Floods, Satellites, volcanoes...

Hello all,
Hopefully you are having a good week so far! Just a few more updates that you should probably be aware of.

First, hopefully you all will be able to check out the International Space Station flybys coming up soon. Check the previous blog post for details and times of the flybys for Kensington. If you don't live in Kensington, then there is a link to spaceweather's satellite tracker to get your local times. With your unaided eye, the ISS will basically look like a bright moving star-it is pretty cool to know that you are looking at the ISS!!!

If you have been watching the news, I am sure that you know about the floods in the southern United States. The people of Georgia have been dealing with major flooding over the past few days. What can you do to keep yourself safe during a flood? You should try to get to higher ground and NEVER try to go out into the flood waters. The waters may not look dangerous, but they certainly could be. Make sure to keep the people of Georgia in your prayers, as they are going to have a lot of things to deal with, like injuries and property damage.

India has launched 7 satellites into Earth's orbit on Wednesday (6 of the 7 satellites were from other countries). One of India's satellites has the goal of tracking ocean patterns. Why do you think India would want to track ocean patterns? Think about where they are located and what impact oceans might have on them. This launch was very successful for India because last year, they sent a probe to the moon, however, lost communication with it and had to abort the mission.

*information regarding the Indian satellites was taken from Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090923/sc_afp/indiaspace)

Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be on a volcano watch? Well, look no further, the USGS has you covered! If you have never checked out the United States Geological Survey (USGS) website, you really should (www.usgs.gov). The USGS studies many things, but earthquakes and volcanoes are two of the biggest items they focus on. If you search the website, you can look at real-time earthquakes. Go on the site. What do you notice about where these earthquakes are located?
One other cool item on this website is the "Volcano Hazards Program" page. In the northwest United States, there is a major volcanic range (the Cascades)...this is where Mount St. Helen's and other major volcanoes are located. Anyway, you can actually get information on these volcanoes (as well as other volcanoes in the US and the world). You can see US volcano alerts and real-time webcams of different volcanoes in the US. You can view volcanoes in Alaska, Hawaii, as well as in the Cascade region. Check it out if you have time.
Below is a picture of Mount Redoubt in Alaska.


*information about USGS was taken from the USGS website (www.usgs.gov) The photo of Mount Redoubt was taken from the USGS Alaskan Volcano Observatory site (www.avo.alaska.edu)

What? Water on the Moon??
Space.com is reporting that based on information of lunar satellites, that the moon is believed to have trace amounts of water on it. Not much is being said about this right now, but we will keep an eye on this and see what NASA has to say about it. On October 9, NASA's LCROSS satellite will crash into a lunar crater to possibly detect water. The Hubble Space Telescope as well as many ground based telescopes will be watching this event, so we will keep an eye out for some pictures.
Below is a picture of the LCROSS satellite as it launched on an Atlas rocket in June of 2009.


Check out NASA's website to see an impact countdown clock for the LCROSS-Lunar impact!

*information regarding water on the Moon was taken from www.space.com
*photo of LCROSS Was taken from www.nasa.gov


Keep checking back for more science related news!
See you in school!
Ms. T

A few Updates...Astronomy Club and more...

Hello all-

Next week, we will be having the first Astronomy Club meeting! It will be held in my classroom until about 4 (details will go home later this week).
It seems as though we have a lot of updates for you!
Today (September 22) is the Equinox! This means it is the official start of fall (for the northern hemisphere)! What else does this mean? Does anyone remember? There are 2 days through out the whole year called an "equinox". This means that there is 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night. Pretty soon, the days will start to get shorter as we plow ahead into these winter months. Hopefully many snow days will accompany them!
There have been recent spottings of sunspots on the sun. If you remember, the sunspot is an area of cooler gasses than the surrounding gasses. The sun is on an 11 year cycle, and right now we are at the beginning of the end of what is known as "solar minimum". An increase in solar activity (sunspots/solar flares/prominences) could mean that we are climbing towards "solar maximum". 7th graders-hopefully you know this since your test is on Thursday!!
Below is a photo taken from spaceweather.com. The original picture is from SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory).


Get ready for more ISS flyby's.
The International Space Station is making its rounds yet again, and you will be able to view it in the next few days. Here are the times for Kensington! For information regarding your area (not Kensington) check www.spaceweather.com/flybys

Thursday, September 24, 2009: 7:56:36pm-7:58:50pm NNW with a max elevation of 38 degrees and a magnitude of -2.8

Friday, September 25, 2009: 8:20:55pm-8:23:14pm WNW with a max elevation of 55 degrees and a magnitude of -3.5

Saturday, September 26, 2009: 7:10:12pm-7:12:26pm NNW with a max elevation of 40 degrees and a magnitude of -2.9

Sunday, September 27, 2009: 7:34:30pm-7:36:48pm WNW with a max elevation of 52 degrees and a magnitude of -3.4

*remember the lower the magnitude number, the brighter the object appears to be

Scientists recently tried to see if they could recreate noctilucent clouds, and they launched a vehicle from Virginia to test it out. Looks like they were able to do it! Check out the picture below.


