Thursday, April 15, 2010

Astronomy Q & A

On Tuesday the 13nth of April we started the day off with Alex and Ines presenting Pluto and Saturn. Most of us had already done this project before break. There were two long tables in the classroom and each girl presented to one table at a time for about 4-7 minutes.




We learned today that Pluto is the second largest biggest dwarf planet in our solar system, also originally called a planet, but after it didn’t meet certain qualifications such as size they decided to change it to a dwarf planet. Pluto is located in the Kuiper Belt, further from the Sun than Neptune even. Pluto is about a fifth the mass of our Moon, and composed primarily of rock and ices. Pluto has three natural satellites (or moons), named Charon (the biggest one), Nix and Hydra. Charon was the ferryman for the dead in Greek mythology, and is closely related to the god of the underworld, Hades, also known as Pluto in Roman mythology. Nix was the Greek goddess of darkness and light and was the mother of Charon, whereas Hydra was named after the nine headed serpent guarding the underworld (not to be confused with Cerberus).






We also learned today about Saturn today, from Ines. Saturn was named after the Roman god Saturnus (equivalent to the god Cronus in Greek Mythology), the god of agriculture. Saturn is a gas giant, meaning it is mainly made out of Hydrogen and Helium gases, and is also the second biggest planet in our solar system (after Jupiter). Saturn has at least 62 moons, although it is debatable if there are more to discover, and most are named after titans in Greek mythology, such as Rhea. Saturn’s rings seem to be the most astounding thing about this planet, and they are made out of mostly ices and carbon.

After this our class were asking questions regarding astronomy (the questions from black holes to anti-matter to is there another habitable planet), and perhaps took a bit long on this, as class ended fairly soon. The last ten minutes or so of class, we discussed the assignments due soon, such as the blogging for fourth quarter, the reflection post and discussed the open note celestial body test. The blogging is a bit different this quarter; we have to post an edit to 7nth or 8th grade every Friday, due to some people waiting to the last day to post edits (namely me).

-Luke

Some helpfull links for further reading:

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Pluto

http://nineplanets.org/

http://www.solarviews.com/eng/saturn.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/solarsystem/sun_and_planets/saturn



Next scribe is Kamil.

9 comments:

  1. Thanks Luke. You said a lot about astronomy and how we talked in class you were very specific and this helped me. You named the moons and satelites. And you went in depth with the greek Gods and Roman God the black hole part was also very interesting :) fantastic job !

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  2. Good job Luke, you did a very good job explaining what was done in class and the links to greek mythology were interesting. You made a minor grammar mistake its 7th not 7nth.

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  3. Good job Luke.
    Your post included the more interesting facts about planets and was thus easy to read. Additionally, you explained the Roman & Greek God connections which was quite cool to read about. Lastly, you explained how blogging was going to be different this quarter, which I thought was helpful.
    -Hana

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  4. I thought you made your post very easy to read, simple, and it's great that you repeated assignments that are due soon. You used color well and have nice pictures. I would just suggest to include links. For example, a link to a page that explains more about these two celestial bodies for anyone who wants to learn more about them.
    -Alex

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  5. I think you did a good job. Everything is very organized and is easy to read and understand.I like how you included facts about each planet that Inez and Alex persented.
    Well done!
    (:
    -Holly

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  6. This is a very good scribe post and sums up one of the last classes very well! Anyone who was sick would have easily known what happened in class just by reading the scribe post. One suggestion would be to make the yellow a little lighter because it is a little strenuous to read but all in all this is a great post and well done!

    - Minor post

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  7. Hi there Luke - One important thing - you have forgotten to add your labels at the bottom of your post and I will not grade it until you have done this. Make sure to follow all directions. Talk with me if you have questions.

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  8. Thanks for adding the labels Luke. Your spelling, grammar and sentence structure all look good. However, you have not really gone far enough with your scientific explanation. Plus you could have included more pictures and made your links hyper-linked so people can go to them easily. Nice use of color. This quarter the newest requirement was to relate what we covered to real-life. Please pay closer attention to directions the first time around. Overall, not bad :)

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  9. Hi Luke I like your use of colors and your font is a reasonable size. Your grammar is quite good. I think that you made your post simple and understandable. I like how you went in to depth about what you learned that day. It was really cool to read about the Roman and Greek God connections. I like that you put pictures. One really little suggestion t is to maybe look over it before posting it. All in all great job! (:

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