing nutrients and radioactive carbon atoms. If the soil contains microbes, the life forms will metabolize the nutrients and release radioactive carbon dioxide or methane gas. Then, the robot could detect it by a radiation detector. The second method you could use is heating the Martian rocks to different temperatures. If there are photosynethic microbes or microbes that rely on photosynthic organisms, the microbes would die. The third method is similar to the second method. They both test for photosynethic microbes. But, in the third method, you isolate Martian rocks in the darkness for months. 