Celestial Wanderers

TES Teacher of the year 2011 Resources
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Lesson idea. Lesson 3 of a series of 6 entitled “Astronomy masterclass” (SC0018).

Teaching approach. Drawing on a rich range of sources, this presentation allows the teacher to introduce planetary geology^(topic), something not normally studied until degree level. It uses the narrative^(ta) of the Voyager Probes journey to illustrate the vastness of the solar system^(topic) and also the challenges of designing a spacecraft to travel that far. It ends with a discussion of the history^(topic) of Mars, and how the differences between it and the Earth resulted in Mars loosing its water and atmosphere whereas we have kept ours.

Resource details
Title	Celestial Wanderers
Topic	[[Topics/Geology|Geology]],  [[Topics/Solar system|Solar system]],  [[Topics/History|History]],  [[Topics/Astronomy|Astronomy]]
Teaching approach	[[Teaching Approaches/Narrative|Narrative]] Property "Teaching approach" (as page type) with input value "Something not normally studied until degree level. It uses the narrative of the Voyager Probes journey to illustrate the vastness of the solar system and also the challenges of designing a spacecraft to travel that far. It ends with a discussion of the history of Mars" contains invalid characters or is incomplete and therefore can cause unexpected results during a query or annotation process.[[Category:something not normally studied until degree level. It uses the narrative of the Voyager Probes journey to illustrate the vastness of the solar system and also the challenges of designing a spacecraft to travel that far. It ends with a discussion of the history of Mars]]
Learning Objectives	By the end of the session students should be able to: •
Subject	[[Resources/Science|Science]]
Age of students / grade	[[Resources/Secondary|Secondary]],  [[Resources/KS4|KS4]]
Related ORBIT Wiki Resources	Astronomy Masterclass, It's full of stars, From Earth to Moon,
Files and resources to view and download	For session 3 of the Astronomy Masterclass, see p69 to 697 of the full PDF at https://www.box.com/shared/aqnk3lvr09

Teacher's Notes:

Session 3 – Celestial Wanderers

Having looked at the moon last time we now turn our attention to the rest of the solar system – specifically focusing on the geology and evolution of the rocky bodies.

• The voyager probes were the first close up look at the outer solar system – taking advantage of a rare “lining up” of the gas giants allowing one probe to flyby them all. Video – The story of Voyager 2. Music is NOT Bach but I doubt any student will notice.
- http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voyager/index.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_2
• Feb 14th 1991 Voyager took a departing valentine of the solar system – 6 of the 8 planets would prove visible in its final image before its cameras were shut down.
- http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voyager/voyager-20100212.html
• The outer planets
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptune
• Rocky bodies more interesting as we can see their surfaces.
• Mimas has a Massive Crater http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimas_(moon)
• Such craters also exist on Earth
- Manicouagan is clearly visible to astronauts
- http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=3325
• The moon also has many craters – although lava flows in the “seas” have covered over many of them.
- Image taken by Apollo 8
- Dating surfaces possible by looking at crater counts. No craters = young surface
• Tycho crater can be seen unaided from the earth. The lines of ejecta cover ¼ of the near side of the moon.
- Craters can be dated by the layering of the ejecta’s over older craters.
- Possible that the asteroid that formed tycho was linked to the asteroid that caused the K-T boundary extinction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_(crater)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptistina_family
• Olympus Mons – Not a crater but the biggest volcano in the solar system.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_Mons
• The moons of the gas giants are also rich with surface geology
• Io – Jovian System – extremely volcanically active (notice no craters) due to extreme tidal heating from its close orbit with Jupiter
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Io_(moon)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_force
• Europa – Jovian System – Surface also new – but made of water Ice. Theorised to be an ocean of liquid water beneath – kept liquid by the heat generated from radioactivity and tidal energies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B8mer%27s_determination_of_the_speed_of_light
• Titan is the biggest moon in the solar system – all 3 phases of Methane appear to be present on Titan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon)
• The two stacked images are taken from Mars (top) and from Earth (bottom) only noticeable difference is the more red coloration in the sky.
• Venus – covered in cloud – need Radar (next image) to see the surface
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus
• Mercury – a planet smaller than titan...
- No atmosphere as it has been lost due to excessive heat, lack of a magnetic field and low gravity.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_planet
• The final image is one of the surface Mars showing evidence of the Martian Past.
- There are plenty of craters however also evidence of water flowing over this surface.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_on_Mars
• End of session 3

Useful cloudy weather applications

• Build a model space probe to carry a delicate payload into orbit.
- Instrumentation simulated by an egg
- Launch simulated by a large plastic box which you shake around for 10 seconds...