Current Event 9: NASA Mars Rover Set for Launch this Weekend

NASA Mars Rover Set for Launch this Weekend

By: Andrew Fazekas

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/11/111125-nasa-mars-rover-launch-science-lab-curiosity-nation/

This Saturday, on November 25, 2011, at 10: 20 a.m the time is set for the NASA Mars Rover named Curiosity to launch to Mars on a nine month journey in order to find out the answer to many questions of scientists and find clues. Scientists want this rover to find clues about if there is life on Mars or if there ever was life. If this robot does not launch on its proper date it has until December 18 to launch again. After its 9 month journey until August 2012 it will enter the Red Planet’s atmosphere at the speed of 21,000 km per hour. After entering Mars’ atmosphere it will slow down to 1,600 km per hour and then it will detach from its backshell and when it is traveling only 2 miles per hour its sky carne will float away. After this the rover is planned to descend to the ground of Mars.  The goal of the place of the Rovers landing place is the Martian equator.  This rover will be the most powerful rover to ever explore the surface of Mars but it will need to charge to recover and get energy for the next day. Scientists believe that the Gale center; one of Mars’ Carters has been filled with water about 3 billion years ago so that would be a great place to start searching for life.

This article is connected to science because even today scientists are trying to find out how life came to Earth. One of the ideas is that life came to Earth is that it came from space so if this rover investigates if there is life on Mars it could bring scientists closer to an answer. I think that this article was very interesting for me because I really like learning about space and space exploration going on in the world. Also, reading this article I realized that today is the day when this NASA Curiosity Rover was launched so I felt very excited. I hope that scientists find out answers to all their questions during this exploration and I hope everything during the Rovers journey goes well.

Also, here is a video that of the rover’s journey:

 I hope you liked it! :)

The Science Table of the States of Matter

This is a chart that I made during science class to represent the 3 states of matter and what they can do or be. I observed that solid is very definite and ithas low Expansion and no compresibility. I think that this means that it has the least energy which means that its molecules move slower. Water has 2 definites and one indefinite and slight expansion and low compressibility which means that its energy is medium and its molecules move in medium speed. Gas has 2 indefinites and only 1 definite and high expansion and easy compresibility whcih means that it has a lot of energy and its molecules move really fast. 

Current Event 8 :Giant, Dinosaur-Age Islands Found in Deep Sea?

Giant, Dinosaur-Age Islands Found in Deep Sea?

Article Written by: Richard A. Lovett

Date Article Written: November 21 2011

Scientists think that they have found 2 fragments of a continent left from the time of the dinosaurs located deep on the Indian Ocean.  These two pieces of land could be the leftovers left from the super continent called Gondwana. But the fragment of this continent was not complete so scientists are trying to fill in the gaps by making maps and exploring.  Exploring this area scientist also found a lot of types of rocks that are usually found in the ground of Earth which surprised them because they thought that they would dig up sea salt and sea mass. Scientists think that these two fragments disappeared and sunk when India and Australia separated. First of all scientists thought that these plateaus were flat but soon they realized that there were a lot of different elevations in these fragments of land. Also, near the fragments fossils of mollusks were found and mollusks live in shallow water surrounding continent which is one more reason which proves that the 2 fragment of Gondwana were once continents. Also, animals’ fossils were discovered on the plateau.

From this article I learned about scientist’s recent discovery of 2 continent fragments which has existed in the time of dinosaurs but were flooded and discovered again. I found this interesting article on http//:www.nationalgoegraphic.com which in my opinion is a great site for daily news and current events. I really liked this article because I like learning about scientists’ discoveries and about ancient Earth.  While reading this article I felt very excited because one again scientists have found an interesting discovery about ancient times. 

“Lost” fortress of Sahara revealed by satellites

“Lost” fortress of Sahara revealed by satellites

Archeologists have found real life fortress from an ancient civilization in the Sahara desert in the territory southwest of Libya revealed by a satellite. In the photos that the satellite made there were more the 100 fortress settlements. This ancient civilization that made the settlements is called the Garamantes who ruled about from the second century B.C. to the seventh century A.D. Now researchers have found towns, villages and farms of this ancient civilization by the satellite pictures. Even though so many years past from when these ancient fortresses were built they are still even from 3 to 4 meters high in some places which is why a lot of archeologists were very astonished at how much of the fortresses was preserved! These buildings were so well constructed and built that scientists could have easily mistaken these fortresses for the Roman frontiers. English scientists think that the civilization of Garamantes was a civilization of a very high level. They had metallurgy, very high-quality textiles, and a writing system. The Garamantes were a very organized civilization and they could have even had a state level society. Somehow, the Garamantes got water from the desert; they created oases and scientists think that they got this water from underground water channels. They could even grow wheat, grapes, figs and barley.  Nobody knows for sure what happened to the civilization but scientists guess that their supply of groundwater ended.

