Harry Rose Session 2 – 22nd January 2016
Today we learnt a lot of facts about space but unfortunately there was a power cut half way through! Mr Rose kept speaking and we will watch the rest of the power point next time.
There are 88 constellations but we can’t see them all from Shetland because some are in the Northern Hemisphere and some are in the Southern Hemisphere.
Some of the ice in Antartica is 3 miles thick!
There is land underneath Antartica (south pole) but just water underneath the Arctic (North Pole)
The highest mountain on earth is underneath Antartica!
Planet Earth is the only place we know for definite where life exists.
You get hit by micro meteorites everyday! You don’t feel anything because they’re just a speck of dust.
Every year 50000 tonnes of space dust falls to earth.
Comets are made from rock and ice.
The ice melts as it gets near to the sun and this makes the comet’s tail. It’s tail always points away from the sun because it blasts it in the opposite direction.
Comets orbits are very big and make oval shaped paths in space. Comet Catalina is passing through the plough constellation at the moment.
Satellites move slowly across the sky and have solar panels to generate electricity.
It is possible to see the ISS from Shetland but you need to know exactly when it will pass and have a clear sky to spot it.
The next closet star to us is 43 TRILLION kilometres away!!! It would take us 70000 years to travel there at the speed of light. A message from there would take 4 1/2 YEARS to get to us, travelling at the speed of light!
The speed of light is 300000 km per second or 300000000 m per second.
The sun is just over 4 1/2 billion years old and is about half way through it’s life.
The moon moves further away from earth every year.
A light year is a unit of distance, not time.
A parsec is even bigger than a light year.
