Galileo’s Journal by Jeanne Pettenati is a fictional book written as if it were Galileo’s real journal.  The events really happened.

During this time, Galileo made lots of discoveries.  He heard rumors about a spyglass that made far away things seem bigger. He made one himself and used it to look at the sky. He saw many things no one had seen before. It was a really exciting time.

I really like this book and recommend it for anyone who would like to read about Galileo.

A view of Mars taken by the Hubble space telescope. Image courtesy http://nasa.gov

From Earth, Mars looks like a red dot in the sky, even without a telescope.  Mars was named after the Roman god of war, maybe because it is red like blood.  When astronomers looked at Mars through a telescope, they saw dark lines.  In 1877, Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli made a map of these dark lines.  He called them “canali.”  This is a word for a natural path made by water, but some people saw the word and thought he saw canals.  Canals are made by people.  Some people thought that if there were canals on Mars, there must be life.  We don’t know how these features formed.  Maybe it was by water, but there is no water on Mars now except a little bit frozen at the poles.

Mars is the fourth planet from the sun.  It is a little smaller than Earth but takes about as much time to rotate on its axis as Earth.  This means that one day on Mars is about the same as one day on Earth.  It takes Mars about two years to go around the sun.

In 1609, Johannes Kepler studied Mars and thought it moved in a strange way across the sky.  Others of this time thought planets went in a perfect circle around the sun.  He proved that Mars does not travel this way.  In fact, all the planets travel in an elliptical pattern, but Mars’ orbit is more elliptical than most.

The view from Spirit's hazard avoidance camera sent back February 24, 2009. Image courtesy http://nasa.gov

Because Mars is relatively close and has a thin atmosphere, it has been heavily studied both from Earth and from space.  It currently has three satellites orbiting and studying the planet, the most of any planet other than Earth.  Its surface has many landers from various missions, some working and some out of service.  Spirit and Opportunity, twin rovers on opposite sides of the planet, are currently sending information about the Martian surface back to scientists.

He said, “It was one of the quiet, colorful afternoons of sheer beauty which we have in October in New England, and as I looked toward the fields at the east, I imagined how wonderful it would be to make some device which had even the possibility of ascending to Mars, and how it would look on a small scale, if sent up from the meadow at my feet.”

He was trying to make a rocket because a airplane couldn’t fly without gravity.  He took apart Chinese fireworks. They were powered by gunpowder, but gunpowder wouldn’t work for the rocket, because the rocket needed a strong steady push to keep it going. Finally he decided to use liquid oxygen and hydrogen. But fuel was hard to get because liquid oxygen had to be stored at -297′ F and hydrogen at -423′ F.

His first successful rocket was 10 1/2 feet tall and weighed 10 pounds. It was launched in 1926. His assistant lit the fuel with a blow torch. It went 41 feet high. The first flight lasted only 2.5 seconds but the space age had begun. He died in 1945 and never sent a rocket to space but but the Russian satellite Sputnik in 1957 and the American satellite Explorer in 1958 were descendants of Goddard’s rocket.

Here is how to make a a model liquid fueled rocket:You need :

• An empty wine bottle and cork
• baking soda
• tissue paper
• vinegar

What you do:

1. You take the wine bottle and put a half cup of vinegar in it.
2. Then you take it outside roll up a teaspoon of baking soda in the tissue paper.
3. Drop the packet of baking soda in the bottle and quickly stick in the cork; wait awhile;  the cork will fly through the air.

Submitted by The Swordmaster

DK Smithsonian’s Stargazer by Ben Morgan is part field guide and part experiment book. At 8 x 6 inches and 72 pages it is the perfect size for little hands. Stargazer is full of projects, diagrams, pictures, and information. The cover flaps are made of sturdy tag board and display 88 constellations for quick reference on starry nights.

Some of the things I learned were how to measure distance with my hand and how centrifugal force makes Saturn the flattest planet in our solar system. Some of the projects that interested me were making homemade moon craters, a sundial, drawing orbits, and a two stage rocket. There are over 30 projects in this book.

I really like that Stargazer has a lot of projects and experiments. It is also has great pictures and diagrams like star charts and latitude locators. It is also nice that is contains constellations of the Southern Hemisphere. Not all star books do that.

I wish Stargazer had included more information about how the constellations received their names. I really want to know why the Big Dipper and Little Dipper are not considered constellations but rather are part of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. I guess it is good because now I want to hunt up that information. Be warned this book also has a few references to millions and billions of years ago.

This is a great book for children (ages 6-12) who like to learn about space, especially if they like to learn by doing simple projects.

These are the phases of Venus. Image courtesy http://wikipedia.org

Venus is the brightest thing in the sky other than the sun and the moon.  Sometimes you can even see it before the sun goes down.  Because of this, it is also known as the evening star or the morning star.  In fact, people used to think that Venus was two separate, very bright stars.  Pythagoras, a Greek philosopher and mathematician, was supposedly the first person to realize that Venus was actually one planet rather than two stars.

