What do the aliens call their own planets?
(Internet search by a sixth-grader)
When astronomers were first observing the solar system, they were uncertain how many planets it contained. Planet X was the name assigned to a hypothetical large planet orbiting somewhere beyond Neptune according to World of Scientific Discovery, one of many reference resources in Gale’s Science in Context
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Located in a clean room at the Kennedy Space Center in preparation for a February launching, is an eight-ton assemblage of magnets, wires, and other electronic components; one of the most ambitious and complicated experiments ever to set out for space.
Scientists hope that the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer will lend important insights into what makes up the universe. In late February or early March, the space shuttle Endeavour will ferry the spectrometer to a permanent berth on the International Space Station (ISS).
But the real destination is the shadow universe. The device is designed to sift the high-energy particles flying through space known as cosmic rays. The experiment, if it succeeds, could help NASA take a giant step toward answering the question of what the universe is made of.
It could also confer scientific glory on both the International Space Station and a celebrated physicist reaching one last time, literally, for the stars. If it fails, it will validate critics who think it a scandal the experiment was ever approved.
You might think you learned in high school that the universe is made of atoms and molecules, protons and electrons, stars and galaxies, but over the last few decades astronomers have concluded (not happily) that all this is just a scrim overlying a much vaster shadowy realm of invisible “dark matter” whose gravity determines the architecture of the cosmos.
If they are lucky, scientists say, the Alpha spectrometer could confirm that mysterious signals recorded by other satellites and balloons in recent years are emanations from that dark matter, revealing evidence of particles and forces that have only been theoretical dreams until now. Knowing what nature is made of could be useful someday in ways nobody can dream. Einstein’s curved space-time, equally elusive to the senses, proved crucial to the function of GPS devices that were invented decades after Einstein’s death.
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The world celebrates the International Year of Astronomy in 2009. This celebration of the importance of the science of astronomy coincides with the 400th anniversary of Galileo‘s use of a telescope to study the skies and Johaness Kepler’s publication of Astronomia Nova which validated the work of Copernicus that the Earth and other planets orbit the sun.
ProQuest has created a BookCart learning activity to help your students learn more about astronomy and telescopes for exploring the universe Astronomy: Telescopes, and Life on Other Planets.
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