Noctilucent clouds are clouds that generally form from water/ice at high altitudes. They can usually be seen in summer months if you are lucky to see them. For the past few years, however, they have seemed to be a more common occurrence.

Welcome Home Discovery!
The Space Shuttle Discovery returned from its long journey to the International Space Station. Because of weather, Discovery had to land in California and hitch a ride on the back of a modified 747 back to its home at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Below is a picture of its landing and its "piggy back" ride.





Next major launch?
NASA will be test launching the Ares 1-x in October (Oct. 27). This will be a part of major preparations for NASA's Constellation program which will ultimately land on the Moon and look to possibly landing on Mars.
The next STS launch to the ISS is slated to be November 12 at 4:04pm. This will be Space Shuttle Atlantis. We will keep an eye on this mission as it get closer.

Farewell Space Shuttle
NASA has announced that the final Space Shuttle mission will be next September with Discovery. NASA plans to retire its fleet of space shuttles as it moves to develop rockets to send man back to the Moon and eventually to Mars. There are 6 remaining space shuttle missions. What about going back to the ISS? NASA is planning on possibly building a "replacement" rocket, but there is no official word. More news on this as it becomes available. The Space Shuttles have been flying since 1982!

The information regarding the sunspots, including the picture of the sun was taken from www.spaceweather.com The original photo of the sun was from SOHO.
The information regarding the ISS flyby's was taken from www.spaceweather.com/flybys
The information regarding the noctilucent clouds, including the picture, was taken from www.spaceweather.com The original photo was taken by J. Blackwell
The photos of Space Shuttle Discovery were taken from www.nasa.gov
Information regarding NASA's mission launch schedule was taken from www.nasa.gov
Information regarding the farewell to space shuttles was taken from Yahoo! News

Well, those are all the updates that I have right now...more will come later.
Stay tuned for the Astronomy Club!
See you in school,
Ms. T

Hello class... I hope you have enjoyed your week back to school. We are so lucky that we have Monday off, and will have another short week! I hope that you are all enjoying your nice long weekend. Last post, I told you that the STS-128 (Space Shuttle Discovery) was getting ready to launch. Hopefully you were able to see the launch, but if not, it's ok, you can watch it here. Here is a video from NASATV, which was posted on YouTube:


Space Shuttle Discovery is attached to the International Space Station, and through out the week, the ISS (with Discovery attached) will be makeing some flybys. Here are the times for Kensington.

Sunday, September 6 8:26:58pm-8:29:01pm SSW with a max elevation of 29 degrees and a magnitude of -2.2

Monday, September 7 8:51:19pm-8:53:41pm WSW with a max elevation of 68 degrees and a magnitude of -3.8

Tuesday, September 8 7:41:12pm-7:43:18pm SSW with a max elevation of 31 degrees and a magnitude of -2.3

Wednesday, September 9 8:05:36pm-8:07:57pm WSW with a max elevation of 63 degrees and a magnitude of -3.7

Remember the lower the magnitude (apparent magnitude) the brighter the object appears to be. This will be a great sight for you to check out, especially with a telescope! I will try to remind you about this in school on Tuesday. All information regarding the flybys was taken from Spaceweather's Satellite Tracker (http://spaceweather.com/flybys/flybys.php?zip=20895)

I was on Spaceweather.com today and found this AWESOME picture of the moon shining through an Old Faithful eruption.



This photo was taken from www.spaceweather.com however, the original photo was taken by professor Jimmy Westlake of Colorado Mountain College.

On Wednesday, there was a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in West Java, Indonesia. This quake did trigger a small tsunami, however the tsunami did not cause any harm or damage. The earthquake, however, caused a lot of harm and damage.

(information regarding the Indonesia earthquake was taken from Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090902/wl_afp/indonesiaquake)

Also, on Wednesday, heavy rainfall produced major flooding in West Africa (Burkina Faso). The flooding has destroyed many homes and buildings.

(information regarding the Burkina Faso flood was taken from Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090903/wl_nm/us_africa_flooding)

I am not sure if you have seen the news about the wildfires in California. Firefighters have been working very hard to control wildfires near Los Angeles. They have finally been able to contain part of them, however the fires continue to burn. This has caused harm to people and wildlife in and around the area.

(information regarding the California wildfires was taken from Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090905/ap_on_re_us/us_wildfires_200 )

Please remember to keep the people of Indonesia, West Africa, and California in your prayers.

Finally, next week in school, we will be talking about the Astronomy Club. I will be holding sign-ups, and we will be brainstorming some fun ideas!

See you in school,
Ms. T