Venus was named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty.  I think it was named after this goddess because it is very bright and pretty.  Venus shines so brightly because it is the second closest planet to the sun.  It is surrounded by very thick clouds which reflect a lot of sunlight.

These clouds also make it very difficult to study Venus.  Galileo was the first person to see Venus through a telescope way back in the 1600s, but he couldn’t see the surface.  Most telescopes we have cannot see through Venus’ thick clouds.

This is Venus' surface. Image courtesy http://wikipedia.org

In order to study Venus’s surface, we need to use radio telescopes.  These send radar through the clouds and back to earth for scientists to study.  On August 10, 1990, the space probe Magellan went into orbit around Venus and circled until October 12, 1994.  It gave us many maps of Venus by sending radio signals through the thick atmosphere and back to earth.

Venus’ surface looks a lot like our deserts mixed with some vocanos and LOTS of lava.  In fact, most of Venus’ surface has been shaped by volcanic activity, with lava rivers, lave hills and lava plains.

It takes Venus 225 Earth days to go around the sun one time.  But it takes Venus 243 Earth days to rotate on its axis one time, which means that a day on Venus is longer than a year!  Venus rotates on its axis opposite of most planets in the solar system.  Earth rotates from west to east while Venus rotates from east to west.

Venus’ thick clouds also trap a lot of heat, making temperatures on Venus reach as high as 900 degrees Fahrenheit.  As far as we know, there is no liquid water on Venus.  There may have been some, but it has all evaporated.  There is some water vapor in the clouds mixed with sulfur dioxide, which makes sulfuric acid.  This is poisonous to us.  There is also a lot of carbon dioxide.  This thick atmosphere is very heavy, making the air pressure there 90 times greater than on Earth.

Some probes have tried to land on Venus but the pressure is too great, and they only last a couple of hours.

Saturn's size in comparison to Earth. Image courtesy http://nasa.gov

Saturn is named for the Roman god Saturnus which is also where the word Saturday came from.  He was the Roman god of agriculture, justice and strength.  He was depicted as having a sickle in his left hand and a bundle of wheat in his right hand.  The sickle is where the symbol for Saturn comes from.

Saturn is the furthest planet from the sun that we can still see without a telescope.  In 1610, Galileo was the first person to look at Saturn through a telescope.  It looked to him like Saturn had ears.  Christian Huygens was the first person to see what these “ears” were.  Using a better telescope in 1656, he saw that Saturn had rings.  Saturn was the first planet found to have rings.  Now we know that these rings are made of rocks, chunks of ice and dust particles.

Saturn, along with Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, is known as a gas giant.  It is made up mostly of hydrogen and helium, and scientists believe that there are areas where the gases turn to liquid because of atmospheric pressure.  The planet is not very dense.  In fact, scientists think that if we had an ocean big enough, Saturn would even float!

Northern clouds of Titan, image courtesy http://nasa.gov

Saturn has at least 18 moons but only nine of them can be seen with a telescope from Earth.  The others were discovered by the Voyager space probes.  Saturn’s largest moon is Titan.  It is the second largest moon in the solar system, and is even bigger than the planet Mercury.  It is the only moon in our solar system that has clouds and a thick atmosphere.

The most recent space probe to visit Saturn was Cassini, part of a joint mission between NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and ESA (European Space Agency) which got to Saturn in 2004.  It released the Huygen space probe which went to Titan.  It took pictures, measurements and landed on Titan.  It survived a few hours on Titan’s surface and sent back pictures that looked like Earth.  You can learn more about this amazing moon by watching NASA’s video Saturn Moons Explorer, Titan.

Neptune's atmosphere, as shown by Voyager 2. Image courtesy http://nasa.gov

Neptune, the eighth planet from the sun, is also known as Uranus’ sister planet.  They are both gas giants, but Neptune is a little smaller than Uranus.  They are both made of gases.  They are both mostly made of hydrogen, helium and frozen methane.  This frozen methane is what makes them both blue.  They also both have rings, although they are not as impressive as Saturn’s, nor even as large as Jupiter’s.  Some of Neptune’s rings do not even go all the way around the planet!

Neptune was the first planet discovered because of math.  When Uranus was discovered, astronomers found that the planet was not always where they thought it should be.  They thought there had to be another very large planet pulling it away from its normal orbit.  It was finally seen in a telescope for the first time on September 23, 1846 by Johann Gottfried Galle.  It was very close to where mathematical calculations had predicted it should be.  Neptune was named for the Roman god of the sea because of its blue color.

Voyager 2 came within 3,ooo miles of Neptune in 1989 after 12 years.  It had traveled 3 billion miles!  The pictures it sent back increased our knowledge of the outer planets.  There are no more plans to send a probe to the gas giants, but one mission is planned to go to Pluto.

Mr. Jay Ryan and wife Debbie

1)  How did you first get interested in astronomy?

