SNOW SCAVENGER HUNT

Thunder Snow (picture 1)
^Thunder snow is really heavy and dry making driving difficult and dangerous.

Rime (picture 1)
^ Rime iscrunchy, rough snow that looks like popcorn or styrofoam that you notice on trees and on windy mountaintops. Rime forms on the surface of the snow when super cooled water in clouds freezes onto the snow surface.

Firn
^ Firn is that type of snow ontop of glaciers. It has been there for years and uts granular,it has not yet turned to ice.

Watermelon Snow
^ It is a pink snow that usually is on the top of mountains.

UNFCC

Website 1

The United Nations Framework on Climate Change Confrence or COP 15's goal for this week is to was to establish a global climate agreement for the period 2012 when the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol expires. It's different because it is linked to the UNFCC. The feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets targets for 37 industrialial countries and the European areas for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

3 way we can prevent climate change:
- we can change light bulbs!
- reduce your carbon footprint.
- we can be smarter about choosing our seafood.

I can change all the light bulbs in my house to the enviromentally safe ones! They will last longer, save electricty and even help our climate.

5 Spheres

Earth Spheres
Dinosaurs

Nothing really tells us what did kill the dinosaurs , It remains a mystery. There are many theorys that might have caused the dinosaurs extinction. An asteroid could crash into the lithosphere which is the earths crust. It can cause earth quakes and volcanic eruptions. It can even effect the hydrosphere which is the solid, lliquid, and gaseuous forms of water on earth. It could cause floods and drought which means the dinosaurs either drown or can't get any water. This is a big one. If an asteroid came down and hit the earth it can easly affect the biosphere. All plant and animal life is in the biosphere. If an asteroid hits any of that it can cause food shortages and even forest fires. Pretty soon there will be no food or shelter for the dinosaurs to eat or live in and there comes along extinction. The asteroid can affect the earths atmosphere too. From all the dust and debree coming off the asteroid, it can make the air polluted and hard to breathe. Some dinosaurs could stop breathing and die. It could even be hard to see too! The spheres that could have been involved are the:
-Lithosphere
-Biosphere
-Hydrosphere
-Atmosphere
There is another theory of the dinosaurs becoming extinct. A volcano could have erupted causing fires, drought, and even kill some of the dinosaurs. There many more examples of what could of happened.

Atmosphere:)

ATMOSPHERE

1.I compared Queens, New York to Detroit, Michigan and Las Vegas, Nevada. The best air was Detroit. The worst air was Las vegas Nevada in Clark County from all the hustle and bustle down by the strip.
2. Next i picked 3 states. I picked Florida, Michigan, and Oregon. The worst air was Florida. The best air was Orgegon probably from all the nature!
3. I chose Chicago Illionois, the best time to visit is during the winter. The air is clean and fresh. The worst time to visit is the summer months like June, July, and ,August. This is because the air is dirty from all the comotion down in the city in the summer.

The best city in michigan that has the best AQI reading would be Benton Harbor and Kalamazoo they both had 17's. The worst would be Saginaw. It has a 36 AQI number. I am doing this on Thursday November 19, 2009.

atmosphere:)
atmosphere:)2

Black Holes!!

Black Holes.
http://hubblesite.org/explore_astronomy/black_holes/encyclopedia.html
http://www.space.com/blackholes/
http://www.chandra.harvard.edu/resources/animations/blackholes.html
http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/resources/explorations/blackholes/teacher/sciencebackground.html

There are three types of black holes: stellar, supermassive, and miniature black holes, depending on their size. My favorite black hole is a Steller black hole because its small and light does not escape. They are hard to see and they are kind of a mystery! It's intresting to learn the size of them and what can go into them.

3 Facts
. The distance at which nothing can escape is called the Event Horizon.
. NO light can escape!
. Black holes emit x-ray radiation and get smaller and smaller until they disappear.

2 fiction
.The sun will become a black hole!
.The surface of a black hole is solid.

Big Sunspot

Website 1.
Website 2.
Website 3.

Sunspot 1029!!

People are intrested in the sunspot group because it has been the most active sunspot all year which is not good. They are also interested because it has C-class flares, which means its flares are small and you can see consequences here on the earth. People are interested in looking at this susnpot and to see if it gets any bigger, it's class goes up, and even if they can see anything from earth. There hasn't been many sunspots this year so they are keeping a close eye on 1029.

This is related to the deep solar minimum because astronomers are afraid that since this sunspot class is so low that we won't find anymore and that the sun might burn out. The sun has been in this for a couple of years. We haven't expeierenced very active sunspots and were're worried that we won't find anymore.

We care about sunspots on earth because ever since Galileo looked at the sun he calculated the sun spot cycle. It is 11 years long. If the sun spot number is low then it doesn't mess with the earth. If we have lots of sun spots then we are going to have crazy weather. The sun produces light for us. Which gives us heat to keep us warm and so that we have light during the day. If we didn't care then we won't have natural light and we would all freeze.

The sun affects me in two ways by:
It produces light and heat
It also gives me a tan so i look good in the summer:)

Sunspots are super important if we don't have any then we can run into serious problems in space and with our weather here on earth.

International Year of Astronomy

IYA 1

It is called the International Year of Astronomy because exactly 400 years ago back in 1609 Galileo a famous astronomer and physcist constructed the first complete astronomical telescope. It is called this because we use telescopes all the time in astronomy and the year is 2009! It matches up perfectly.

