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The great planet debate - Dec. 1
From: Geoff Haines-Stiles : NTV December Education File (fwd) From: Geoff Haines-Stiles : MORE FROM THE LIVE FROM HUBBLE PLANET ADVOCATES! From: Geoff Haines-Stiles : LIVE FROM HUBBLE: THE P.A.s SPEAK... PT 2! From: Roger Stryker : Updates Archive From: FRITZ : Our selections From: Margaretha Gebhart : Planet Choice From: Margaretha Gebhart : Planet Choice From: Geoff Haines-Stiles : Re: planet choice From: Geoff Haines-Stiles : Re: Students are excited From: Steve Stephenson : Aloha and planet choice From: Jerry Bailey : Re: Welcome to discuss-hst and an opps! From: Geoff Haines-Stiles : Re: Planet Choice From: "ALEX STORRS (410)-338-4903" : Re: Students are excited From: Roger Stryker : Planet Debate From: MikeE99562@aol.com: Intro From: Claire Skilton : hello and current debate status From: Johnson-Palmer : Planet choice From: "Rob R. Landis" : Pluto Express Update ************************************************ From: Geoff Haines-Stiles : NTV December Education File (fwd) Dear Hubble discussants, I'm sorry there seem to have been times when NASA TV had HUBBLE: "The Great Planet Debate" in the late November schedule, and nothing happened. I've asked NTV for some explanation, which I'll share with you when I receive! Meanwhile, hoping for the best, here's what I've been told is the December schedule. I trust this works for most of you! Good luck, and expect more postings from the Planet Advocates comments later today, Friday. I'm glad to note postings from various classes. 2 weeks to D-Day! *** DECEMBER EDUCATION FILE SCHEDULE - NASA TV NASA TV broadcasts on Spacenet-2, C-Band, T5, Ch. 9, 69#161# W, 3880 MHz, horizontal polarization, audio 6.8 MHz. 1-2 pm 4-5 pm 7-8 pm 10-11 pm 1-2 am All times Eastern NASA TV may pre-emt scheduled programming for live agency events. Dec 1 Fri Dec 4 Mon Dec 5 Tues Dec 6 Wed Dec 7 Thurs Dec 8 Fri Dec 11 Mon Dec 12 Tues Dec 13 Wed Dec 14 Thurs Dec 15 Fri GHS notes: there seem to be several times when HUBBLE 101 is slated to air AFTER 12/15, our Decision day... and I'll talk to NTV about this. But there are at least 3 times between now and then, so let's hope it will work for y'all. Good luck ************************************************* From: Geoff Haines-Stiles from Geoff Haines-Stiles, PASSPORT TO KNOWLEDGE Project Director and Executive Producer, LIVE FROM THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE Dear Discuss-hst Here's the second set of comments from our Planet Advocates. It's clear from messages now beginning to be posted from classes around the nation that you and your students have been hard at work, debating the pros and cons of observing either Jupiter, Uranus, Pluto or Neptune. Perhaps in this posting you'll find answers to questions that have been puzzling your students. Or maybe you'll get a better sense of the "personality" of the planets -- and our Planet Advocates. We suggested that the first 2-3 weeks of "discuss-hst" might best be spent in getting up to speed on the planets, by looking at the references suggested by our Planet Advocates", and searching the Internet, using the pointers we provided in our Web page or others. But now we hope the final two weeks before "D-Day" (the Decision Day of December 15,1995) will find responses from the Planet Advocates, and discussion between them and your students. To that end, we've also included some of our PA's remarks about why they're willing to work with PASSPORT TO KNOWLEDGE and y'all on this project, and how the Internet provides a unique way of doing science, and connecting your students to real scientists around the nation and the world. Our moderator, Jan Wee, is presently "discussing" PASSPORT TO KNOWLEDGE in person at the prestigious Tel-Ed educational conference, but next week she'll be helping to involve our Planet Advocates in the final decision-making. Stay tuned for their input and more comments. And "the whole world is watching"! We're pleased to let you know that we expect Germany (site of HST's European Coordinating Facility) to be a live uplink site for one or more of the March and April telecasts. And through introductions by Bill Gutsch (former head of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, Advisor to LIVE FROM THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE and hard at work on hands-on activities for the printed Teacher's Guide to be available in January), we expect that students in Novgorod, Russia, and Donesk, Ukraine, will also be participating via the Internet, as will others in the United Kingdom and Japan! As Reta Beebe says, only the Internet can make such international interaction practicable, and we hope to find ways to enable your students to connect around our own home planet, while gearing up to study the outer planets! We hope you agree that this adds a very exciting dimension to the project. But our immediate task is to decide WHICH planet, or at most, which TWO planets to observe with 1, 2 or 3 orbits of the HST. There have been quite a number of pro-Pluto comments posted to this list, and we'll be very interested to see how things progress in the next week. Below you'll find more background from Planet Advocate Marc Buie about what Pluto will look like through HST. Reta Beebe tells us that one orbit on Jupiter could actually generate a number of images, perhaps even of the colorful and fascinating moon, Io -- but you and your students will also begin to get the sense of how complex it will be to decided exactly which instruments to use. Heidi Hammel adds more reasons to study Neptune and describes (as she did in the introductory video) how this process resembles the priority-setting and tradeoffs typical of "real science", and Carolyn Porco -- stumping for using spectroscopy to make first-time ever discoveries about the composition of Uranus' rings -- suggests ways to use the "left-over" orbits to study Pluto or Neptune, her second favorites. Again, our sincere thanks to these distinguished scientists for participating. Congratulations also to Texas teacher Roger Stryker, who -- as you probably read on this list -- notified us today that he'd been selected as his state's Presidential teacher awardee. We'd love to say that this all came about >because< he participated in both LIVE FROM ANTARCTICA and LIVE FROM THE STRATOSPHERE... but appropriate modesty forbids us making up such fibs!!! What we >can< say is that the desire to tap new learning experiences for your students which led EACH ONE OF YOU to this list is the kind of dedication that makes for excellence in teaching, and we commend you for it. Thanks also, therefore, to all of YOU for participating! Now, on to the comments of our Planet Advocates. This time the order of "speaking" will be alphabetical:
