Stars! & Black holes! & Galaxies

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Last Friday, we spent class reviewing eachother's constellation fact sheets. Each student recieved 3 people for whom he or she was to read their sheets and grade them. Because that class was short and unchanging, I am also blogging for today's science class on May 11.


Today at the beginning of class we had a quick discussion about Branimir; the astrophycsicist that came to our class and talked to us last week. We wrote him some of our comments and criticisms on his lecture, which included the following:
Criticisms:
Lack of media
Shorten his bullets on his powerpoint
Speak louder and clearer
Interact with the students more
Simplify some vocab

Compliments:
Showed enthusiasm and true knowledge of the subject
Gorgeous pictures
Interesting at most parts


Branimir has never taught to students our age; and I think he deserves an extra arm of applause for having the courage to do so now. In about three days, he becomes a doctor of astrophysics.

From the discussion, Ms.D continued to show us the Star Notes Powerpoint we had started to watch in one of our previous classes. Our final exam will include most of this information, which is why I will include a summary of the most important facts below.

Stars:
-Blue stars are the partiers. They are hot, big, young and die fast.
-White stars are middle everything. Middle aged, middle sized and middle brightness.
-Red stars are old, colder and dying.

A globular cluster is a glob of stars


Galaxies:
Galaxies are large systems of stars in dust (interstellar matter)
There are several million galaxies with several trillion stars in each one.
There are three main types of galaxy:
-Spiral
-Elliptical
-Irregular

Spiral galaxies:
Our galaxy is a spiral galaxy
Young populations
Have lots of interstellar matter
Has arms and a a black hole in the middle

Elliptical galaxies:
-Old populations
-Very little interstellar matter

Irregular galaxy:
-No shape, distorted due to gravity from neighbouring galaxies

We know other galaxies exist because of the use of math, and pictures taken using radio waves

Additionally, we learned what a Hertzbrung Russel graph is. It is a graph that explains how stars age.

Next, we were taught how a star dies. There are basically three different ways of stellar death, and how they go is based on their mass.

-If the star is the mass of our sun:
Red Dwarf: Running out of fuel
Red Giant: Out of fuel
Nova-Explodes
White dwarf-Hot, small star, dead when it runs out of energy

No worries, our sun won't die for another 4 million years, and we'll most likely die out by then anyways.

-If the star is 4x the mass of our Sun
Same steps as Sun
Past White Dwarf
Electrons+protons combine = neutrons= neutron star!
The neutron star then becomes stronger than nucleur forces inside of an atom

-If the star is 10x the mass of our sun
-Same steps as previous deaths
-Past neutron star
-Collapses past nucleur forces
-Forms a gravity well-cosmic vacuum cleaner
-Which then turns into a black hole

In the middle of our discussion, we also talked about atoms and molecules , and learned that zombies are actually just reanimated atoms.

At the end of class we began a discussion on the Big Bang, but ran out of time. For the next class the volleyball girls will not be here to take notes so I hope the next blogger does a supreme job of summing up the class.

We have no homework for Thursday.
Also the following link is something spiffy I found that stimulates all of the astronomical events we discussed in class.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoLvOvGW3Tk

Additionally, something I personally found intriguing was that when we look into space, we look into the past since things are so many light years away. For example, if there is a galaxy one billion light years away, we won't know its dead until a billion years from now.

The next blogger is Cornelia.

Science Class...

During the Science period of Friday, April 23 2010, we additionally explored the activities being held later on this year. In the first minutes of class, Ms. D mentioned that our scheduled "Celestial Body Test" had once again been postponed as the Croatian classes are taking a trip to a theatre. Despite the fact that we are not having our test on Tuesday, Ms. D still highly recommended you prepare yourself (the chart) over the weekend. She took this further by saying that we CANNOT share our notes with anyone in the class as they will be taken away from both you and the person you shared them with. Prior to that, Ms. D made it clear to take blogger more seriously, look at what you are posting, chose your videos wisely, and make sure your commenting is appropriate, as she will be showing this Blog to others. Keep in mind, you need 3 Eighth grade posts, 3 Seventh grade posts, and 2 Sixth grade posts for Blogger. If experiencing trouble commenting on the 6th and 7th grade blogs, scroll to the bottom of the page where the verification button is as this will allow an access to commenting. Astronomy then ends on May the 7th, and we will be moving forward into Chemistry. As discussed, we will only be having Chemistry, and very little Astronomy in our Science Final.

