JUPITER:  "EPIC-NESS" IN A PLANET FORM

Hey, this is Jack at my epic blog! I am going to talk about ...well, come on!  What's the title?  Anyway, time for the "epic-ness" to start. 
 
The planet Jupiter is named after the Roman god Jupiter, who was the king of the Roman gods:

It makes sense to name the planet after the king of the gods because Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system.  It's truly massive.  More than 1,000 Earths could fit inside Jupiter!  Here's a visual.  The big planet is Jupiter, and the tiny blue planet next to it is Earth:

 
This massive size is the reason the gravity on Jupiter is the strongest in our entire solar system.  The gravity on Jupiter is about 2.5 times what it is on Earth.

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun. 

Here's a picture of Jupiter.  This picture is epic because it's actually a true color picture of Jupiter:

Jupiter is a gas-giant planet.  It doesn't have a solid surface.  Gas-giant planets are called "Jovian" planets (Jupiter-like).  There are four of them:  Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.  The inner planets are not gas-giants.; they're called "terrestrial" planets.  They're mostly solid, and they include Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.

Scientists think that Jupiter has an inner, solid core that is about the size of the Earth.

Jupiter's atmosphere is made up mostly of hydrogen and helium. 

Jupiter has a giant red spot on it, called the "Great Red Spot," or "The Eye of Jupiter."  Here it is: 

This "spot" is not a spot at all.  It's actually a humongous storm.  I mean really humongous.  The storm itself is about the size of two or three Earths!  This storm has been going on for hundreds of years!

Jupiter has many, many moons.  Fifty moons are known.  There are 17 more moons that are waiting to be confirmed as actual moons.  For those of you who hate addition, that's a total of 67 moons!


One of Jupiter's moons is called Europa.  Here's a truly epic pic:

Europa is an icy moon.  The surface contains many cracks in the ice.  It's a little bit smaller than the Earth's moon.  Scientists think that Europa has some qualities that are similar to Earth:  an iron core, a rocky mantle, and a surface ocean of salty water.  Can you believe that?  The problem is, this ocean is so deep that it covers the entire surface of Europa.  Because Europa is so far from the sun, the surface of the ocean is basically frozen over. 

The ocean may not be frozen solid, however.  Recently, the Hubble telescope captured a picture of a puff of water vapor that was spouting about 125 miles above the surface of Europa.  Here's an artist's interpretation of what it looked like:

Even though it's frozen on the surface, the water spout supports the theory that the water underneath may not be completely frozen.  This is because the friction created by Jupiter's gravitational pull on Europa generates some heat.  It's water may have the right chemistry to sustain some very basic aquatic life.


Five interesting facts about Jupiter:
(1) If you think about the sun as being the size of a regular front door, in comparison, the Earth would be the size of a nickel, and Jupiter would be the size of a basketball!
(2)  Many space missions have gone to Jupiter.  There's another one scheduled to take place in 2016.  It's called the Juno mission, named after the Juno probe.  Here's a pic:

(3) Another word for Jupiter is "Jove."  That's why scientists refer to things about Jupiter as "Jovian." 
(4)  It takes Jupiter only 10 hours to rotate on its axis, compared to 24 for Earth.
(5)  A year on Jupiter lasts 4,333 days, or about 12 Earth-years!


That's all about Jupiter.  Thanks for reading my blog.

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The Second Class Citizens of the Solar System

Hi, this is Jack at my epic blog! Breaking news: there are other things besides planets in the Solar System!  These other things may not get all the glory, but they're worth talking about.  If only because that's our assignment for this week.  Let's address these second-rate space inhabitants one by one.

Comets
Comets may not be the "stars" of the universe (get it?), but they are extremely rare objects in space.  They come from either the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud, which are large groups of asteroids.  They can be in either of those places for billions of years!  Until, one sad day, they crash into the wrong comet.  The crash sends them shooting in the direction of our Inner Solar System.  That's where we meet them.  And that's where they will ultimately MEET THEIR END!

