STARDATE 322 | Friday 17th July 2009 Well we’re all packed up and ready for our hols - sunglasses and a kagoul, suncream and a fleece - done! We hope you have a relaxing break and look forward to seeing you again on Friday 11 September. Ta-ra chucks! The line-up this week: Gimme Five – fascinating facts about the lunar landings Planet SciCast Mouses at the Ready 1 – Piece of aerogel Planet Pick of the Week – Get Outside! Stump the Scientist – Tea for two? Activity of the Week – Water Powered Rocket Mouses at the Ready 2 – Flipsides Noticeboard – FYI Recommended websites of the week The Winners’ Enclosure Joke of the Week 1. Gimme Five Fascinating facts about the lunar landings 1. Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon. 2. The first steps by humans on another planetary body were taken by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on July 20, 1969. 3. The first samples from another planetary body were basalts, dark-colored igneous rocks, and they were about 3.7 billion years old. 4. The lunar module (LM) had to be ridiculously light. It didn't even have seats and the astronauts had to stand during the landing. 5. The iconic full-frontal image of an Apollo 11 astronaut looking directly into the camera is actually Buzz Aldrin. Want more? The Apollo program The fifteen essential moon landing facts Apollo Gadgets : Videos of gadgets from the lunar expedition Have you got FIVE facts about anything/everything? Preferably science-based of course (we’re not called Planet Science for nothing y’know). If so, send it along to us at planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk with GIMME FIVE in the subject line. Back to Top 2. Planet SciCast Did you see SciCast judge Jem Stansfield get electrocuted live on BBC1 on Tuesday? No? Then you'll have missed the grand contraption being foiled by the reluctant inflatable rabbit, and having to be a saved by a gaffer with a big lump of wood. Not to worry, though, as you can view the whole thing again at the Bang Goes The Theory website www.bbc.co.uk/bang. Meanwhile, we have another prime example of coping with things going wrong on SciCast - the Boat Bother film. How do you make a film of a demonstration that plain doesn't work? Watch this and find out, it's great stuff. Two bits of homework over the Summer, then: first, take advantage of the spare time and long hours of daylight to make a startlingly brilliant SciCast film (obviously). Secondly, watch Jem in Bang Goes The Theory, starting on BBC1, Mondays, 1930, from 27th July. Enjoy the Summer! Back to Top 3. Mouses at the Ready - 1 The primary objective of the Stardust mission is to capture both cometary samples and interstellar dust. To collect particles without damaging them, Stardust uses an extraordinary substance called aerogel. The aerogel aboard the Stardust Spacecraft is fitted into a “tennis racket” shaped collector. This is unfolded from the protective Sample Return Capsule to expose it to space during flight. WHAT, you may ask, is aerogel? Aerogel is the lightest and lowest-density solid known to exist. It is typically 50-99.5% air, yet can hold (theoretically) 500 to 4,000 times its weight in applied force. Find out more about aerogel And guess what? We have a piece of aerogel to give away! If you’d like to win it then send your name and address and the words ‘GEL’ in the subject line, to planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk. The draw will take place at 4pm on Tuesday 21st July. Back to Top 4. Planet Pick of the Week Get Outside This is a good ‘Get Outside!’ for the Great British Summer because you could have just as much fun with it if you Stay Inside! It tackles the world of, well, you know, stuff. In particular the stuff you make stuff out of. It also taps into that most universal of all childhood impulses - to stuff ‘stuff’ in your pockets and collect it. So for all you parents and teachers of the young, we are very proud to present the beautiful and informative ‘Get Outside! Materials’. You get to go diamond hunting, see what happens when you raise and lower the temperature of water, run around collecting stuff, tap rubber, pop into space for a bit and generally explore the world of materials. We’ve even got labels you can print up, so start saving up those pickled onion jars... Visit Get Outside! on the Planet Science website Back to Top 5. Stump the Scientist Image credit: Shutterspeaks.com Last week a query from Sarah Wust, Science co-ordinator at John Randall Primary School “I have noticed the following - and thought you were the best people to ask! Quite often I make my husband and I a cup of tea. One tea bag in each cup. The only difference between the two cups is that I take sugar where my husband doesn't. So that I can remember which one I have put sugar in, I usually leave the teaspoon in the cup. I have noticed that after leaving the tea to brew, the tea without the spoon in has brewed stronger than the one with the metal teaspoon and sugar in it... I can quite imagine there is a very simple explanation to this phenomenon, but I am not a science expert and am only a science co-ordinator through default with a joy of teaching it... Any thoughts???” Well two thoughts anyhow... James Stevenson says “It is an easy one, the spoon in the water will remove heat from the water, to the spoon, causing the spoon to heat up, and the majority of the water to cool down, so the tea will take longer to stew.” Adrian Terruli also contacted us with “An interesting experiment