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Space scoil net ideas about materials and activities in the classroom

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Space scoil net ideas about materials and activities in the classroom

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Official education portal of the Department of Education and Skills in Ireland. Curriculum focused resources and support for primary and post primary teachers.

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Reflection about science inquiry (2) 800 words edited

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why are the  materials  provided by JCT website so utile and act as an aid to help

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why are the  materials  provided by JCT website so utile and act as an aid to help

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how i used these papers when planning and teaching

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how i used these papers when planning and teaching

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Online 3D simulation of the Solar System and night sky in real time - the Sun, planets, dwarf planets, comets, stars and constellations

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Space, celestial objects and the origin of

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We live on a planet called Earth that is part of our solar system. But where is our solar system? It's a small part of the Milky Way Galaxy.

A galaxy is a huge collection of gas, dust, and billions of stars and their solar systems. A galaxy is held together by gravity. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, also has a supermassive black hole in the middle.

When you look up at stars in the night sky, you're seeing other stars in the Milky Way. If it's really dark, far away from lights from cities and houses, you can even see the dusty bands of the Milky Way stretch across the sky.

There are many galaxies besides ours, though. There are so many, we can't even count them all yet! The Hubble Space Telescope looked at a small patch of space for 12 days and found 10,000 galaxies, of all sizes, shapes, and colors. Some scientists think there could be as many as one hundred billion galaxies in the universe.

Some galaxies are spiral-shaped like ours. They have curved arms that make it look like a pinwheel. Other galaxies are smooth and oval shaped. They're called elliptical galaxies. And there are also galaxies that aren't spirals or ovals. They have irregular shapes and look like blobs. The light that we see from each of these galaxies comes from the stars inside it.

Sometimes galaxies get too close and smash into each other. Our Milky Way galaxy will someday bump into Andromeda, our closest galactic neighbor. But don't worry. It won't happen for about five billion years. But even if it happened tomorrow, you might not notice. Galaxies are so big and spread out at the ends that even though galaxies bump into each other, the planets and solar systems often don't get close to colliding.

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[/caption]The term celestial body is as expansive as the entire universe, both known and unknown. By definition a celestial body is any natural body outside of the Earth's atmosphere. Easy examples are the Moon, Sun, and the other planets of our solar system. But those are very limited examples. The Kuiper belt contains many celestial bodies. Any asteroid in space is a celestial body. So, what do you write about with such a broad topic? How about a sampling of five of my favorites and leave it at that for now? Which five, though. Well, let's cover Ceres, the Kuiper belt, the asteroid Cruithne, Achernar, and Apophis.

Ceres is a celestial body that is by far the largest and most massive asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is approximately the size of Texas or 975km x 909 km with a mass of 9.5×10 ²⁰. It actually represents 1/3 of all of the mass of the asteroid belt. It has enough mass for self gravity which is a major requirement to be considered a dwarf planet. It revolves around the sun every 1679.819 days with a very small axial tilt. The surface is relatively warm. The high temperature is thought to be in the neighborhood of -38°C(235 K). Ceres has a visual brightness magnitude of +6.9 to +9. When it is at the brightest point possible, Ceres is nearly bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. It can be seen with binoculars whenever it is above the horizon on a completely dark night.

The Kuiper belt contains many a celestial body. It is actually a disk-shaped region in the outer solar system lying beyond the orbit of Neptune and extending to a distance of about 50 astronomical units, containing thousands of small icy bodies, some of which are on highly elliptical orbits, periodically visiting the inner solar system as comets. It is thought to be a collection of the remnants of the formation of the solar system. Who knows what may be found when we are able to send spacecraft to its edges?

As a celestial body, the asteroid Cruithne is sort of small and indistinct until you consider that it is locked in a 1:1 orbit with the Earth. The asteroid is sometimes referred to as the Earth's second moon. It is not a true moon because the Earth's gravity does not effect it nor does its effect the Earth. Cruithne's nearest pass to Earth is .1 AU (40 moon lengths), although right now it never comes closer than .3 AU. The asteroid sort of runs like a corkscrew around the Earth while both are revolving around the Sun. The asteroid Cruithne is in a normal elliptic orbit around the Sun. Its revolution around the Sun, approximately 364 days at present, is almost equal to that of the Earth. Because of this, Cruithne and Earth appear to follow each other in their paths around the Sun.

The celestial body Achernar is a bright, blue, B3-type star of six to eight solar masses lying approximately 144 light years away. It is classified as a dwarf, but it is 3,000 times more luminous than our Sun. It is in the deep southern sky and never rises above 33°N. Achernar is best seen from the southern hemisphere in November; it is circumpolar below 33°S. Achernar spins so quickly that is spherical in shape. The distance along its equator is 50% greater than its polar diameter. It is the brightest star in the Eridanus constellation. It is also the 9th brightest star in the night sky. Of the 10 brightest stars, other than our Sun, it is the hottest and bluest.