Physically, they're like the snowballs of the universe.  They are frozen balls made up of rock, ice, dust, methane, and ammonia.  Ever wonder what they look like?  Here's a pic:

 

Epic, huh?

Comets have four parts: a nucleus, (the solid part), a coma, (no, it's not asleep, it means the aura around it), a dust tail, and a ion (gas) tail.

Here's a diagram of the parts of the comet.  Get ready for a snooze fest:

 

Just kidding, diagrams are epic!  Back to comets.

A comet can spend billions of years in the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud, but once they get close to the sun, it's the beginning of the end.  The comets begin to melt.  That's where the brilliant tails come from.  After a few thousand years, they're reduced to nothing more than a little ice and dust. 

Betcha didn't know this:  Scientists consider comets to be small worlds, and sometimes call them planetesimals.

Well, that's a comet. 

Asteroids

Asteroids and comets have a few things in common.  They're both considered leftovers from the giant cloud of gas and dust that ultimately formed the universe billions of years ago.  An asteroid is a lump of . . . rock. Plain, old rock. They always have north and south poles. Just like Earth!  As I have already brilliantly stated above, a comet is a chunk of rock too, but it also contains ice, dust and gases.  Here's a picture on an asteroid:

Another difference between asteroids and comets:  asteroids orbit the sun in an asteroid belt that runs between Mars and Jupiter, while comets orbit from way further away.

Betcha didn't know this:  Although it's sometimes hard to tell if you're looking at an asteroid or a comet, a comet appears "fuzzy" when viewed through a telescope.

Meteoroids, Meteorites,  and Meteors

Ok, so what's the difference between meteorites, meteors, and meteoroids?  Everything starts with meteoroids:

• Meteoroids are little chunks of rocks and debris from space.
• Meteoroids become meteors (aka shooting stars) when they interact with a planet's atmosphere and cause a streak of light in the sky.
• Debris from meteoroids that make it to the surface of a planet are called meteorites.

Got it? Good.

This is what a meteor looks like:

 

It's hard to get a good picture of a meteoroid because we usually see them after they become meteors.

Meteorites can be as small as a grain or as large as a boulder.  Most meteorites are either iron, stony, or stony-iron.  Cool, huh?

Meteor showers are associated with comets.  Comets often leave a dusty trail when they come around the sun.  The Earth passes through these dusty comet trails.  This allows debris to enter the Earth's atmosphere, where it burns up.  The burning up of the debris creates fiery and colorful streaks (which are the meteors) in the sky:

Meteoroids, meteors, and meteorites cannot support life.  But betcha didn't know this:  they may have provided the Earth with amino acids, which are the building blocks of life!

Comets, asteroids and meteorites give us clues to the origins of the Universe.  Have they told us everything there is to know?  We don't know! So . . .  even though they are the "second class citizens" of the Solar System, and even though they are very, very old, I think that scientists should continue to study them.  Who knows what discoveries are on the horizon.

Thanks for reading my blog.

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 DIE, VEGETABLES, DIE!!

KIDS HATE VEGETABLES.  Overstatement?  Ok, I'll modify that a little.  MOST kids hate MOST vegetables.  There, better? 

Parents are always pushing kids to eat vegetables.  WHY, oh why do they load up our plates with this nasty stuff?  Unfortunately, there are many good reasons.  I hate to admit any of them, but here are two:

(1)  Vegetables are very HEALTHY.  This is just one of many, many articles listing the health benefits of vegetables:
http://www.choosemyplate.gov/food-groups/vegetables-why.html

(2)  Adults have fewer taste buds than kids, so they can't tell (and they apparently do not remember) how vile most vegetables taste.  Kids suffer much more when we eat vegetables than adults do:
http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/difference-between-taste-buds-adults-kids-27362.html

Some inventor guy in Japan named Dr. Takayuki Kosaka thinks he can get kids to eat vegetables.  He works at the Kanagawa Institute for Technology in Tokyo, Japan. Here's what the dude looks like.  Check out how happy he is.

