NASA

https://www.nasa.gov/

Month of Ingenuity: Taking Flight on Another World 

NASA’s Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity

Vaneeza Rupani and Mars helicopter

The Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, hitched a ride to Mars on the Perseverance rover and is preparing for its first flight. This technology demonstration will test powered flight on another world for the first time. Once the rover reaches a suitable “helipad” location, it will release Ingenuity to perform a series of test flights over a 30-Martian-day experimental window beginning sometime in April.

Bring the exciting engineering and science of the Mars helicopter to students in the classroom and at home with STEM lessons and do-it-yourself projects covering topics such as biology, geology, physics, mathematics, engineering, coding, and language arts.

About the Mission

Perseverance, NASA’s most advanced Mars rover to date, is continuing NASA’s investigation of the Red Planet. Only the fifth NASA rover destined for Mars, Perseverance is designed to build on the work and scientific discoveries of its predecessors. Joining the Perseverance rover on Mars is the first helicopter designed to fly on another planet, Ingenuity. The lightweight helicopter rode to Mars attached to the belly of the rover and will attempt up to five test flights.

The Perseverance mission launched on July 30, 2020. After touching down on the Red Planet Feb. 18, 2021, NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover will scour Jezero Crater to help us understand its geologic history and search for signs of past microbial life. But the six-wheeled robot won’t be looking just at the surface of Mars: The rover will peer deep below it with a ground-penetrating radar called RIMFAX. Unlike similar instruments aboard Mars orbiters, which study the planet from space, RIMFAX will be the first ground-penetrating radar set on the surface of Mars. This will give scientists much higher-resolution data than space-borne radars can provide while focusing on the specific areas that Perseverance will explore. Taking a more focused look at this terrain will help the rover’s team understand how features in Jezero Crater formed over time. Learn more about how Perseverance Rover will peer beneath Mars’ surface here.

This mission is a fantastic opportunity to engage students in real-world problem solving across the STEM fields. Learn about the mission including the rover, Perseverance, and the helicopter, Ingenuity. 

Mars rover Perseverance

NASA’s Mars Rover, PerseveranceIts mission is to address high-priority science goals for Mars exploration, including key astrobiology questions about the potential for life, both past and present, on Mars. This mission is paving the way for human exploration of Mars.

  • Find out how a Virginia middle school student earned the honor of naming NASA’s next Mars rover.
  • Play the Mars rover driver board game.
  • Meet NASA’s next Mars rover, Perseverance. 
  • Watch this animation on how the rover will collect samples on Mars.
  • Listen to the sounds of Mars.
  • Make a cardboard rover.
  • Learn about the four science goals for Perseverance and try this activity: Looking for Life.
  • Create a Mars rover exploration game using the Scratch programming language.
  • Connect astrobiology questions about the potential for life on Mars with K-12 curricula. 
     

Mars

Image result for parachute From Space. Size: 189 x 108. Source: www.youtube.com

Felix Baumgartner makes record-breaking skydive from space – video

Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner jumps from more than 24 miles above Earth, breaking the speed of sound before he releases his parachute. The 43-year-old broke the record for highest jump set by Joe Kittinger at 19.5 miles in 1960. Kittinger was in the control room in Roswell, New Mexico, together with Baumgartner’s family

Source: Red Bull

Sun 14 Oct 2012 16.11 EDTFirst published on Sun 14 Oct 2012 16.11 EDT

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SHARKS

https://www.sharks.org/species

LEARN ABOUT SOME OF THE 400+ SPECIES OF SHARKS.

All organisms have scientific names, a name that is unique for each species. Every species has two Latin names which allow people to be certain they are talking about the same creature no matter what language they speak.

For example, the scientific classification of the shortfin mako shark goes like this:

  • Kingdom: Animalia (all animals)
  • Phylum: Chordata (all chordates)
  • Class: Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fish)
  • Order: Lamniformes (mackerel sharks)
  • Family: Lamnidae (mackerel sharks)
  • Genus: Isurus
  • Species: oxyrinchus

Every shark belongs to the classification Chondrichthyes which identifies them as cartilaginous fish, fish whose internal skeletons are comprised of flexible cartilage rather than bone.

Chondrichthyes consists of two groups, Holocephali and Elasmobranchii, and within Elasmobranchii are eight (8) orders of sharks. Each order tells us about the biology, physical characteristics and behavior of sharks in that order. Provided here are a number of sharks within each of the eight (8) orders.

To further your learning about these truly amazing animals, we highly recommend Sharks of the world. An annotated and illustrated catalogue of shark species known to date. by Leonard J.V. Compagno, Ph.D., the world’s foremost expert on sharks and Director of our Board of Trustees.

