5 facts day :)
1. The density of Saturn is so low that if you could put it in water it would float.
2. A piece of neutron star the size of a pinhead would weigh a million tons
3. Saturn has at least 62 moons
4. Light from the Sun travelling at 186,000mph takes 8mins 19secs to reach earth
5. The Sun makes up 99.86% of the solar systems mass.

Chuck Norris jokes
when Alexander bell invented the telephone he had 3 missed calls from Chuck Norris
fear of spiders is arcanaphobia, fear of tight spaces is claustrophobia, fear of Chuck Norris is called logic
Chuck Norris won American idol using only sign language
Jesus can walk on water, Chuck Norris can swim through land.

Venus transit will happen this year from 5th-6th June but this will only be visible in its entirety from Hawaii, Alaska, Australia the Pacific and Eastern Asia with the beginning of the transit visible from North America and the end visible from Europe.

Venus usually passes under or over the sun in its diagonal orbit, but there are two points in its orbit when it passes directly in front of the sun in its 225 day orbit, but the Venus transit only happens when Venus, Earth and the Sun directly line up as shown in this diagram.

The top shows Venus on its normal orbit and the bottom shows the Venus transit.

This will be an amazing spectacle lets hope it gets broadcast for all to see, as it will be 105 years till it happens again, in 2117, and then it will happen again in 8 years at 2125, and will go on and on for a very long time going 105 years then 8 years 105 years 8 years and on and on. The last time it happened was June 8th 2004, and the first recorded time was November 23 1396, people believe that Aztec astronomers may have seen this transit.

I would just like to say I will be carrying on the 5 facts a week, or I may do 5 facts every couple of days, maybe including a Chuck Norris joke :) (everybody loves Chuck Norris jokes)

This is just one of my pictures from my holiday in Africa of an amazing sunset over Ngorongroro crater, Tanzinia, it just shows the true beauty of our planet.

I would like to give a massive thanks to OPHIUCHUS for giving me such a warm welcome to the team as the new Editor of Astronomical Uplands, and a massive good bye to Jack Morgan as former editor (Mr meteor) but sadly as Jack is gone, I Alex Doe (little green man) will be taking over.

I am currently in the process of creating a new reporting team, and I promise they will be great.

MORE FACT FILE! (100 POST ON BLOG)

firstly...THIS IS THE 100 POST ON THE BLOG :D thank you to all that have contributed to its growing success. But putting that aside, it is time for 5 more fun and funky facts from our fact file, here they are:

1) Any space vehicle must move at a rate of 7 miles per second in order to escape the earth's gravitational pull.

2) It takes eight and a half minutes for light to get from the sun to earth.

3) The population of the Earth has more than doubled since 1950.

4) There are approximately 3,500 astronomers in the U.S. - but over 15,000 astrologers.

5) Astronauts cannot burp in space.

Fantastically Fun Fact About SPACE!

A new feature is starting on the blog... FACT FILE! Ever couple of weeks you will find 5 more mind boggling facts on here, so dont forget to keep your eyes open, enjoy...

Week 1

1. The Earth gets 100 tons heavier every day due to falling space dust.

2. Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

3. Astronauts get taller when they are in space.

4. There are three golf balls sitting on the moon.

5. Only 55% of Americans know that the sun is a star.

Fun Science: The Moon

Discovery docks at international space station

Discovery, the US space shuttle, has docked at the international space station for the last time. This is the 13th time it has flown to the space station, where it is to deliver a new store room and a humanoid robot. Now only two more flight are scheduled, which are Atlantis and Endeavor, they will happen in the next few months. Discovery started its 11 day mission on thursday, and was launched from the Kennedy Space Centre.The entire orbiter fleet is set to be retired to museums. Didn't they do a good job? :)

Cool M51 optical illusion!

I was just surfing the internet and came across this, its a optical illusion some person has put together. It also contains some pretty useful information. ENJOY! : optical illusion oh and it has to be set to full screen for the illusion to work :)

New star signs?

Recently there has been a lot of controversy over peoples horoscopes and star signs. All the fuss was created by Astronomy instructor Parke Kunkle when he pointed out in a Minnesota newspaper that a wobble in the Earth's rotation meant that the stars were in a different position. I must say my favorite quote from it is "For astronomers, astrology is mere pseudo-science".... love it! If you are interested if your star sign has changed check out the full info=

STAR SIGNS

Satellite Rocket EXPLODES!

It is a disaster when a space shuttle/rocket crashes or dose not even make it into space. Millions of pounds are wasted. And many people have died in such crashes. The most recent was on Saturday, it was a Indian space rocket, the Geostationary Satellite launch vehicle(GSLV), carrying the GSAT-5P communications satellite. It exploded in the first stages of its flight. Luckily nobody was inside the rocket at the time. It is unknown what caused the explosion but investigations are underway.

A video of the rocket exploding

These are more photos from the Herstmonceux trip (see earlier news). The photos show the amazing rising floor in Dome E, home of the 26-inch Thompson Refractor. Look at the door in the photos, you clearly see it is rising, you may also notice J.D.R posing for us next to the door, lovely!

Once the floor had risen fully we got a talk from one of the experts that worked there. She explained that the telescope was not touching the dome at all. It was free-standing, on top of a huge concrete pillar. This is so the telescope does not get nudged while taking a picture. She told us many interesting facts while we were there, but sadly it was over too fast and we were on out way down again. I think we can all say this was a out of this world experience. These awesome photos were taken by one of the astronomy reporters, thanks Asteroid Adam (Adam Farmer).