As class prolonged, Cornelia

and Abigail gave there Celestial body presentations, discussing them amongst each class table. Cornelia's given Celestial body focused on Comets. Comets are leftovers from the creation of the Solar system around 4.5 billion

years ago. They are made of ice and are coated with dark organic matter. She also described how Comets are predicted to have shared water and other organic compounds with the Solar System and Earth's early life.

The 5 Parts of a Comet

1.) Nucleus

2.) Coma

3.) Hydrogen Cloud

4.) Dust Tail

5.) Ion Tail

Cornelia's favorite Comet was Hale Bopp. Like other Comets, it has a revolution of 2,392 Earth days and comes from the Oort Cloud. Comets are given the name of icy snowballs or mud balls and when they are in contact with the Sun (around 15 AU's close), they dissolve into gas.

Gas determines the color of the Comet

Red light - Hydrogen

Blue light- Carbon Dioxide

Yellow Light - Oxygen

As Cornelia concluded, Abigail began to tell us about Mars, her Celestial Body. The Planet Mars is particularly smaller compared to other Planets. It is a red color, due to its soil composed of rust. The planet has large dust and wind storms including diminutive tornadoes. Mars has been researched for any sign life. Yet all that has been found was frozen water beneath its surface. This planet holds onto 2 moons. One of them, Phobos, is predicted to smash into Mars since it is swinging closely around its atmosphere. Once this occurs, gravitational forces will shatter the moon to particles. Moreover, Mars consists of 3 rovers or robotic machines developed for taking better pictures and accurate research.

Afterward, the class continued the open forum by adding additional information to both Mars and Comets along with reviewing Questions and Answers brought up by the class.

Dates

-Thursday April 29th is our Open Note Celestial Body Test and remember to come prepared. Ms.D will also hold a review session for this test on Wednesday, April 28th

-Extra Credit is due Friday May 14th. Take a picture with Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, or Pluto for 3 extra bonus points and email the picture to dani.dipietro@aisz.hr or ddipeitro.aisz@gmail.com

-Tuesday April 27th - 5th APOD is due. This one can come from any date from 2000-2010

-April 30th - 3rd Blog comment to 7th or 8th grade Blogs

Here is an Awesome Video on Mars and a helpful one on Comets, also focusing on other Celestial Bodies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWbCeveFptA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsTN-OxBGs

Next Scribe is Arnie

Astronomy

Today, in science class, April 22nd, 2010, we continued our forum discussion in connection with the planet packet. However, we first focused on a very important event which is happening today, the 40^th anniversary of Earth day. Earth day was started in the US in 1970 but the UN celebrates international Earth Day on March 20^th/ 21^st. On this special day they also ring a peace bell.

In connection with Earth Day, we will also be planting plants tomorrow and take them home as a way to give back to the environment.

In our discussion about Earth day we brought up some important things such as one major problem at the moment: global warming. It is referred to as the extremes in climate which have drastically changed in the past years. The causes of global warming are being discussed and there are many theories; but, Ms. D pointed out that since carbon emissions have increased in the past years there have been extreme changes in weather patterns. If this process continues we may even end up resembling Venus; The hottest planet which melts metal on its surface, which would not be a pleasant thought!

Lastly, we watched videos and a slideshow in connection with Earth Day. The links to the videos are just below:

Wombat- http://www.global-mindshift.org/memes/wombat.swf

Chips - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu5J5HQk6VY

Photography - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8IozVfph7I

During class, Ms. D also gave us corn starch Styrofoam which indeed is very edible. (:

As we moved on to the Forum we mainly focused on Exosolar planets and Daniel explained his topic during class. Extra notes you missed if you were not in class today or just didn’t pay attention:

- The smallest exosolar planet they have found is Jupiter size

- The 4 spacecrafts with the sole mission of leaving this solar system are called Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 10, and Pioneer 11. These all went in different directions in our solar system!