There are basically two kinds of planets in the solar system. There are the earth-like planets and the large gas planets, and I consider Jupiter to be the most accessible of those large gas planets. As you go farther and farther into the solar system, the outer region of these planets get colder and colder, and you have to stare deeper and deeper through hazes to see the cloud structure. kn JupiterUs atmosphere you can see the active motions of the clouds which are marking what the atmosphere is doing, so that the ammonia ice in JupiterUs atmosphere acts like a marker, as does the water ice in EarthUs atmosphere. When you are observing with Hubble, itUs a black and white camera, thereUs no color detected by the camera itself. This camera is capable of seeing light much farther in the UV (ultra-violet segment of the electromagnetic spectrum: ed.) than we are used to thinking about, and farther into the infrared that the human eye can see. In front of the camera there is a filter wheel device. You can select the filter you place in front of the camera. That determines the color of light that is coming through to your camera. In one orbit of the spacecraft, since Jupiter is such a bright object, we can get about ten images. So that you can select a series of colors. You could look in the UV, the near UV, blue , green, red, and use your blue, green and red to make your color image... Then you can move on out to the near- infrared where methane gas absorbs very strongly in some colors, and there are a pair of filters aboard Hubble that allow you to take one image where the methane gas is absorbing so strongly that the photons of light that go in have little chance of coming back, so anything that appears bright in that image are high clouds, or hazes, that reflect the light before it goes down and is absorbed by the methane. The other filter is so designed that it only allows a band of light to pass in a region that methane gas does not absorb, so the light goes down and reflects off of the ammonia cloud deck. And when you compare those two you have a very good measure of which clouds are high and which clouds are lower in the atmosphere... (the) vertical structure, which you can then compare to what you see in the earthUs atmosphere. ...ItUs quite possible that we could schedule the observation so that we could have (Jupiter's colorful volcanic moon: ed.) Io crossing in front of Jupiter, and then we would observe it (Io) in a series of colors. Now Io is so bright itself that -- it reflects so much of the sunlight -- that if we were attempting to take a methane picture of Jupiter, Io would be over-exposed, it would be just a white blotch. But it does not damage the cameras, so this would not be a major problem. But, one of the most interesting things is (that) if we knew more about what makes the winds blow on Jupiter, and the general circulation and heat balance of that atmosphere, then that would help us understand Saturn. Then we have the Cassini (spacecraft) mission -- a large flagship spacecraft, probably the last we will ever have of those, being developed for a launch and arrival just after the turn of the century. It will go into orbit around Saturn, take quite a few observations of Saturn, drop a lander into Titan -- itUs carrying a radar mapper to map the surface of Titan -- so that this kind of study we are doing now, in conjunction with the limited information we can get from Galileo, can be the basis for a even better understanding of the twin sister of Jupiter. Students that are in high school and early college now will join the Cassini team as time goes on -- these projects take so long that people that do the major part of data reduction were in elementary school when we started them! (2) Dr. MARC BUIE, Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona, on PLUTO The most exciting thing that could come out of this observation, I think, is that we could take a picture, or say, a set of 3 pictures, get a map of the surface and compare it against the map that we did 3 years ago, and look and find a real change. That some patch on Pluto is now brighter, or darker, and this will start to tell us something very important about how fast the surface might be changing in response to its changing seasons. And I would consider that to be a very fundamental discovery. At this point, having learned a fair amount about Pluto, we are now moving on to things about... is it changing? Pluto is in a very elliptical orbit and is moving away from the sun, and we expect it to be cooling off. The atmosphere may collapse, all of the frost that we know that's on the surface might migrate to the dark pole, and I am gearing up observations from the ground, and hopefully from Space Telescopes as well, that will continue to monitor for these changes ...one possible change we might be looking for is the change in the brightness of the surface. As the frost migrates to the dark pole it might leave behind darker material. Where this might be important if we ever are successful in sending a spacecraft out to Pluto, we need to know how to set our exposure time, something as simple as that. If you get there and you take pictures with the exposure time too long, you'll get saturated pictures, and then you've wasted your ...you trip out there for a bunch of over-exposed pictures. ...With three orbits of space telescope time looking at Pluto, you can do a fairly good job of mapping the surface at one instant of time. Now, Pluto takes six and a half days to rotate, so that you need to have three orbits spaced equally over that six and a half day period, and each time you get a snapshot of the surface. By taking these three snapshots one could piece together a complete map from just three orbits of Space Telescope time, and that would give us something to compare against observations taken a few years ago from Space Telescope, from which we could begin to look for changes that might ... might have cropped up on the surface... observations like these, every three to five years, would be very useful in continuing to monitor for changes on the surface, and itUs something that we ought to be doing as just a matter of continued scientific exploration of Pluto. ...the other thing thatUs happening is that PlutoUs rotation axis is tipped relative to its orbit, similar to Uranus, so at times we