Dr. Kosaka has invented a sensory video game called Food Practice Shooter.  It requires the player to move through a city looking for "bad guys." Sounds like a million other video games, right?  Well, with this one, the "bad guys" are giant . . . VEGETABLES. Yes. Vegetables. They're trying to take over the city.  Seriously.  Here's a view of the game.  Sooooo . . .  here come the GIANT . . . carrots? And, uh, peppers!  And, oh my, tomatoes!  LOOK OUT!!  FIERCE VEGETABLES ON THE LOOSE!!

The object of the game is to shoot down the invading giant vegetables.  You shoot them down with more, umm, vegetables. So, how does this thing get kids to actually EAT vegetables?  The game includes three scales which must be loaded up with actual vegetables in order for the game to work.  You have to wear headphones that contain sensors.  Every time you fire, your ammunition is depleted.  There's only one way to get more ammo.  You must chew your vegetables AND - get this - SMILE while you're doing it!  The headphones can sense a chewing motion! You must smile at a camera on the controller while chewing!  Or else, no more ammo.  Game over. Wanh wah.

So it seems kind of stupid and it pretty much is. The only cool thing that I can see is the controller.  It looks like a rocket launcher (check out happy guy above again . . . he's holding the controller).

I think this game would be better if kids got to shoot junk food with vegetables.  Shooting vegetables with vegetables doesn't make any sense.

 

Well that's it.  I wouldn't play this game.  Would you?

Thanks for reading my blog.

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MARS

Hello, and welcome to my epic blog.  Today I'm going to talk about the planet  . . .  MARS! 

Mars is the fourth planet from the sun and the second smallest planet in the Solar System.  See it?

Here's a close up view of Mars:

It looks reddish, right?  Mars is often called "The Red Planet" because iron minerals in the soil oxidize, or rust, giving the surface a reddish appearance.  This reddish coloring reminded ancient Roman astronomers of blood.  Therefore, they named the little planet after Mars, their god of war:

Side note:  The ancient Greeks who also named the planet after their god of war, Ares:

Back to Mars, the planet.

Mars is a rocky planet.  If you look closely at the surface, you'll see evidence of volcanoes and craters:

Mars has a cold, thin atmosphere, made up mostly of carbon dioxide (about 95%).  It also contains small amounts nitrogen and argon. 

Mars is much colder than Earth, mostly because it is so much further from the Sun.  The average temperature is about minus 64 degrees F!  

Side note:  The coldest place on Earth is Vostok, Antarctica.  The average winter temperature there is minus 75 degrees F.  It's also where the coldest temperature ever on Earth was recorded - minus 128.56 degrees F!!!

Back to Mars . . .

Like Earth, Mars experiences seasons due to the tilt of its rotational axis.  These seasons are a lot more extreme than Earth's because of its oval-shaped orbit around the Sun.  The atmosphere on Mars is a lot less dense than the atmosphere on Earth, but it can still support weather, clouds, and winds.  Mars has many large dust storms, which can blanket the planet in red dust and can last for months.

Mars is covered with channels, valleys, and gullies.  These suggest that water might have flowed over the surface of Mars in recent times.  The atmosphere now is cold and thin, which means that liquid water cannot currently exist on the surface for any length of time.

In 2001, a probe launched by the United States found vast amounts of water ice beneath the surface of Mars.  We're not sure if more water lies beneath.

While Earth has only one moon, Mars has two:

They are named Phobos and Deimos and were discovered by an American astronomer in 1877:

 The moons are named after the sons of the Greek god Ares.  "Phobos" means "fear," while "deimos" means "rout," or "expel by force."