- Further explanation of 3 ways to find Exosolar planets:

1) Radical Velocity Method

-It is Earth based

- They find rays from the Parent star (Star which Exosolar planets orbits around) and measure the wavelength. If this wave length is abnormal or weird they suspect that they have found an Exosolar planet.

-The top of a wavelength is called a crest and the bottom a trough.

2) Astrometry Method

-Space based

- Looks at the wobbling of a star

- Star wobbles because gravity affects it

3) Transit method

- Most surefire method

- Both Earth and solar system based

- Watches the changing brightness of a star

We also had a very cute visitor from 3^rd grade named Alice. She came to observe our astronomy forum class for the last 20 minutes. The class introduced themselves and their planets to Alice while we continued the forum.

Homework & Upcoming events

April 23^rd : second blogger comment for the 4^th quarter is due!

April 27^th at 8 AM: The fifth APOD for this unit any date from 2000-2010 may be used! Also, next week is the last APOD that will be due for science this year!

April 28^th : Celestial Body test study session at lunch

April 29^th : open note Celestial Body Test

April 30^th : third blogger comment due

May 4^th or 7^th: A friend of Mrs. Sprljan may come in to talk to us about astromomy. He specializes in wormholes and Black holes.

May 11^th : Chemistry unit starts

May 14^th : Extra credit due. Each picture next to a planet is worth 2 points. The planets which count as extra credit are Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Email these pictures to dani.dipietro@aisz.hr or ddipietro.aisz@gmail.com for extra credit. Good luck!

Here are the maps for the extra credit assignment: http://www.phy.hr/~mpozek/planeti/

Hebrew: Ohevet otchem kulam (Love ya guys) and good luck (:

Next scribe is Emma

Let's talk about Astronomy and what could happen to us

,Today in class we mostly talked about the notes that each of us had to do for our celestial body project. We were having a forum and the students and Ms.D were asking questions to each other about their planets. During this class we mostly focused on the Sun (Kamil), the meteors etc, the comets and the asteroids.

For the Sun we first learned that G2V means that it is a spectrum star which arrived at half of its life. The Sun is a G2V star. We also learned that the sign of the Sun which is a circle with a dot inside comes from the Egyptian god RA. At the end we arrived to the fact that the Sun was created 4.5 billions year ago and it will die in 4.5 billion years ago, which makes it a middle star age.

After with Severyn we learned that the golf of Mexico was made due to a meteorite. This meteorite is also probably the cause of the end of the dinosaurs. Here are the definition and difference between meteors, meteorites and meteoroids.

“Meteoroids are small bodies that travel through space. Meteoroids are smaller than asteroids; most are smaller than the size of a pebble. Meteoroids have many sources. Most meteoroids come from asteroids that are broken apart by impacts with other asteroids. Other meteoroids come from the Moon, from comets, and from the planet Mars.”

“A meteor is a meteoroid that has entered the Earth's atmosphere, usually making a fiery trail as it falls. It is sometimes called a shooting star or a falling star.”

“A meteorite is a meteor that has fallen to Earth. These rare objects have survived a fiery fall through the Earth's atmosphere and have lost a lot of mass during that process. Meteorites are made up of rock and/or metals.”

For these to be fire ball it has to be really big and brighter than Venus (magnitude -4).

After we talked shortly about comets (Cornelia) and what they are. Here is the definition of a comet.
“A comet is an icy body that releases gas or dust. Most of the comets that can be seen from Earth travel around the Sun in long, oval orbits. A comet consists of a solid nucleus (core) surrounded by a cloudy atmosphere called the coma and one or two tail.”

After this we moved on to Asteroids (Emma) and started with a scary subject which was that we could die in 2036 because an asteroid could crash. The day when the Asteroid will go into or pass near the belt should be Friday, April 13, 2029! The way it will go will persist of the angle the regions that can receive it are North America, Monsoon Asia or the Pacific Ocean which will make it produce a big tsunami that will be enormous compare to the tsunami in Indonesia in 2004. Asteroids are basically very very big meteorites.

Here is a simulation of the asteroid





We also spoke about terrestrial planets which are planets that are composed. These are the following terrestrial planets in our Solar Galaxy: Mercury, Mars, Venus and Earth.