see it "equator-on", and at times we see it "pole-on". At the time of perihelion ...not only was it closest to the sun, but we were also looking at it equator-on, seeing the entire surface. As time goes on, and Pluto moves around in its orbit, we are moving more from an equator-on view to a more pole-on view. The longer we go, the less of the surface we are going to see, because one pole is receding from us and is going to be hidden from view and be in total darkness for over a hundred and twenty years. With a single orbit of Space Telescope time you can still get a map of the surface, but it would only be one side, and we can use one... this portion of the map to compare against previous maps, but thereUd be the other side of Pluto we would be wondering about, maybe that was the side that changed, and we just got unlucky and we are looking at the boring side. Two orbits doesnUt quite give you full coverage, because if you manage to adjust the experiment so that you looked exactly at opposite hemispheres of Pluto you got all the land, so to speak, thatUs on the limb or the edge of Pluto, which is highly foreshortened, and you just canUt get that much information about the regions that are near the limb when you take a picture. So when you take a single snapshot you are getting the information thatUs more in the center of the disk. But taking three is really a minimum. Four is better, but three will work, and then youUll get these pieces that are on the limb will be more closely toward the center, and that will help us do a better job putting together a complete map. The maps we can get out from the Hubble space telescope will not be maps that you might be used to seeing, like of the Earth or even Jupiter or most any of the other planets, because itUs so small, but they will be at least as good as those that you could draw of the moon, naked eye. Pluto is actually quite small. It is very large in my mind because I work on it all the time, but I have to keep reminding myself that Pluto is a place that is actually smaller than our own moon, and itUs just this tiny pinprick of light up in the sky and it takes a fairly big telescope to see it at all ...the other interesting aspect about Pluto and Charon, Charon being the satellite (moon: ed.), is that the satellite is half the size of Pluto. Before it was discovered, the Earth/moon system was considered to be the most unusual in that respect, with the satellite being quite large compared to the planet, as opposed to the Galilean satellites around Jupiter which are very very tiny compared to Jupiter. But in the case of Pluto ...the satellite is only half the size of Pluto, which makes them very nearly the same... (3) Prof HEIDI HAMMEL, Massachusetts Institute of Technology on NEPTUNE The whole Neptune atmosphere is almost unexplored ...we know so little about it that every picture we take gives us brand-new information. Some of the kinds of things that we could learn from images of Neptune is we could study the cloud motions. We could map out where the bright clouds are and where the dark clouds are, and by comparing those with images weUve taken in the past we could see how stable the atmosphere is. People are always concerned about weather, weather on the Earth, weather on Jupiter, and a program like this could tell us what the weather is like on Neptune. We think the dark clouds are something like hurricanes. They have holes in the center, they are like the eye of the storm, you can see into the deeper part of the atmosphere. The bright clouds, on the other hand, are very high-altitude clouds They are like thunderheads that have bubbled up from deeper down into Neptune to very high altitudes and we can see them at special wavelengths that we pick at these high altitudes. Three orbits are perfect to look at Neptune, because if you pick the spacing in time between the three orbits you could look at three different thirds of the planet and you could make a complete map of the atmosphere, and so if there is any new dark spot there youUll see it, if there is no dark spot there youUll see that, and youUll be able to map out all the bright spots in three orbits. Even with one orbit of Space Telescope you can get a picture of Neptune at many different colors, and you can look at the cloud activity on that hemisphere of the planet. There will definitely be clouds, every time you look at Neptune we see bright clouds. There definitely will be a dark band in the Southern hemisphere. There may or may not be a "Great Dark Spot". But even with one picture you are guaranteed to see clouds. Now we can compare the clouds that we see in that one picture with pictures weUve gotten in the past, and that would tell us if certain bands on the planet, certain latitudes are continuously active on Neptune. We have a hint that may be true, but we need to continue looking to see if that really is true and one orbit will be a very good data point in that study. The reason you need HST to look at Neptune is that it is currently the most distant planet in the solar system. Even though it is a big planet, a gas giant, it is very far away, so, even with the best ground-based telescope you could barely resolve any clouds at all... (4) Prof. CAROLYN PORCO, University of Arizona, on URANUS One of the most pressing questions that remains after Voyager visited the (outer) solar system and now is making its way to the stars, is the question of the composition of the satellites and rings that encircle Uranus. Voyager was not equipped with the proper instrumentation to investigate that issue. From what we have been able to discern about the composition of these bodies it appears they are very different than the objects, compositionally, very different than the objects that we see encircling Jupiter or Saturn, for instance and we want to know why. And Hubble is in a position to come up with that answer, and I think that we would be losing a valuable opportunity to not go for it. The Hubble space telescope ...first of all ...is a very reasonably large telescope, itUs two and a half meters, and itUs above the atmosphere, so it doesnUt have the obscuring or scattering effects of the atmosphere ...and it is equipped with very sophisticated instrumentation, so all of those (things) taken together allow you to have a resolving power, a spatial resolving power around planets like Uranus, that far exceeds anything you can do on the Earth, so we can see finer details around Uranus than we could before. So you need the Hubble space telescope, for example, to get good, visible pictures of the