In other news
We all take astronomy seriously, we are dedicated, work hard and always.... eat sour sweets!! Well just the once. I think we all know who pulled the funniest face though. I shall be kind and name no names, SIR.

By Mr Meteor (Jack Morgan)

Newsletter 1

It has been a busy term, and I've had to rely on the new reporting team to supply articles, and how well have they done!

But, I get ahead of myself. There is so much to bring to your attention, it would take forever to cover each item under different posts, so this is going to be our first newsletter!

The topics I will cover will be:

1. The new reporting team and their intentions
2. Meteorites (see also previous post)
3. Ideas for a human sundial (which we need your help with!)
4. Using Faulkes Telescope to study an area of sky you are interested in (how to go about it)
5. Competitions

Perhaps there's more, but that's enough for this newsletter :-D


1. The Reporting Team

First, and most importantly, I must (belatedly) introduce you to the new reporting team. A group of students came together at the end of last term to write articles, carry out surveys and do anything else they chose to do. They have their own spot on the blog, publishing their, and other students', works under the name of Mr Meteor. If you look to the top of the column on the right hand side of the page, there is an Astronomical Uplands logo...if you click on that, or the words

STUDENT VOICE News and Articles brought to you by the student reporting team

then you can fast-track to the Student Voice column, written by students for students!

At the moment, the following are members of the reporting team (photos to follow):

Jack Morgan (Editor)
Jon perret
Nick Maxfield
Adam Farmer

It's early days yet for the group, and they are still working out the direction they want to take this. However, if you have any ideas, or would like to be part of the team, you can talk to Jack, Mr Pert or myself...

Good luck in your new venture, guys!


2. Meteorites

Next on the information list is about our newly formed, small collection of meteorites. For any of you who love the idea of being able to look at/ hold pieces of rock that have spent millions (maybe many millions) of years flying through space; or whether you like the idea of bits of comet that have broken off and fallen into our atmosphere, or whether you think it's amazing that pieces of the moon or Mars have found their way down to Earth...you will love our new rocks!

So far, we have three very small fragments (small, but they've still survived a journey through space, and even more amazing, burning up in our atmosphere!) and a larger meteorite donated by a very kind fossil and meteorite collector, British Jurassic Fossils. You can read all about the meteorites here. These will be used in class, but if you're desperate to see them sooner, please come and see me in the prep room opposite L8...

3. Ideas for a human sundial

Now, here's an idea we have been playing around with for the last year. Mr Pert and I originally thought it would be a great idea to have a sundial on the side of the science block. It was a great idea, and it could look really great. However, on further thought, we prefer the idea of creating our own, unique, Uplands human sundial.

'What's one of those?' I hear you ask.

It is exactly what it sounds like! A sundial, where the gnomon (the sticky-up bit) is actually a person - you, or your friend - and the sun's shadow is cast by you onto (well placed) stones, which each mark a different time....simple! There's plenty of examples if you do a google image search, but here are a few...









So, these are a few sundials done by others...you get the idea!

How would ours look?
Should it be painted? Individually designed stones?
Should it be somewhere on the grassy area? Or somewhere that can be used all year round?
Should it be used to commemorate somebody/ an event?
Should we have many designers (students)/ one professional artist?

These are a few of the questions we have asked ourselves, and now we would like to put the questions to you (please feel free to write suggestions and ideas in the comment section below... or, you can write your ideas on a piece of paper and drop it in the suggestion box outside L8 (keep it clean!))

4. Using Faulkes Telescope

For those of you who have already had a chance to use the telescope, you have an idea what it can do, and how amazing it is (just see the pictures in earlier posts!). There are others of you who will use the Faulkes Telescope for the first time this year (Year 7, it will be in your science lessons!) There are others who it might come more slowly to.

If there's anyone who would particularly like to carry out investigations of their own, or who would love to take a picture of, perhaps, a nebula, asteroid, comet, then I am considering trying to book up sessions at either lunchtime or after school (the sessions last half hour). I'll only book them if there's enough interest. Send an email to the address near the top of the sidebar, or in the 'clubs and activities' section of the Uplands students' links, or tell me (prep room, opposite Lab 8)

5. Competitions


We have a couple of competitions we are thinking of entering:

• The UK Regional Space Design Competition There has already been some interest in this. The idea is to design a space station...it requires teamwork and a lot of co-operation, but looks to be great fun. If anyone else would like to take part, I'm in the process of finding out about registration at present. Up to 12 students can go to the Johnson Space Center in Texas, USA, if they are in the winning team! (This is entirely possible. The 2010 winners were a UK team :-) )
  
• Lego robot building competition (registration won't start before April 2011, and would be for starting robot building September 2011) This will be available for 'up to ten children, ages 9 to 16'. Challenges will be Nov/Dec 2011, and the final would be Jan 2012...I know it seems ages away, but if we're not ready, chances are we won't get ourselves together in time.

If anyone's interested in these two competitions, please let myself or Mr Pert know (Mr Pert is in Lab 8, and I am in the prep room opposite!) You can also write you interest in the comment section below!

Introducing The Astronomical Uplands Reporting Team

Four students have kindly accepted the post of reporter for Astronomical Uplands this year: Jack Morgan, Nick Maxfield, Jon Perret and Adam Farmer. Jack has now officially taken the post of editor, so any contributions you would like to make to the blog can be made to him, as well as to myself. Also, if you have a yen to become a reporter, feel free to approach Jack or myself and express your interest!

You can find student posts in the sidebar under Student Voice (There are badges for any contributions accepted.)

Welcome to the Team!