The opposite of these planets are Gas Giant planets which are planets composed of gas. These are the following gas planets in our Solar System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

Remember to check Moodle; we got a lot of stuff to do!

http://zagreb.ceesa.net/course/view.php?id=106 <=== Science Course






Nest Sribe is Gregor

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.

Scribe Post On Celestial Body Project

Hello everybody :)
During the science classes of March 25, 26 and 30 we began, and researched for, our Celestial Body Project. Since we had to become “travel agents” for our celestial body, we needed to use a mix of our own imagination and fact to get our projects going. Our brochures had to be interesting yet educational, and had to include some of our own selves in them. Meaning, don't make them boring! We spent the three classes in the lower computer lab doing research and anything that was not finished had to be finished up at home for this Thursday. The brochures. are due on Thursday, April 1; which leaves plenty of room for improvement. Our brochures are being graded on; creativity, appearance, our interest whilst creating the brochure and our interest while presenting the brochure. Meaning, it is due Thursday by 11:30 and must be printed in color. The presentations will be on Thursday, April 1 during science. On Tuesday, March 30 a typed list of our notes that we used in the brochure was due to Ms.D by 4:00. This Thursday, along with the brochure, there will be two other things due; five typed questions + answers about your celestial body, based on information we collected (it must be emailed by 11:30 to dani.dipietro@aisz.hr) and a typed copy of a bibliography in APA format.

The directions and requirements to the project are underneath;

http://zagreb.ceesa.net/file.php/106/Astronomy/Celestial_Body_Travel_Agent.doc

The link for the rubric is included as well;

http://zagreb.ceesa.net/file.php/106/Astronomy/Travel_Agent_Rubric.doc


I am doing Haumea and Make-Make for my Celestial Body Project; the two most difficult to find information on. Some websites I found helpful that everyone could use were;

http://www.iau.org/
http://www.scientificamerican.com
http://www.windows.ucar.edu
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/solar_system/
http://www.solarviews.com/

Remember, Wikipedia is not a reliable source unless you have talked to Ms.D about using it and she has approved your reason.
Other sources can be used as well such as newspapers and non-fiction books but must be reliable and included in your bibliography.

What must be turned in for full credit:
• Travel Agency Styled Brochure- eye catching, colorful, made with Publisher-Due Thursday, April 1st
• Typed set of bulleted notes for the class containing the information used to create the brochure (can be emailed or printed and turned in) - Due Tuesday, March 30th
• Five (5) typed questions about your celestial body for the test we will be having, including a copy of answers to your questions! (must be e-mailed)- Due Thursday, April 1st!
• Typed copy of your bibliography (must be emailed) - Due Thursday, April 1st!

On Thursday we will be having a “Travel Fair”. Each person will visit you and you will have to present your brochure and explain why they should travel to your celestial body. Be interesting; and keep it short. You will be graded by each member as they come visit your travel agency and see your brochure.

As they come to your agency, you will need to sell your celestial body and present it with the bulleted list of notes. Keep in mind creativity, appearance and interest when constructing your brochure and “selling” it.

Underneath is the list of what celestial body each member of the class is doing;

Sun- Kamil

Mercury- Aidan

Venus- Gregor

Earth- Davide

Mars- Abigail

Asteroids/belt- Emma

Jupiter-Arnie

Saturn- Ines

Uranus- Luke

Neptune- Holly

Pluto- Alex

Eris- German

Ceres- Jacob

Hauma & Makemake- Hana

Meteors, etc.- Severyn

Comets- Cornelia

Exo-Solar Planets- Daniel

All of these directions and project notes are posted on Moodle.


The next and final scribe is Abigail.


Good luck everybody!



-Hana

Moon Phases, Eclipses, and More

On Tuesday, the 23 of March, conversation topics revolved around projects, labs and astronomy. We began the class by reviewing and discussing our current and future labs and projects. First, we focused on the Phases and Eclipse lab who's purpose was to determine how the alliance of the Sun, Earth, and Moon influence moon phases, solar eclipses, and lastly, lunar eclipses. We had then gone over the procedure of this lab in which we had to make 8 drawings of the moon phases, one drawing of the solar eclipse, and another of the lunar eclipse demonstrating how they work.

