Mr. Light’s Blog

We did some math to find out how realistic space travel to the moon, planets, stars, and other galaxies would be.

We found that:

• A trip to Venus could be made in about 8 days (one-way) at a speed of 100,000 miles per hour. (That would be 4 times as fast as the Apollo flight to the moon and is probably possible.)
• A trip to Mars would take about 20 days one-way at that speed.
• A trip to Saturn would take about a year at that speed. (Pack the Playstation III)
• Pluto? 4 years!
• Alpha Centuri, our nearest star neighbor, is 4 light years away. 2,666 years in our starship. If we could go 1/10 the speed of light it would take 40 years each way!

Choose one of the links below to follow and learn about a topic related to space travel. Then, share what you learned with the class.

Read about some possible future space ships here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/exploration/futurespaceflight/index.shtml

Check out Wikipedia’s explanation of a “Generational Starship” which might make very long trips possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_ship

Or decide if you would sign up for a “one-way space trip” here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/1823990.stm

We’ve sent people to the moon. Do you think we could send people to Mars? Should we? How about to Jupiter and Saturn, or one of their moons?

What are some of the problems with space travel to other stars? What are some possibilities for future space flight?

Check out these two websites:

http://www.kidsastronomy.com/space_size.htm

 http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/

What do they show about the size of the universe?  How does the second one show that you are mostly empty space?

We can only see a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum – the visible light.  Most of the spectrum, Radio waves, microwaves, infrared, ultraviolet, x-rays, and gamma rays we can’t see.

If you could see any part of the electromagnetic spectrum, what part would you like to be able to see?  Why?  What would things look like?

Here’s a picture of the electromagnetic spectrum!

Is a Black Hole really a hole? Would you know a black hole if you saw one? What woiuld happen if you fell into a black hole? Is our universe in danger of being swallowed by a giant black hole?

Explore some of the things we know about black holes at “Amazing Space”. Then write your thoughts about black holes and add them to our comments.

Go to this website to learn about infra red light. Then join the discussion.

Cool Cosmos, about infrared

What is infra red? Which pictures are to most amazing? Search around the Cool Cosmos site and tell us what elser you find.