rings, and to see some of the ten satellites that were discovered by Voyager. OK, there are ten satellites in close orbit around Uranus. We had known, of course, before that Uranus was encircled or orbited by five larger satellites, but Voyager found ten smaller satellites, and they are close enough to Uranus that in a ground-based telescope you canUt really see them because of the glare and the scattering by Uranus in a ground-based telescope prevents you from seeing them. ...if you really wanted to press for very high spectral resolution then you would go to the Faint Object Spectrograph (we'll explain more about the various Hubble instruments when we decide which planet to observe, and our Planet Advocates begin to specify the details of what we might look at: ed.) and instead of an image you would be taking the light that comes from the rings or the particular satellite and spreading (it) out across the spectrum and looking, at very high spectral resolution, at that light to discern, if there are any ...specific spectral features ...one would take a spectrum of an object to figure out what its composition is, because each different element or compound leaves a different signature on the light thatUs reflected from an object. And so you take a spectrum to figure out if element or compound A exists on the surface of this object, or B (or) C or D, and you can distinguish different compositions by looking at a spectrum. (see the "Live from the Stratosphere" Teacher's Guide for more on the electromagnetic spectrum) ...IUm certain that if we had three orbits to devote to Uranus we could do a bang-up job in understanding the composition, or at least getting visible spectra, ultraviolet and visible spectra of the rings, and of the ten new satellites that Voyager discovered. ...LetUs (consider) the premise that you ...devote only one orbit to Uranus and answer all of these fundamental questions. What else would you do with the other two orbits? I guess I would be split between sharing with Neptune, or sharing with Pluto, for different reasons. Neptune also has a set of rings. TheyUre dynamically even more puzzling than the rings of Uranus ...Neptune has arcs, a series of arcs, they seem to have a particularly dynamical relationship with one particular satellite, Galatea, but we are not completely convinced that that is the whole story with regard to the Neptune arcs and we could answer that question if we could take images of NeptuneUs ring arcs and pin down their orbital period. That would be a fascinating thing to do ...However, youUd have to devote at least ...one or two orbits to Neptune in order to answer that question, because you want to see the motion of the arcs. My other favorite, however (I guess IUm coming up with three favorites here!), the other favorite is Pluto ...Pluto is an object we havenUt sent a spacecraft to yet. ItUs one IUm dearly hoping we do send a spacecraft to, but that spacecraft is not likely to arrive at Pluto until the year 2013, so weUd have to wait a very long time. We have the opportunity with the Hubble Space Telescope to answer some very interesting questions about Pluto: what is the nature of its surface, does the surface of Pluto look, or have anything to do at all or resemble in any way, the surface of Triton (the large moon of Neptune: ed.)? They seem to us to be kissing cousins, Triton and Pluto, but you know, we thought Neptune and Uranus were kissing cousins, and they look quite different -- they are very, very different -- so itUs very likely the same will turn out to be the case for Triton and Pluto. So, IUm hoping weUll get at least one orbit on Uranus, and if we need three then there are certainly very fundamental questions you could answer ...students would have, I think, a thrill participating in them if we got observations on Uranus. If we end up needing only one one orbit, then I guess my next favorites would be NeptuneUs rings, and after that Pluto. Topic B: WHAT'S THE BEST, AND WORST, THING ABOUT ABOUT WORKING WITH THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE? (1) Prof RETA BEEBE, New Mexico State University, on JUPITER The best thing about working with the Hubble Space Telescope is that I donUt have to deal with earthUs atmosphere. When you are using a ground-based telescope, you have the probability of storms coming across... but thatUs not the worst part. The worst part is that the atmosphere jiggles in front of your view. And it does not matter how short you make the exposure, or how hard you try, thereUs a fundamental limit of what you can reach. HST orbits the earth above the atmosphere, so not only do I get rid of that jiggling, the spatial resolution that I get on my images depends on the camera itself and itUs always the same. I can observe in the ultraviolet, and that light won't even get through EarthUs atmosphere, and I can observe in the infrared much more efficiently than I can from the earth. If I get the data, it (all) matches ...in a very systematic way. The biggest problem with using the HST is that itUs in low earth orbit. This is nice, because with the Shuttle as our only repair mission (vehicle: ed.), you have to be able to access it, and it has to be in a low orbit to do this. But this then requires that it orbit the Earth every hour and a half, and I have only about 45 minutes during that period when I can observe Jupiter. So every hour and a half I get (only) about 50% of the time observing the planet. In order to lock on with such a rapidly-moving telescope, the details of observing are horrendous. These things have to be scheduled far in advance, and the net result is that to make this an efficient operation you have to formulate your whole observing program, and it has to be stacked carefully in queue. (2) Dr. MARC BUIE, Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona, on PLUTO One of the best things that the Hubble Space Telescope has going for it, for doing observations on Pluto, is... that it is a robotic instrument. Commands are put together that tell it what to look at, and when to look at them, then they are done weeks and months in advance by this team of people at Space Telescope Science Institute. So I can put in observations that say, Rlook at Pluto now, for one orbit, forty-five minutes, then in three days do another one, and three days later, do another". OK, this is unique. Ground-based observatories are not allocated in terms of time this way. Ground- based observatories, you get a night. ItUs twelve hours. And in that time you have to, you know, you make your observations But if