The IV and DV were also brought up as words that had been defined as:

IV (independent variable): Matter that is being controlled by you.

DV ( dependent variable): the result of the variable.

In class, Ms. D had completed drawing #1 for us which had been in the phase of a "new moon", being a 0 or 360 degree angle, because of its linear stance with the Sun and Earth. Furthermore, she reminded us to think about the object that moves, which is the moon, while completing our drawings and to also, think about their angles and pay close attention to them!

* Keep in mind that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and the Moon revolves around the Earth.

These are just some helpful links on Moon Phases and Lunar Eclipses!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdI1aDjWLlY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHxcWSiD_4E&feature=related

As the class prolonged, we continued working on our Phases and Eclipses lab with our heads serving as the Earth, white balls serving as the Moon, and light bulb playing the role of the Sun. As our heads (Earth) rotated, along with the moon, we began to observe the many phases of the Moon as the Sun ( lightbulb) shone its light onto the Moon giving us (Earth) the reflected image of the Moon. Ms. D cautioned us to review our work, and to follow the directions of turning in work for full credit.

FULL CREDIT WORK:

• have the title, date and work; lab is on TOC


• the purpose must be copied directly


• include IV and DV


• include hypothesis


• drawings (10 in total)


• answers to the questions


• conclusion

In your conclusion, be sure to include your summary paragraph about what you learned, answer the purpose question, support your hypothesis (or not), and remember to include why. Additionally, you have to be under the impression of how this lab was related to our everyday world, and create a bullet list of possible mistakes in this lab and why they were taken as mistakes from your point of view.

**This lab is due Thursday March the 25.**

As people started to finish up with the drawings of their lab, they headed down to the lower computer lab to get started on a project called the "Travel Agent for a Celestial Body Project".

Cornelia, however, will expand on this topic in her blog post.

The Celestial bodies the students have received in class goes as follows:

Sun- Kamil

Mercury- Aidan

Venus- Gregor

Earth- Davide

Mars- Abigail

Asteroids/belt- Emma

Jupiter-Arnie

Saturn- Ines

Uranus- Luke

Neptune- Holly

Pluto- Alex

Eris- German

Ceres- Jacob

Hauma & Makemake- Hana

Meteors, etc.- Severyn

Comets- Cornelia

Exo-Solar Planets- Daniel

* This lab is due NEXT Thursday*

In addition, we went over the homework and due dates for certain items (listed below)

Due:

• March the 30th is a list of bulleted notes for your Celestial body (by 4:00 p.m.)


• Thursday April 1st is a travel agency styled brochure in color (come to Ms.D if you cannot get hold of a color printer for you do have to use color in this assignment), 5 questions and answers about your Celestial body based on your collected information, and a typed copy of a bibliography in APA format (must be emailed to Ms. D at class time 11:30 a.m.)

Send to: dani.dipietro@aisz.hr or ddipietro.aisz@gmail.com

All of these directions and project copies are posted on Moodle.

There is NO APOD due for Tuesday's class as Ms. D wants us to focus on our Celestial body project!

Also, make sure that your Random Questions are up to date as Ms. D will be checking them while grading our notebooks for the Phases and Eclipses Lab.

There is NO homework for Spring Break but remember BLOG!

Next Scriber- Cornelia

Planets, Dwarf Planets, & More

Today in class, we reviewed the moon's phases, listed all the planets in our solar system, and talked a little bit about dwarf planets.

Some words that were used in today’s class:

equinox- equal day and equal night ( 12h of light and 12 h of darkness)

solstice- longest day (Summer) and shortest day (Winter)

light year- the distance that light travels in one year

electromagnetic spectrum- UV, IR, X-rays, gamma, microwaves, radio waves, and visible light

Today we went over the eight planets in our Solar System. To remember them, a student showed us a pneumonic device.