The celestial body Apophis is one of the most intriguing, to me. It is the stuff that many sci-fi legends have been based on. Apophis is most famous for the stir it caused in 2004. The asteroid was discovered on its way towards the Earth and was predicted to have a 2.7% chance of impacting the Earth. That in and of itself is not significant. Objects impact the Earth on a yearly basis. The size of Apophis was the major concern. Even a small chance that an asteroid the size of a small town hitting the Earth rightly caused a large commotion. It achieved the highest score ever on the Torino scale and it stayed on an elevated level for longer than any other asteroid ever has. It was eventually studied enough to know that it would not hit the Earth in 2004. The asteroid will pass again in 2029. Scientists predict that it will not hit the Earth, but it may pass through a gravitational keyhole that could alter its orbit enough that it could impact in 2036. The chances are slight, but real. Even if it doesn't hit a keyhole in 2029 it will return every seven years and may pose a serious threat in the future. Scientists have proposed that Apophis be nudged out of its present orbit into an orbit that takes it further from the keyhole. NASA scientist David Morrison says, "After 2029, the deflection would have to be vigorous enough to miss not just a tiny keyhole but the much larger target of the Earth itself. And such a deflection is far beyond present technology for an asteroid this large.".

Many things can make a celestial body interesting. Everyone has their favorites. Mine happen to be the five I have listed. Each can be further researched here on Universe Today. Follow these links to find what you need: Ceres, the Kuiper belt, the asteroid Cruithne, Achernar, and Apophis. Astronomy Cast offers a good episode about the mind-boggling possibility of multiple universes. Here's a list of the 10 brightest stars.

Sources:
http://planetary.org/explore/topics/asteroids_and_comets/ceres.html
http://userpages.umbc.edu/~gwilson/kuiper.html
http://www.astro.uwo.ca/~wiegert/3753/3753.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achernar
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/apophis/

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caption]The term celestial body is as expansive as the entire universe, both known and unknown. By definition a celestial body is any natural body outside of the Earth's atmosphere. Easy examples are the Moon, Sun, and the other planets of our solar system. But those are very limited examples.

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Our solar system has one star, eight planets, five officially recognized dwarf planets, at least 290 moons, more than 1.3 million asteroids, and about 3,900 comets.

It is located in an outer spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy called the Orion Arm, or Orion Spur. Our solar system orbits the center of the galaxy at about 515,000 mph (828,000 kph). It takes about 230 million years to complete one orbit around the galactic center.

We call it the solar system because it is made up of our star, the Sun, and everything bound to it by gravity - the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; dwarf planets Pluto, Ceres, Makemake, Haumea, and Eris - along with hundreds of moons; and millions of asteroids, comets, and meteoroids.

Our solar system is the only one we know of that has a planet that supports life. So far, we only know of life on Earth, but we're looking for life on other worlds.

NASA's Europa Clipper

Send Your Name to Jupiter

You're invited to #SendYourName to Jupiter's moon Europa by signing a poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón that will travel aboard NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft.

Saying Farewell: Which Spacecraft are Leaving Our Solar System?

Only two spacecraft have reached interstellar space, the space between stars. Three other spacecraft have achieved enough velocity to eventually travel beyond the boundaries of our solar system.

Voyager 1 went interstellar in 2012 and Voyager 2 joined it in 2018. Both spacecraft, launched in 1977, are still in communication with Earth.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is currently exploring an icy region beyond Neptune called the Kuiper Belt. It eventually will leave our solar system.

Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 also will ultimately travel silently among the stars toward the galactic core. The spacecraft used up their power supplies decades ago.

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Solar System Overview Our solar system has one star, eight planets, five officially recognized dwarf planets, at least 290 moons, more than 1.3 million asteroids, and about 3,900 comets. It is located in an outer spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy called the Orion Arm, or Orion Spur.

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Lesson Plan linked to this learning outcome

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Lesson Plan linked to this learning outcome

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How do the Learning Outcomes support Students learning

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How do the Learning Outcomes support Students learning

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How do the Learning Outcomes support Student Learning

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Links to the Junior Cycle Framework Skills

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Links to the Junior Cycle Framework Skills

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-Managing Information and Thinking
-Being Creative
-Working with others
-Communication
-Being Literate
-Managing Myself

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Links to the Junior Cycle Framework Skills

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NOS 1, NOS 4, NOS 7,NOS 10, EaS 3,PW 3.

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How the following learning outcomes are linked to Earth and Space one

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E&S 1: Describe the relationship between various celestial objects including moons, asteroids, comets, planets, stars, solar systems, galaxies and space