Phobos and Deimos are made of carbon-rich rock mixed with  ice.  They are covered in dust and loose rocks.  They're tiny compared to Earth's moon.  As you can see, they're irregularly shaped.  The surface of both moons show crater impacts.  Scientists are not sure whether the moons are really asteroids that were captured by Mars' gravitational pull, or whether they were formed in orbit around Mars at the same time Mars came into existence.

NASA recently sent a rover named Curiosity to Mars.  Curiosity is a six wheeled robot that is about the size of a car. This is no ordinary robot - Curiosity has parts that are meant to be similar to human parts.  It has a "body," (a structure), "brains," (computers), temperature controls, "head," (cameras),  and "limbs," (parts for mobility), among other things.  

The first part of Curiosity's mission is to see if Mars ever could have supported microbes, which are small life forms.  The second part is to see if people could survive on Mars some day. 

Now . . . MY TOP FIVE INTERESTING FACTS FOR THE PLANET MARS!!!

5.  Mars has seasons!
4.  Mars has a solid terrain!
3.  Mars contains dry ice!
2.  Ancient Chinese astronomers called Mars "the fire star."

And my number one interesting fact about Mars is . . . .  Among the planets in our Solar System, Mars is the top candidate for supporting human life!

Thanks for reading my blog!



SOLAR SYSTEM:  MERCURY AND VENUS

Get ready.  I'm about to compare and contrast the planets Mercury and Venus.  Sounds boring?  Well, I wouldn't let that happen!
First, let's talk about Mercury.

This is the Roman god Mercury.  Percy Jackson fans, this is all review for you.  Unless you've never read the "Heroes of Olympus" series.  If you only read the original Percy Jackson series, your "Mercury" is the Greek version of the god, named Hermes, and he looks like this:

So what does this have to do with the planet Mercury? The planet was actually named after the god.  Good to know, huh! 
Back to the planet Mercury.  Here's what it looks like:

This may look like a boring chunk of rock, but Mercury is actually a pretty intense and extreme planet. Mercury is the closest planet to the sun.  See . . .

You would think it would be extremely hot on Mercury because it's so close to the sun.  Well, you'd be half right. This is because Mercury rotates very slowly.  So the side facing the side gets extremely hot, while the other side gets extremely cold.
If Earth ever challenged Mercury to a race around the sun, Earth would lose big time.  Mercury speeds around the sun at around 48 kilometers per second.  Our planet can only manage about 30 kilometers per second. 

This is Mercury.

This is Earth.

There is no atmosphere on Mercury.  That means it doesn't have a sky.  It's more like an asteroid floating in space.

An atmosphere like the one on Earth stops asteroids before they hit by burning them up.  Because there's no atmosphere on Mercury, Mercury gets pelted by asteroids every day.

If you were to stand on Mercury, all you'd see is stars.  This would never happen:

I'd choose Earth any day.  Enough about Mercury.

Now on to Venus.

Yep, you guessed it.  This is the Roman goddess, Venus.  For Percy Jackson fans who never kept reading, you know this goddess as Aphrodite:

Do I really have to tell you that the planet Venus is named after the goddess?  No?  I didn't think so.

Venus is second-closest to the sun.  Check this out again . . .

 


It's often been stated that Venus is our sister planet. Untrue. Completely untrue.

Venus is hot to the hottest degree. Way hotter than Mercury even though it's farther away from the sun.

You can thank CO2 for that. Thick clouds block the sun completely, but they lock in the heat, therefore it is never cool.
Also, Venus is naturally volcanic.  Magma and sulfur pits create lots of CO2, which is locked in by the clouds, creating a mega greenhouse effect. 

A day on Venus would feel like a day doing algebra problems.  One day on Venus literally lasts eight Earth-months. 

So that's it, epic scientist.  Now you know everything you need to know about Mercury and Venus. 
See ya, people.