The sponsers are Thales Alenia Space, Celestron, and History. These are all the global sponsers of the International Year of Astronomy. There are approximatly 130 countries that have participated in this acitivity.

Galilean nights is were people stand on the sidewalk and observe the sun, our moon, and even more celestial marvels with the naked eye. Just like Galileo did.

8 goals of IYA:

Increase scientific awareness.
Promote widespread access to new knowledge and observing experiences.
Empower astronomical communities in developing countries.
Support and improve formal and informal science education.
Provide a modern image of science and scientists.
Facilitate new networks and strengthen existing ones.
Improve the gender-balanced representation of scientists at all levels and promote greater involvement by underrepresented minorities in scientific and engineering careers.
Facilitate the preservation and protection of the world's cultural and natural heritage of dark skies in places such as urban oases, national parks and astronomical sites.

It is a worth while project because it would be fun to get together with friends an family. To get to learn new things about astronomy with your own eye and not with technology. It would also be a great exprerience.

Great Worldwide Star Count

Great Worldwide Star Count
Great Worldwide Star Count 2

This is a world wide event, having family and friends get together and gaze at the stars and find constellations and report what they see online. This encourages people to learn more about astronomy.

People all over the world are going outside to count the stars now becuase there is light pollution from all the artificial light we use. Others do it for the fun and the gorgeous view. Majority of people do this count to record their local light pollution in their area.

A great constellation we could use during this count would be Cygnus pr the swan, since we live in the Northern Hemisphere. We would use this constellation because its easier to find.

The Latitude and longitude of were I live is
Latitude: 42.44862
Longitude: -82.87831

Many people should particpate in the Worldwide Star Count to learn and to have fun!

Water on the Moon?

water on the moon
Title: Nasa News NASA Spacecraft Impacts Lunar Crater in Search for Water Ice
Author: Jonas Dino and Ashley Edwards
Date: October 9, 2009

The Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter space craft began its expirament to discover if there was frozen water on the moon. It crashed many space crafts into a moon crater and observed the debris plume. Sadly the scientist from Nasa says that it will take some time to find out if there is any form of water on the moon. LCROSS team says they will be the first to analize if there is any form of water on the moon and they also say that it may take a couple of weeks to analize.

My thoughts are that if there is any form of water on the moon maybe it isn't sanitary.
One of my questions would be "If there is water will they have enough?"
My reaction was why didn't they find out yet? Can't they observe and study the debris plume now or is it still crashing into the moon?

My conclusion is that the discovery for water on the moon is unknown yet.

Mercury Messenger

Mercury.


We care about studying Mercury because it could have valuable resources or natural gases or even gold. There maybe something on Mercury that we need or could use to help us on earth. Scientists hope to learn the operations they need to perform on the MESSENGER spacecraft. They also hope to learn why Mercury shrunk. In recent studies scientists have agreed that Mercury has shrunken. Over many years, astronomers have figured out that under Mercury’s rocky surface has a thick layer or “mantle” which is hot liquid material,or molten rock. For a long time, scientists were pretty sure that since Mercury is so small it should have cooled down way too fast for it to have a molten mantle.


Article Title: Whats Hot about Mercury?

Author: Skyguy

Date: October 13th 2008.



< This is a picture of Mercury's Northern Horizon.





I think the U.S shouldn't spend any money for traveling in space. I think it is ridiculous. We should use the money for people who are starving. Or to help find the cure for cancer, and even to help with a torn economy. We shouldn't even study any other planets because it is a huge waste of money when we could be using the money for other things to help make our world a better place.

Astronomy Hoaxes

Astronomy Egg Hoax
This is untrue because it is challenging to stand up the egg on its end because of all the gooey liquid inside. Also it is untrue do to the fact that its impossible to do on a normal day, and calls for complete patience and alot of cleaning up! It is said that people balance the egg after a long time of trying and patience NOT the equinox. The equinox stands for the first day of fall or spring there is nothing special to make an egg stand on its end.

Author: Paul A. Heckert
Date: September 10, 2009

Egg Hoax

The Great Moon Hoax
On August 25, 1835 The newspaper The New York Sun decalared that there was life forms on the moon. Sir John Herschel, a famous british astronomer built a telescope and claimed he discovered life forms on the moon. This is considered a hoax because there is not any plant or life form on the moon. There is no source of food or water to have anything or anyone living there. The moon is a hard rock with craters. It's baren land. Many astronauts have been to the moon none have discovered a life form.

Author: not listed
Date: not listed

Moon Hoax

Hubble Telescope.

Hubble Telescope article.

This Article is about how the Hubble Telescope has gotten 90 times more powerful than before. There will be 2 new instruments added to the telescope. The article also talks about how the camera died in 2007 and is going to try to replace it with something new and never tryed before! The article aslo states that the telescope will likely die in 2011 when its last functioning gyroscope fails.

My feelings about this article were that it had lots of information about the equipment and whats going on the telescope and whats being replaced. I would add my own opinoin saying that the Hubble Telescope is very vauled in space and we should keep fixing it to see whats going on up in space. One question i would ask would be how much does all of this cost?

The author of this article is David Shiga, the date i accsessed this article was September 16, 2009.