all I need is forty-five minutes, then IUve got to figure out what to do with the rest of the time. If I canUt, then I donUt get the time. The worst thing about the Hubble Space Telescope is the complexity, and there is a great deal of uncertainty. IUve got a lot of experience, having worked with Space Telescope in the past. And in the past weUve gone through a great deal of expense and effort to put together an observing plan. WeUve said, "OK, letUs look at Saturn and weUll take these pictures and put them all together. " And then something happens on the telescope, just hours before your observation is supposed to take place ...there is some failure, some component on the spacecraft fails, and all of the sudden it goes in whatUs called "safe-mode", and all the observations that were in that week are now lost and they have to completely re-plan, fix the problem in the telescope, and -- it can happen -- if you are looking at a sort of unique time, that you may not get to repeat the experiment, or you may have to wait a month. (3) Prof HEIDI HAMMEL, Massachusetts Institute of Technology on NEPTUNE The HST is a fabulous instrument... you canUt get pictures like this any other way. It Ts fabulous. I just love working with Hubble ...itUs incredible to me that there is a robotic telescope in orbit around the earth, and that you can design a program and send these sequences up and move this telescope around to point anywhere around the sky and do any kind of science and get absolutely fabulous pictures, without the earthUs atmosphere in the way. You just canUt do this from the ground. The most difficult thing about HST is that you canUt make mistakes. In a ground-based telescope, if you calculate the wrong exposure time and your picture is over-exposed you just take another picture with shorter exposure time, but with Hubble you only get one chance, so you've got to do it right the first time. That means you have to work very, very hard to make sure you have everything completely understood and you canUt take chances and that makes it hard to use. (4) Prof. CAROLYN PORCO, University of Arizona, on URANUS ...the best thing is that it is far more sophisticated than anything weUve had in orbit around the Earth before. Why itUs in orbit around the Earth -- which is part of the reason why itUs complex and complicated to use -- circumvents a lot of the problems that have beleaguered ground-based astronomers ever since the telescope was invented. So, the good part of it is that the observations are much finer that you could obtain from the ground, and the worst part is that it will involve a lot of people, and everyone has got to get their act together... Topic C: WHY IS THE INTERNET A UNIQUE TOOL TO CONNECT STUDENTS TO REAL SCIENCE AND REAL SCIENTISTS? (1) Prof RETA BEEBE, New Mexico State University, on JUPITER I think the Internet is a fantastic device. Not only do I get communications regularly from people who just have fundamental questions that they ask, but I also get communications that are almost impossible any other way. I can talk to a planetary astronomer in Alma Ata (sic), over by the Tibetan border, 2 to 3 times a day on the Internet, and if I were to attempt to send him anything in any other form it takes months for him to get it. So that not only would the Internet provide a way for students to talk to working scientists in this country, it gives them access to the world. I have been working with students most of my life. I taught in Junior High before I went to graduate school. But I have actually been teaching for thirty five years. At New Mexico State University, professors are teachers first and researchers second. We have large educational outreach programs locally. I worked on the Voyager project, I had a considerable amount of outreach in that. Recently New Mexico State University was selected to become the atmosphere node of the NASA planetary data system. So that we are basically working on archiving and documenting and preparing data for general use of the whole scientific community. So we are in a position of being a very effective source of information for students who are working on this. to be continued... hope this is not too LONG for you to persue! *************************************************** From: Geoff Haines-Stiles (2) Dr. MARC BUIE, Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona, on PLUTO ...I think itUs great working with high school students, working with undergraduates, graduate students. I was fortunate enough as an undergraduate to be working in a laboratory rather than just simply taking classes and that was very important for me in terms of my getting into science and where I am in my career today and I am just trying to give a little bit of that back in any way I can. The Internet is an amazing resource ...those of us that do research all the time, we have actually been in contact, and have been using the Internet for a decade already, and it has changed the way we work. Most of the people I work with are not at Lowell Observatory, they are at other observatories -- University of Hawaii, M.I.T., Cornell -- you name it. I can collaborate and work with anybody ...a student, in principle, can contact anybody. But the other neat thing thatUs come out about the Internet in the past couple of years is the World Wide Web, this mechanism for browsing electronic documents that people can put together. So, for instance, any information that I have about Pluto ultimately I can put into the form of electronic Web pages, and then people, if they are working on a school project, they want to find out something about Pluto, they just go and they do a search on the Internet for information about Pluto, and they are immediately connected to state-of-the art information, by someone who is doing research on Pluto, and can find out what do we know NOW, and not have to wait for the five or ten year cycle for that information to trickle into the encyclopedias, and then from the encyclopedias to the schools, and then you are finally looking at that stuff ...and the volume of information that we can provide is, is far greater than youUll ever have in this type of fixed format information services. (3) Prof HEIDI HAMMEL, Massachusetts Institute of Technology on NEPTUNE I think a project like this is a great way for a student to see how scientists make decisions. ItUs not as easy as just say(ing) "I want to take a picture". There's a lot of decisions that have to get made, a lot of choices, a lot of compromises. Sometimes you canUt do things exactly the way you want