  A "Bit" of Bitumen = A BIG Problem

Ok, so you know what oil is, right?  And you've seen oil spills before.  Total disasters.  They're in the news all the time.  Remember the huge BP oil spill a few years ago?  Remember that they couldn't stop the oil for a long time?  That spill hurt wildlife, harmed the water, and ruined a lot of beaches for a long time.
Just a little reminder:

On June 26, 2010, a different kind of oil leak occurred.  Some people living along Talmadge Creek in Marshall, Michigan were awakened to a sharp smell.  They noticed that the water in the creek was shiny and black.  Turns out oil had been spilling into the creek from a rupture in a nearby oil pipeline since the night before.

A spill of conventional oil would be bad enough, but this case happened to be worse than that.  Because this was a spill of diluted bitumen. What is bitumen?  Well, it's basically a super-thick version of oil.  But it's worse than oil, because it's so thick it can't flow through pipes on its own.  It has to be treated with chemicals to dilute it enough to get it to flow.  Scientists have learned that bitumen can sink in water. This makes it especially hard to remove. 

 Imagine trying to get to the bottom of creeks and rivers to get all of the bitumen out.  

Another bad thing about bitumen?  It contains a lot of bacteria.  

Why are we even talking about bitumen anyway?  Companies never used to mine bitumen.  It was too thick and expensive to remove.  But now, the world is running out of conventional oil that was easy and cheap to extract.  So we're moving on to the difficult and expensive stuff.  

That means we can expect more bitumen spills in the future.  Yea.  

This spill had a huge impact on wildlife.  People tried to save the animals.  They saved 90% of the turtles they found, and 80% of the birds.  Even though they also found a lot of muskrats, none of them survived. 

Surprisingly, no fish were killed.  Scientists think they all swam away.  But before we celebrate, we have no idea if this spill will affect the fish in the future.  Remember that bitumen sinks?  Who knows what's at the bottom of the waterways.

 



       Hello, reader! Today, the topic is. . .  galaxies!

       Galaxies are groups of stars, gas, and dust. They are held together by gravity.  There are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe.

      A supercluster is a group of galaxies stuffed together.  This is what it looks like:

  
 http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~ghezgroup/gc/journey/images/gc_color.jpg

There are four different shapes of galaxies:

• Elliptical galaxies.  They look like flat spheres.

http://cas.sdss.org/dr5/en/proj/basic/galaxies/images/ellipt2.jpg

• Irregular galaxies.  They have no symmetrical shape and they don't look like any other kinds of galaxies.

 https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7jHWTEzKoxfTWrasQuNN1-5dl6RTb8xC0BoYRugeyJ-RrI8kJYvVfneGmm_n2JPNWxk0uCEub1AUedQPodrFs8qmVDF6aCJCbum8zBudU5mCNJZzJdIJpy9YB8r8OCh42snUvLxKRAnM/s1600/Large+Magellanic+Cloud.jpg

• Spiral galaxies.  They look like a pinwheel. 

 http://padante.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Galaxy-crash-sparks-large-spiral.jpg

• Barred spiral galaxies.  They are like spiral galaxies but they have a band of stars across the center.

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn14431/dn14431-1_425.jpg

     Scientists believe that every galaxy has a black hole in the center. For epic info on black holes, visit my earlier post. Black holes are like parasites, eating away at the galaxy they inhabit. Eat, eat, eat. Sometimes, they eat too fast and get indigestion. Kidding. But they do spit out quasars, or pure beams of energy. This is incredibly destructive.

     Galaxies are moving away from each other as a result of left over "big bang" energy.  The center of the universe, where the "big bang" started, is pushing the galaxies out with energy that has still not died out.

      A Doppler shift is when galaxies are pushed away from, or pulled toward, each other.  A redshift is a galaxy that is being pushed away.  The galaxy has a reddish hue because it's heading toward the red end of the electromagnetic spectrum.  A blueshift is a galaxy that is being pulled toward another galaxy.  It has a bluish hue because it's heading toward the blue end of the electromagnetic spectrum.






http://www.astro.cornell.edu/share/sharvari/websiteV7/images/doppler.jpg


Thanks for reading my blog.  See you next time!