OBJECTIVE:  I will be able to sketch the solar system and all the major bodies in it after today's class.

WORD FOR TODAY:

• Sol ("Our Sun")
• Asteroid ("Rocks in space" otherwise known as "Flying Potatoes" )
• Comet ("A dirty snowball")
• Meteor ("Rocks falling to Earth")
• Moon ("A rocky body orbiting a planet")
• Planet ("A spherical body orbiting a star")
  • Mercury
  • Venus
  • Earth
  • Mars
  • Jupiter *(has rings!)
  • Saturn *(has rings!)
  • Uranus *(has rings!)
  • Neptune *(has rings!)
• Dwarf Planet:
  • Pluto
  • Eris
  • Haumea
• Astronomical Unit (1 AU = 150,000,000 km = ~ 100,000,000 miles)

WORK O' THE DAY: 

Let's finish our charts-- remember, planetary distances to the sun are at scale but planet sizes ARE not).

Also, please add the number of moons that each planet has (if any)

Let's also tape our planets right there on the chart so we can recollect what they look like:

 

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When you are finished, please tape your posters up on one of the white boards and we'll have a 'gallery walk' to compare!

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Now that we have some practice in size and scale, let us GREATLY expand our understanding of the size and scale of our solar system by creating a new chart to include the following (also, please do a wee bit of research on each):

Dwarf Planets (how does a 'dwarf planet' differ from a 'normal' planet?):

• Haumea
• Pluto, Charon
• Makemake (hint: it is not pronounced make - make)

Comet Clouds:

• Kuiper Belt
• Oort Cloud

Voyager 1 Spacecraft (please add this too!)

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The Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft have been in flight since my high school days (mid 1970's). They are currently making their way through the Kuiper Belt)

Voyager I:

Current Flight Time: (launched September 5, 1977 so right at 47 years)

Current Speed: 17 km/second! (10.5 miles/sec)

Current Distance from Earth: 24.4 billion km

Onboard Computer Processing Speed: 8,000 instructions per sec (my laptop processes about 1.5 *billion* instructions per second)

Onboard Computer Memory: 70 kilobytes (my laptop has 16 billion bytes of memory)

Onboard power supply: Radio-Thermal Generator (RTG) output = 470 Watts at launch, around 300 watts now (a regular ol' table lamp light bulb is usually around 100 Watts). The radio transmitter that communicates with NASA's Deep Space Network uses about 100 Watts.

Propulsion System: None. There are small jets used to maneuver the spacecraft. They were fired up in 2017 for the first time since 1980!)