to do them, and I think it would be interesting for students to see how that happens, to see how scientists really work on a day-to-day basis. When the students are looking at the various options they have, whether itUs Neptune, Pluto, Jupiter... Uranus, they are going to be asking whatUs the most interesting thing that I can do? And thatUs what science is all about. ThatUs what scientists do all the time. They think: I want to study this, whatUs the best way to do that, whatUs the right way to make the observation, how can I best use my observing time to answer a question? ThatUs what science is all about, and thatUs what this project is going to allow the students to do. (4) Prof. CAROLYN PORCO, University of Arizona, on URANUS This is the name of the game ...debating one scientific objective over another, passing value judgments as to what would be most important, most valuable, most informative to do. And there isnUt always an answer, there isnUt always a yes or no, and a right or wrong. ThatUs a fallacy we should dispense with right from the start. It often is the case that every scientific objective or scientific requirement that a scientist would sit down and try to evaluate is equally valuable and itUs almost a matter of tossing coins and seeing if it comes up heads or tails as to which will win out and which will not. So, weighing the merits and the value of a particular observation is what scientists have to do all the time. We do it in the course of choosing what particular topic it is we want to investigate. Are we going to branch out and try a new line of investigation, which should that be, what is the area that has the most valuable, the most fundamental questions? There is often many of them and you just choose we just choose what tickles your fancy. In this case it will probably be much the same. *** So, those are more comments from our PA's. If you've sampled them in this and the earlier posting, you'll have read many of the remarks included in the first video program -- that elusive telecast which many of you have been pursuing through a video void! There are (as noted in an earlier posting) three re-broadcasts scheduled for the next two weeks on NASA-TV, and we trust you'll be able to catch up with them then. We hope you'll find time, even during the hectic last days before the vacations begin, to help your students shape our decision. Till then, stay cool and connected. GEOFF HAINES-STILES (apologies for the "smart quotes" problem: our transcript typist was using a different format, and in the interest of time, we did not catch it and fix it! We'll do better next time!@#?! Have a great weekend, if this reaches you at school or home on Friday 12/1.) *************************************************** From: Roger Stryker Hello! (Yes, I am still alive:-) Sorry I've been so quiet lately. (I'm presently looking forward to the winter break as lately it seems I've been peddling just as fast as I possibly can - I'm ready for some down time!) The good news is we've been following Probe Squash and Jupiter Online - great stuff! I'm presently gathering information about the Planet Debate and have been reviewing and discussing with my students. I feel badly for all those that didn't get the broadcast. I wish I had the time and resources to send copies of mine out as I did with LFS. For those joining us on this year-long adventure, my class of 29 students is one of 6 5th grade sections at Williams Elementary in Austin, Texas. We are called the WebMasters and have our own project Web page - please visit. I have some good news to share with my online friends from Live From... past projects, and Marc, Jan, Geoff, and Margaret (by now I consider them friends as well). I've been awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching for Texas. This is supremely cool. Thanks to the folks coordinating this project for what they do. Roger Stryker ------------------------------------------------------------------ From: FRITZ Hello fellow scientists,
Since our goal is to reach a consensus on which planet to observe I
thought a good way to start would be to reach a consensus in my two seventh
grade sections. We've discussed and debated the four planets, looked at
pictures on computer and video, and read what the planet advocates have
said. Here are our opinions:
7F - URANUS is the best choice because...
Matthew Fritz *****************************************************
From: Margaretha Gebhart I am the Director of the Planetarium for the Muncie Community Schools
in Muncie, Indiana. I also work as a Science Resource Teacher K-12. Several
teachers will be participating in this project. We participated in Live
From the Stratosphere and LOVED it. We had an all night Camp-in at the
Planetarium. It was a night that all students will always remember!! Today
I am working at Wilson Middle School with a teacher, Louise Sumner, and
her students in Grade 8 who are studying Astronomy in science. This will
be the first time these students have ever sent Email. They are VERY excited.
We are thrilled to be joining this group again. We are interested in sending
snail mail and perhaps becoming pen pals with some other students in Grade
7 or 8 who live far from Muncie, Indiana. Let us know if you are interested.
Mrs. Louise Sumner, Room 203, Wilson Middle School, 3100 South Tillotson,
Muncie, IN 47302. 317-747-5370, ext. 203.
Later today I will be at Central High School working with the Astronomy
Class and their teacher, Don Wafer. Some of the Astronomy students participated
in LIVE FROM THE STRATOSPHERE. They are all set to join LIVE FROM THE
HUBBLE.
---------- ******************************************************
From: Margaretha Gebhart I would like to study the planet Pluto because its the farthest out
there. Its the coldest but its the best. I would like to know about it
because of how its made of gas and dust that are frozen. It bearly gets
any sun and it has a longer day than a year on Pluto. David McKee, Grade
8, Wilson Middle School, Muncie, IN.
----------
I want to study about Jupiter because it is a planet that was almost
a star . I know it is the 5th planet from the sun. It's the biggest of
the nine planets. I know we can not live on Jupiter because of the gases.
Mike Jackson, Grade 8, Wilson Middle School, Muncie, Indiana
----------
I would like to study Saturn because of the ring system. I would like
to know its color. Why does Saturn have so many moons? Bryce Coers, Grade
8, Wilson Middle School, Muncie, IN ----------
I would like to study Pluto because it might have been a double planet.