GREAT WHITE

The great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), also known as the white shark, white pointer, or simply great white, is a species of large mackerel shark which can be found in the coastal surface waters of all the major oceans. It is notable for its size, with larger female individuals growing to 6.1 m (20 ft) in length and 1,905–2,268 kg (4,200–5,000 lb) in weight at maturity. However, most are smaller; males measure 3.4 to 4.0 m (11 to 13 ft), and females measure 4.6 to 4.9 m (15 to 16 ft) on average. According to a 2014 study, the lifespan of great white sharks is estimated to be as long as 70 years or more, well above previous estimates, making it one of the longest lived cartilaginous fishes currently known. According to the same study, male great white sharks take 26 years to reach sexual maturity, while the females take 33 years to be ready to produce offspring. Great white sharks can swim at speeds of 25 km/hr (16 mph) for short bursts and to depths of 1,200 m (3,900 ft).

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21 FT GREAT WHITE
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13 FT GREAT WHITE
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20 FT GREAT WHITE

PARIS, FRANCE

https://www.parisdigest.com/paris/paris-facts.htm

Eiffel Tower in Paris
The Eiffel Tower

10 interesting Paris facts

1. The Eiffel Tower was the world tallest building until 1930.
2. Sainte-Chapelle was built in 1246 as a shrine for Jesus’ crown of thorns, hosted in Notre-Dame until the 2019 fire.
3. The world most famous picture, Mona Lisa, is hosted in the Louvre, the largest museum in the world.
4. French King Louis XVI was guillotined on Place de la Concorde in 1793, during the French revolution.
5. The famous Louis Vuitton megastore is located 101, avenue des Champs-Elysées, one of the most expensive avenues in the world.
6. Pablo Picasso, the famous Spanish painter, lived in Paris from 1900 to 1946, mostly in Montmartre and Montparnasse.
7. Jim Morrison, the lead vocalist of the rock band The Doors, died in Paris in 1971 and is buried in Père Lachaise cemetery.
8. Hélène de Pourtalès, born Helen Barbey in New York City, was the first woman ever to won a gold medal at the Olympics games (Paris Olympics Games 1900).
9. The 1946 universal declaration of human rights was signed in Palais de Chaillot during the UN third general assembly.
10. Emperor Napoléon was buried in Les Invalides in 1840. His tomb attracts 1.2 million visitors yearly, 70% international.

MONA LISA

Paris facts: Mona Lisa is in the Louvre Museum.

CLIMATE CHANGE FOR KIDS

https://climatekids.nasa.gov/climate-change-meaning/

What Is Climate Change?

Alaska's Muir glacier in August 1941 and August 2004.

Alaska’s Muir glacier in August 1941 and August 2004. Significant changes occurred in the 63 years between these two photos. Credit: USGS

Climate change describes a change in the average conditions — such as temperature and rainfall — in a region over a long period of time. For example, 20,000 years ago, much of the United States was covered in glaciers. In the United States today, we have a warmer climate and fewer glaciers.

Global climate change refers to the average long-term changes over the entire Earth. These include warming temperatures and changes in precipitation, as well as the effects of Earth’s warming, such as:

  • Rising sea levels
  • Shrinking mountain glaciers
  • Ice melting at a faster rate than usual in Greenland, Antarctica and the Arctic
  • Changes in flower and plant blooming times.

Earth’s climate has constantly been changing — even long before humans came into the picture. However, scientists have observed unusual changes recently. For example, Earth’s average temperature has been increasing much more quickly than they would expect over the past 150 years.

Some parts of Earth are warming faster than others. But on average, global air temperatures near Earth’s surface have gone up about 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 100 years. In fact, the past five years have been the warmest five years in centuries.

Many people, including scientists, are concerned about this warming. As Earth’s climate continues to warm, the intensity and amount of rainfall during storms such as hurricanes is expected to increase. Droughts and heat waves are also expected to become more intense as the climate warms.

When the whole Earth’s temperature changes by one or two degrees, that change can have big impacts on the health of Earth’s plants and animals, too.

What Causes Climate Change?

A simplified animation of the greenhouse effect.

There are lots of factors that contribute to Earth’s climate. However, scientists agree that Earth has been getting warmer in the past 50 to 100 years due to human activities.

Certain gases in Earth’s atmosphere block heat from escaping. This is called the greenhouse effect. These gases keep Earth warm like the glass in a greenhouse keeps plants warm.

Human activities — such as burning fuel to power factories, cars and buses — are changing the natural greenhouse. These changes cause the atmosphere to trap more heat than it used to, leading to a warmer Earth.

Does What We Do Matter?

This video shows how Arctic sea ice has been changing since 1984. Credit: NASA

Yes. When human activities create greenhouse gases, Earth warms. This matters because oceans, land, air, plants, animals and energy from the Sun all have an effect on one another. The combined effects of all these things give us our global climate. In other words, Earth’s climate functions like one big, connected system.

Thinking about things as systems means looking for how every part relates to others. NASA’s Earth observing satellites collect information about how our planet’s atmosphere, water and land are changing.

By looking at this information, scientists can observe how Earth’s systems work together. This will help us understand how small changes in one place can contribute to bigger changes in Earth’s global.