I was a kid during the Space Race in the 1960s and was 8 when Neil and Buzz first landed on the Moon.  All kids were interested in space back in those days,  especially the boys.  When I was 7, my schoolteacher showed our class how to find the constellations Orion and Taurus.  Since then, I’ve always known those constellations and a couple others like the Big Dipper, but didn’t really know much more about astronomy.  When I was 28 in 1989, I got seriously involved in astronomy as an adult hobby.  I made a telescope and began the learning program in astronomy that led to the present.

2)  What is the most exciting thing you have seen in the sky?

In 1989, the event that really kicked off my excitement was seeing a conjunction of Jupiter and Mars in Taurus, one of the few constellation that I knew at the time.  It was exciting to actually see planets for the first time!  Since then, I’ve seen some very exciting meteor showers and some beautiful lunar eclipses.  Also, Comet Hyakutake in 1996 and Comet Hale-Bopp were very exciting, since we may not see another “great comet” for another 100 years.

3)  What is your favorite planet?

While it’s fun to see Saturn’s rings through a telescope, I really like Jupiter the best.  It was the first planet I saw through a telescope.  It’s fun to watch Jupiter’s moons move around from night to night.  Jupiter is very bright in the night sky and hard to miss.

4)  What kind of equipment do you use to look at the night sky?

I mostly just look with my unaided eyes.  Sometimes I’ll use binoculars and rarely I’ll drag out the telescope.  In my opinion, telescopes are expensive and overrated.

5)  Why is it important to study astronomy?

It’s important to understand the techniques of timekeeping and navigation, as have been done for millennia.  Even if we use clocks and other instruments today, there is still value in understanding the traditional techniques, especially if the gadgets ever break.  Also, the sky is a very beautiful part of God’s creation.  The planets are easily visible to anyone who bothers to look.  We are living in a “dark age” of astronomy understanding and appreciation.  Most people today are not even aware that the planets are the brightest “stars” in the sky, visible on any clear night.  The media and the schools today have neglected this part of our
education.

6)  What is classical astronomy?

Classical Astronomy is the traditional approach to astronomy, as mentioned above.  It is the pre-telescopic method of observing the sky.  It is different from “modern astronomy” which is the approach of using telescopes and space probes to learn about obscure objects in space, such as black holes and exo-planets.  Classical astronomy has been studied since ancient times and was still an important part of education in early America.  The colonial almanacks were an important resource in classical astronomy that were read by everyone, from educated professors to simple farmers.

7)  Would you mind telling us a little about the curriculum you wrote?

Signs & Seasons is a Biblical homeschool curriculum for helping homeschoolers learn the traditional methods of observing the sky.  The students will learn to observe the constellations, and understand the cycles of the Sun, Moon and planets.  In the process, the students will gain an understanding for astronomical basis of timekeeping, the cycles of the Day, the Month, and the Year.  The students will also learn the basics of finding direction from the Sun, Moon and stars.  We have also released a companion workbook to Signs & Seasons that will enable older students to establish high school credit.  Through the Signs & Seasons program, we hope that a generation of Christian homeschoolers will reclaim an understanding of the sky for Jesus.

The first real telescope was made by Galileo Galilei in 1609. He improved on the ideas of Lippershey, a lens maker who created a crude telescope. Galileo saw things like Jupiter’s moons, Saturn’s rings, and the stars in the Milky Way.  It changed the way people saw our place in the universe.

Most of the well-known telescopes used by astronomers today are reflecting telescopes. Most of the designs of the reflecting telescopes (except off-axis designs) have a mirror in the pathway between the end the light comes through and the end you see through. Reflecting telescopes are much more complicated than refracting telescopes. There are 7 common types of reflecting telescopes.

There is another type of telescopes called refracting telescopes. The same principle for these telescopes is used in binoculars and some long camera lenses. Refracting telescopes are actually simpler than reflecting telescopes, but sound much more complicated. It uses a concave mirror to reflect the image to a smaller mirror. This reduces the size of the image so it is easier to see.

There are 4 common different types of refracting telescopes (see the diagram). The longest telescope ever built was the Archenhold Observatory in Berlin. It is 21cm and the focal length is 21 meters. It is still functioning today! Just go to Berlin and ask your interpreter for the Archenhold Observatory.

To some people, astronomy is a hobby. For others it’s a job. Everybody should look through a telescope at least once. There are telescopes that will magnify Pluto so big you can’t see the whole thing at one time.

Telescope diagrams courtesy

http://www.williams.edu/astronomy/Course-Pages/111/Images/reflect-tel-types.gif

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Gabrielle Hawthorne is 10 and home educates with her sister and two brothers. She enjoys arts and crafts. When she grows up she would like to do something in the medical field.  Visit her Etsy shop, My Sister and Me!
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Links you might like to add:

400 years of the telescope
http://www.norcalblogs.com/telescope/production/

Cool kid website about astronomy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refracting_telescope

NASA kids club
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forkids/kidsclub/flash/index.html