Pluto is still a riddle to some astronomers. See what other hidden things
are at Pluto. ----------
I would like to learn more about Pluto. I would like to know if there
is a reason that Pluto's orbit is almost a perfect circle. I am interested
in Pluto's moom, Charon. Why wasn't it discoverd until 1978? How much
does the temperature on Pluto fluctuate? ----------
I think that Pluto should be the planet to be studied. Pluto is so small
and far away from the Earth so we don't have much information on it. No
spacecraft has ever passed Pluto. The only information we have is from
using telescopes here on Earth. What is the atmosphere like? What is Pluto
made of? What is Pluto's moon, Charon composed of? We really don't know
that much about Pluto and maybe there's some beneficial information we
need to know. ----------
I think that Pluto should be the planet to be studied. We don't really
study much about this planet. If this planet was picked we could learn
alot more about' the planet farthest from us. For instence how many moons
does Pluto have? How long does it take it to turn on it's axis? What are
the temperatures like? What exactly is Pluto made of? Are there any forms
of life? Also how far away from earth is Pluto? These questions can be
answered if we choose Pluto. ----------
I would like to study Uranus. I would like to study it because it is
tilted on its side. I would like to know how many rings it has. Also,
I would like to know why it is on its side. ----------
I would like to see research done on the planet Pluto. It would be interesting
to learn about because it is the farthest planet and we don't know much
about it. I would like to find out if there are any lakes or anything
that could support life there. ----------
I would like to learn more about Pluto. I would like to know if there
is a reason that Pluto's orbit is almost a perfect circle. I am interested
in Pluto's moom, Charon. Why wasn't it discoverd until 1978? How much
does the temperature on Pluto fluctuate? ----------
I think that Pluto should be the planet to be studied. Pluto is so small
and far away from the Earth so we don't have much information on it. No
spacecraft has ever passed Pluto. The only information we have is from
using telescopes here on Earth. What is the atmosphere like? What is Pluto
made of? What is Pluto's moon, Charon composed of? We really don't know
that much about Pluto and maybe there's some beneficial information we
need to know. Bethany Burget, Grade 11, Central High School, Muncie, IN
----------
I think that Pluto should be the planet to be studied. We don't really
study much about this planet. If this planet was picked we could learn
alot more about' the planet farthest from us. For instence how many moons
does Pluto have? How long does it take it to turn on it's axis? What are
the temperatures like? What exactly is Pluto made of? Are there any forms
of life? Also how far away from earth is Pluto? These questions can be
answered if we choose Pluto. ----------
Margaretha Gebhart Email:gebh0400@spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov ******************************************************
From: Geoff Haines-Stiles Peggy:
Please tell David and Beulah we really appreciate their input. It seems
as if Pluto is really becoming the "dark horse" candidate, out there in
the dim, dark outer solar system! I thought Jupiter might be the hands-on
favorite, but there are many other students rooting for the more unknown.
Planet Advocate Marc Buie will be pleased to know this.
Keep up the good work, all.
Best wishes ******************************************************
From: Geoff Haines-Stiles Dear Matt and students,
I believe that Pluto will be inside the orbit of Neptune through 1999
-- having just seen PLANET QUEST at the Buhl Planetarium, at the Carnegie
Science Center in Pittsburg. That show is interactive and invites viewers
to make choices about which planets to observe -- so it's rather like
the Hubble activity in some ways. If you find it's playing near where
you are, you might find it fun to visit.
But let me check with our expert Planet Advocates to make sure I'm giving
you exactly correct information.
Thanks for your input -- two weeks to D(ecision)-Day about which planets
to observe.
Onwards and Upwards ******************************************************
From: Steve Stephenson Aloha from Waiakea Intermediate School,
My name is Steve Stephenson, and I teach Earth Space Science here in
Hilo, Hawaii. Our grade 8 G/T class is the only one that is in session
for a full year, so they will be participating in the on-line discussion
and activities. We hope to be able to provide each of them with their
own access by the end of December, rather than just use my accounts.
The class selected Pluto for Hubble observations because it is the most
distant, and the least studied to date. They feel that there is the greatest
chance for a new discovery.
We are located at the base of Mauna Loa, about a mile from the base
slopes of Mauna Kea where some of the most powerful observatories on Earth
are located. This year, none of my student's parents are employed by the
observatories, but most have access through a neighbor or "Uncle" who
is. Several saw the eclipse of '91 from the summit [unoficially, since
the UH has a 16 year age-limit on travel to the observatories] Interest
in Astronomy is high, especially in advancements in telescopes and new
discoveries.
--Steve Stephenson --My comments are my own, and usually do not reflect those of the Department
of Education, or any other bureaucratic agency.
******************************************************
From: Jerry Bailey Hi I'm looking forward to working with you and getting to know you. I'm
always looking for schools to do other on-line project.
Jerry Bailey ******************************************************
From: Geoff Haines-Stiles Sorry, Bryce... Saturn is not on our list of possible planets to observe
because of its position at the time we will be making the Hubble observations.
Stay tuned (online or on camera) for more information about why we can
only look at certain objects.
Thanks for your input! ******************************************************
From: "ALEX STORRS (410)-338-4903" Pluto is currently closer to the Sun than Neptune, although not by much:
29.87 AU vs. 30.17 AU.
This fact can be used as a teaching tool, if you like: while it is true
that all planets are on elliptical orbits, only a few (e.g. Mars, Pluto)
have high enough eccentricities to cause the ellipticity of their orbits
to effect their seasons. For most planets, including the Earth, the changing
of the seasons is due entirely to the angle between the rotation and revolution
axes-- the fact that the orbit is elliptical has little to do with it.