I really liked this article because I learned about the new discovery of archeologists. Also by this article I learned about how important water is to life because civilizations settled only by water for example Ancient Egypt was a very big civilization which settled a long the longest in the world river Nile. Even a whole civilization can disappear from lack of water! This is why I understood how much water is important and we need to take action and stop wasting so much water to try to reserve it.

Roaring of Return

MARCH 28, 2011

By Suzanne Zimbler

The India’s conservationists have put hidden cameras in rainforests of India and calculated that currently there are only 1,706 tigers in India. About a century ago, there were 100,000 tigers in the rainforests of India. In 2002 there were 3,600 tigers left but in 2007 there were only 1,441. The population of tigers dropped so much mainly because of people coming to live in the tigers’ habitats because now tigers live on only 1/100 fraction of their land 100 years ago. Also, the tigers’ population dropped so much because of illegal hunting because poachers hunt for tigers because a traditional Chinese medicine can be made from them and sold for a very high price as ten thousand dollars. But in these 4 past years as the tigers’ population has increased, their habitat has shrunk so, the first goal of the tiger conservation should have been to not build as many buildings in the tiger territories and corridors by which tigers move from one rainforest to another. Last November leaders from 13 countries that are homes to wild tigers had a meeting in Russia, St. Petersburg and decided to make a goal to double the world’s tiger population by 2022. Now the world’s conservationists are doing everything to help increase the tigers’ population so and it seems that in the 2022 they might reach their goal.

I think this current event is very good thing for our society because finally in the last 4 years the population of tigers in India has increased by a whole 300. Tigers are definitely an endangered species and they could disappear from our Earth very easily which would be very sad. I chose this article is very interesting for me because I am really interested endangered species and the problems of ecology in the world. I think that we should care much more about our Earth and our endangered species because one day all the animals might disappear from Earth!!! If all the animals disappear that would be very bad for, us, people which is why every one of us should do something good for our Earth. I think this article talks about a good solution for this huge problem of the little population of tigers but I think we should do a lot more. I felt very sad when I read this article and I felt that I have to take action to help our world.

Current Event 5

Beelzebufo: A Giant of a Find

           http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/animalsnature/beelzebufo/

Summary:

A team of researchers in Madagascar have found a fossil of possibly the biggest ever existing frog. This giant frog weighed 4.5 kilograms and could grow up to be 40.6 centimeters (which is about the size of a beach ball). Also, this frog was a predator and could kill lizards and maybe even small dinosaurs. This is why scientists named this frog Beelzebufo or “the devil frog”. The name Beelzebufo came from the Greek word “Beelzebub” which means devil and from the Latin word “Bufo” which means toad. Now, scientists are wondering why these frogs fossils were found in Madagascar because a close relative to a South American frog called “ceratophyrines” or “pac-man” frogs, because of their huge mouths. Some scientists think that Antarctica, South America and Madagascar could all have been connected by land in the Late Cretaceous Period. This gigantic frog is defiantly one of the biggest or even the biggest on the record of scientists. In, comparison to this frog the largest frog living today lives in West Africa is the goliath frog and could grow up to 31.7 centimeters long and could weigh 3.2 kilograms but in Madagascar today the biggest frog is only 10.1 centimeters long!

I think that this current event is good for our society because scientists have a taken a step forward and it will be easier for them to make further discoveries. I chose this article because I thought it was truly amazing how a frog could be so gigantic. I found this article because I went to http://kids.nationalgeographic.com and I looked what articles there were and I found this one the most amazing one of them. Also, National Geographic kids is a site which I really like and I go on it a lot to see all the interesting articles. From this article I learned a lot of interesting facts about the Beelzebufo frog. Also, I learned about other frogs in our world and a little about the prehistoric world. I agree with the scientists that this discovery is really important and very fascinating. I felt really amazed while reading this article because I thought that the sizes of the Beelzebufo are really huge and I was amazed about how much information scientists could uncover by just finding a fossil.