Activity: Take a ride through space and take on the role of a newspaper reporter. Your assignment is to choose your favorite planet, other than Earth, and research the physical characteristics and location of that planet in our solar system. Your research will also include an interview of a classmate about their knowledge of the planet. Write a newspaper article about your new discoveries. Here is some related information.
1.Solar system
2.Blast off
3.Space Control
 
 
 
 
 

Fill in the blank questions:

1. Name the nine planets in our Solar System?

2. Mercury is the_______ planet to the sun?

3. What is the largest planet?

4. What is the last planet is our solar system?

5. What determine the days and years for each planet?
 
 

    After your solar space tour as a reporter and after your have completed questions above,  please choose a book from the online source link below or from the library. Choose a book about your favorite planet and prepare a presentation for the class. Please use Internet sources as well as the library for your presentation. Below is more information about the history of Astronomy.

Reading about the Planet for Presentation:
 
 

Background Information from the Internet :
    Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are the five planets visible to the human eye. Although the planets look like stars, they do not move like stars. Ancient stargazers noticed that five stars changed position with respect to the other
stars and each other. The Greeks called these stars planets, which means "wanderers". For hundreds of years researchers tried to explain the motion of these "wandering stars". Students can learn more about early astronomers and their work by doing library research on Aristarchus of Samos, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler.

    Astronomers began using the telescope to study the sky in the 1600's. For over 300 years the telescope was the most important tool for astronomers. Galileo made some of the earliest discoveries with the telescope. However, Galileo did not invent the telescope; he was not even the first to use a telescope to study the sky. Galileo is known for his careful observations and the detailed records in his journal. Galileo sketched the features of the moon and even measured some of the mountains. He discovered the four large satellites of Jupiter. Galileo observed that Venus went through phases like the phases of the moon. Sunspots were discovered independently by Galileo, Fabricius and Scheiner. Around 1655
Christian Huygens discovered the rings of Saturn and Saturn's largest moon. In 1781 William Herschel discovered Uranus. Later he discovered two new satellites of Saturn and two satellites of Uranus. Leverrier and Adams calculated the
approximate location of Neptune. Using these calculations, Galle and d'Arrest where able to confirm Neptune's existence in 1846. In 1930 Clyde Tombaugh confirmed the existence of Pluto. In 1950 Jan Oort described the Oort Cloud, the source of comets. Halley predicted the return one of the most famous comets, now called Comet Halley. Shoemaker and Levy discovered the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 that hit Jupiter in 1994. To learn more about telescope research, students
can do library research about any of the people mentioned above(NASA, 1997).

Lesson #4+#5 

    Now let's build on your knowledge about the solar system with some more activities. What do you think your weight would be on the other planets? Let's make some predictions for each planets. List the planets in order and take a guess at your weight for each space planet.
    Now its time to really find out what you would weight on other planets  through some simple calculations!
    Below are the variable you need to calculate your weight on other planets! You can use a calculator or venture into your mind and use your brain to figure out the answers!

Moon-0.17
Mercury-0.38
Venus-0.86
Mars-0.38
Jupiter-2.87
Saturn-1.32
Uranus-0.93
Neptune-1.23
 Example: 0.17*120pounds=20.40 pounds on the moon
    Please take these numbers, one at a time and multiply each one by your weight. Anotherwards take the planet's gravity times your weight=Your weight on each planet. Please use the same weight for all of the equations, then chart your results by using a data table. Please graph your results by using any graph form of your choice.
 

    Next, Please image what your age would be on each of these planets if you moved there today. Chart your predictions.
    Now let's complete a simple exercise to find out what your actual new age would be on each planet.
    First take the terrestrial planets (the one closest to the sun) and follow the instructions below:
 
 1.Figure your age in Earth days=your age * 365
 2.Divide your age in Earth days by the number of Earth days in a planet's year. The answer is your new age on that planet.
Use chart for variables:

Mercury=88Earth days
Venus=225 Earth days
Mars=687 Earth days

Example for Mercury:age=20years old
20*365=7300
7300/88(Earth days in Mercury's year)=83yrs old
The 20 year old person would be 83 year old on Mercury.
 

   Second, the outer planets equations.
For the outer planet, find the number of earth days in each planet's year. The divide your age in days by the number of Earth days in that planet's year. The answer is your new age on that planet.
Use the chart below for variables:

Jupiter=12 Earth years
Saturn=29.5 Earth years
Uranus=84 Earth years
Neptune=165 Earth years
Pluto=248 Earth years
 

Example for Jupiter:
20year old * 365 =7300 earth days old
12 Earth years * 365 Earth days/year=4380 Earth days in one Jupiter year.
7300/4380=1.7
The 20 year old person would be 1.7 years old on Jupiter.

    Please chart and graph your results.
The compare and contrast the weight and age prediction to the actual results from your equations and write a one page summary about your scientific findings.