Our eight planets in our Solar System:

Mercury (My)

Venus (Very)

Earth (Educated)

Mars (Mom)

Jupiter (Just)

Saturn (Sold)

Uranus (Us)

Neptune (Nine)

Below is a picture of all the planets:

Trip through the Solar System video :http://http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y72EizrCkKY&feature=fvsr

After "Nine" there should be "Pizzas." "Pizzas" represented the planet Pluto, however now Pluto is not a part of the Planet group, it is now considered a dwarf planet. A dwarf planet has different qualities than planets. Some of those qualities are its size and clear orbit. Pluto is not the only dwarf planet, there are 5 dwarf planets in total. They are:

Pluto

Ceres

Eris

MakeMake

Haumea

Past Pluto, there is the Kuiper Belt, past the Kuiper Belt is the Oort Cloud.

More about the Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud : http://nineplanets.org/kboc.html

In between Mars and Jupiter is the asteroid belt. The asteroid belt is a space between those planets, filled with loads of asteroids. Asteroids are rocky metallic things that orbit the Sun.

Random facts from Class:

The light from the Sun to Earth takes 8 minutes!

A blue moon is when there are TWO full moons in one month!

The Earth spins counter-clock wise!

The speed of sound is 340.29 m/s!

The speed of light is 300,000 km/s

Our galaxy, the milky way, is 100,000 light years away!

Next scriber - Kamil

The Moon

In class Friday, Mr. Tim talked about the moon, the phases of the moon, and how the moon causes tides. We took the Astronomy Quiz, that we studied for on Thursday.

1.) What We Learned About The Moon:

We learned the amount of time for the moon to rotate on its axis and for the moon to revolve around the earth is 28 (27.3) days. It didn't always take this amount of time to do so, but after millions of years the dates became the same, 27.3 days.

The "Dark Side" of the moon: Isn't actually dark, but hidden from the earth for most of the time. That 18% of the moon is on the far side of the moon and the sun doesn't normally shine on it, so it appears dark. On some occasions like on Full Moons or New moons that part of the moon is visible and the sun illuminates it.

The moon that revolves around our planet is our only natural satellite and is visible to us because of the Sun reflecting onto the Moon.

The moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the second lightest thing visible. It is made visible because the sun shines its light onto the moon, as shown below.

The Eagle touched the moon and first took samples on July 1969.

The 4 theories on how the moon formed:

1. The fission theory that states the Moon was once a part of the earth, but long ago it split off the spinning Earth.

2. Another theory, the "capture" theory, that means we assume the Moon existed before, and was pulled in by the Earth's gravity.

3. The third theory is that space material, cloud, and dust, was pulled in by the gravity until it gathered to create the lump that formed the Moon.

4. The last theory and most popularly thought of as correct is that a large object would hit/collide with the Earth, so a part of it would break off, and because of it creating the Moon.

Number of Moons on each planet:

Jupiter has 9 moons.

Earth has 1 moon.

Venus and Mercury both have none.

Mars has 2.

Saturn has 61.

Uranus has 27 that we know of.

Neptune has 13 moons.

Comparing Moon and Earth:

Volume of the the moon = 2% of the volume of Earth

Radius of the moon = 1/4 radius of Earth

Gravity of the moon = 17% of the gravity on Earth

Earth's Atmosphere:

Atmosphere was created by the gases that surround our Earth, in the first million years or so.

Earth and Venus both have atmospheres, but Venus's is over heated because it has too much CO2.

2.) Phases of Moon:

- it takes 29.5 days between each full moon

-the dark spots on the moon are the seas

-the light spots are mountains

-moon has no liquid water, except for freezing ice in deep crater shadows

These are the phases of the moon.

Mr. Tim also mentioned a catchy song that spoke about the moon's phases and helps explain what each phase of moon looks like...

The link to this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQRNzepe4wI

3.) How the moon causes tides:

The moon's gravity effects the pull on the tides. So twice a day the tides "bulge" more.

http://www.brainpop.com/science/earthsystem/tides/-Here is BrainPop video that helps explain how the moon effects the tides.

Other websites you can look at for more information about the moon:

-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vUObZwLJ8A&NR=1 - video on phases

-http://www.samuelwat.com/peabody/tides.html -tides

-http://www.samuelwat.com/peabody/moon/index.html - animation and facts about the Moon's phases

Next scribe will be Aidan