Cheers,
Alex Storrs *******************************************************
From: Roger Stryker What follows is a summary of this week's debate from my class. After
reading over the material with my students a little each day, like Geoff,
I figured Jupiter would be a favorite. To my surprise, Pluto is easily
ahead.
We've spent the week discussing the fate of the Galileo probe, since
this is another opportunity not to miss. As a result, Jupiter may seem
a little too familiar to us at this point. As you'll see, so far we're
more interested in the mysteries of Pluto.
Which planet and why?
>From a minority: "We would like to have the Hubble investigate Neptune
because it's pretty. It's bluish. It's got rings and the dark spots, and
we'd like to see pictures of them. We'd like to know more about the dark
spots than what we know now."
>From the majority: "We already know alot of stuff about Jupiter. We
think the HST ought to study Pluto because we don't seem to know much
about it."
Is it too cold to have volcanos? It's not too cold for Jupiter's moon,
why not Pluto? Does it have any clouds or wind or any atmosphere at all?
What kind of land is there? Is there going to be anything interesting
on it at all? There probably isn't any life because it's so cold, but
it'd be neat if we found something."
Roger Stryker From: MikeE99562@aol.com: Intro
My name is Mike Edmondson. I am the lead Science and Technology teacher
for our science/math/technology program. We have a brand new building,
resource center and the Georgia Space Science Center (with planetarium,
Challenger Center, and CCD telescope that we will also be closely affiliated
with) , which is still under construction. I am also to be our school
district's teacher liaison and flight director for the Challenger Center.
We have recently begun a complete overhaul of the magnet program (this
is my first year there.) Currently have put an Astronomy course in, with
STS, Geology, Meteorology, Botany, Genetics, Physics for Ninth Graders
(Hewitt), Entymology, History of Mathematics, Computer Mathematics, Oceanography,
Ecology, and three Professional Affiliation programs (Medicine, Engineering
and Space Science) also being added.
We're getting in on the HST event. We were a downlink only site for
Stratosphere (and want to be an uplink site!) for the Live series....
Our school is 1700 persons. The magnet program is a part of the total
school, 9 through 12.
ME
**********************************************************
From: Claire Skilton Hello! My name is Claire Skilton and I spend my days doing administrative
work in the mornings and teaching fourth and fifth grade science in the
afternoons. The school is relatively small (300) and on a gorgeous (therefore
touristy/art colony) section of Northern Californian coast in the town
of Mendocino. Only one class will participate - a very talkative class
(we know talking is easy; it's listening that's hard.) They are fifth
graders who have been together as a class for two years (and mostly known
each other since the cradle because its a rural small town).
We were going to try LFS - and i have all the materials so maybe we'll
still get to it this year - but I ended up lurking in fits and starts
due to various crises at the admin. end of the job.
I, too, thought Jupiter would be a natural -it being so big and pretty
and having just riveted us during the recent conjunction through a series
of the most glorious sunsets ever - unseasonably clear and dry. However,
they have minds of their own. Our current debate has eliminated Jupiter
based on three considerations: it is closest so there are the most other
chances to study it, it already has a probe mission and we (as a class)
know more about it already than about the others (precious little but
comparatively more, says the teacher).
We have a minority contingent strong for Uranus because of the tilt
issue and because we have worked on a project trying to form hypotheses
about Miranda. The kids are boggled that a plantoid or other body could
"collide with" a gas giant. (We have some work to do here!)
We have another Neptune contingent who seem focused on the color and
cold. They are the least clear.
And we have the PLUTONIANS! The basic arguments advanced are the same
as most I've seen to date: it is so far away that it is intriguing, it
is closer now than usual and maybe we should take advantage, it is little
and very cold, it has a moon that is nearly half as big as it is - why?,
it might be some new kind of solid - and maybe someday something could
land there. Part of this is the underdog sympathy at work but lots of
it seems like a genuine wish to discover something or even see it discovered
and knowing so little seems to them to provide the best chance for that.
We have two more class sessions before we have to finally conclude.
I'll share the ideas from Margaretha's classes and others next week and
we'll see what happens. I'm also going to play the music from "The Planets"
and show some more visuals from various laser discs just to see if it
shakes any convictions.
The kids do have their own email accounts and eventually I'll let them
be more direct but for now they are going through me. Like I say, these
guys LOVE to talk - through the air, on paper or on the screen! ********************************************************
From: Johnson-Palmer Hello all...My fifth grade class has chosen Pluto as the planet the
Hubble should focus on next. The reasons are that it is the most recently
discovered of the planets and the one about which we have little information.
They also think that a planet that far out in space and with its orbit
might really be a contact point for extraterrestrial life forms. :-)
***** AND HERE COMES FROSTY PLUTO.....
********************************************************
From: "Rob R. Landis" The current issue of _Space News_ (Vol. 6, #45; 27 Nov - 3 Dec 1995;
beginning on page 4) includes a status update for the Pluto Express. While
you'll have to read the article for the full details (it's not on a Web
site); a couple changes to note.
Check it out! Current issue of _Space News_ pages 4 and 21.
Rob Landis, STScI, Baltimore, MD USA
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