for your pupils... Fill a beaker brimming with water then amaze them by (slowly) pouring in several teaspoons of salt without the beaker overflowing...and yet the slightest drop of water will cause an overflow. A useful scientific model of matter explains that liquids like water are sloshy because the particles are touching each other but moving about. It's like a lot of people on a very busy dance floor. There are always a few spaces between the people (particles) into which a limited amount of solutes like sugar can dissolve. As you are trying to dissolve both tea AND sugar together, the tea will be weaker as the sugar molecules will fill up some of those spaces instead of the tea molecules. You can overcome the problem by making the tea hotter as the particles move about faster and more space opens up between them. ...milk two sugars please :)” Most interesting ... slurp! So - thank you scientists. Once again the scientist was NOT stumped. Indeedy. Well once again, over to you scientists! If you can help or have a burning question of your own then send us an email with STUMP THE SCIENTIST in the subject line to planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk Back to Top 6. Activity of the Week Water Powered Rocket What you need 1. An empty two litre plastic bottle 2. A foot pump or bicycle pump with long tube and preferably an inflation needle 3. A rubber cork that fits reasonably tightly in the neck of the bottle 4. A strong cardboard box or tripod to act as a launch pad 5. Some water 6. Paper and paint to make a nose cone and fins to decorate your rocket What you do 1. Push the inflation needle through the centre of the rubber cork, or make a hole in the cork big enough to take the tubing from the pump. Washing up liquid might help when pushing the tubing through. 2. Prepare the cardboard box launcher by cutting a hole in the top and in the side of the box while retaining its structure. The bottle will go upside down in the top with the pump tube coming out the side. 3. Fill the bottle a third full of water and, while the bottle is upright and open, place the cardboard box (or tripod) upside down on top. Put the cork in quite firmly and turn the entire structure so that the bottle is upside down and balanced on the box (or tripod). The rubber tube connected to the foot pump should come out the side of the box. 4. Start pumping and launch your rocket. 5. You can now retrieve and decorate your rocket, then relaunch it! What's going on By pumping air into the bottle you are increasing the pressure inside. This pressure forces the water down which in turn forces the rubber cork out of the bottle. This force, pushing the cork, water and air out the bottom of the bottle, is the action, and it is coupled to a reaction, the bottle flying into the air. This was what Newton was referring to in his third law where he stated that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. To find out why water is best to use, you can look at conservation of momentum for the entire rocket. The whole system of water and rocket has zero momentum before launch and zero momentum after launch. The heavier the water and the faster it exits the bottle, the more downward momentum it will carry. To balance this, the lighter the bottle the faster it will go, and the more spectacular the launch. This activity came from the Water Powered Rocket activity on the Planet SciCast site. Checkout the It’s only rocket science film on the Scicast site. Does it inspire you? Plenty of time to get your film sorted out over the summer hols then! Back to Top 7. Mouses at the Ready - 2 The latest issue of Flipside magazine features the Moon landings. 40 years after the first manned mission to the moon, people are finally going back there again. Take a look at how NASA plans to do it... If you’d like to one then send your name and address and the words ‘MOONFLIP’ in the subject line, to planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk. The draw will take place at 4pm on Tuesday 21st July. Back to Top Planet Science Alert!! Planet Science Website and Newsletter will be moving from NESTA to another organisation in the near future - more exciting news to come of that soon. In the meantime please be aware that we will be asking you to sign up for the newsletters again if you wish to continue receiving them. This is because we cannot legally hand over your data to another organisation, even if you might want us to! Don’t try to sign up again yet, we’ll give you further instructions when the new databases are in place. Telescope400 event Four hundred years ago, an Englishman named Thomas Harriot turned a telescope on the Moon and marvelled at its rugged, cratered surface. The drawing he made that night is the oldest known depiction of a celestial object as seen through a telescope, beating Galileo by four months. To find out more about the Telescope400 event celebrating the 400th anniversary of Harriot’s achievement, an exciting astronomically themed day for space enthusiasts young and old taking place at Syon Park, West London on Sunday 26 July 2009, go here: www.telescope400.org.uk You also have a chance to win FREE tickets to the Telescope400 event: “What Would Harriot Tweet?” twitter competition There are five sets of family tickets (2 adults + 2 children) to the daytime event, as well as two pairs of tickets for the evening lecture / reception to give away. In addition, each winner will receive a special edition “New Moone Catalogue” print. How do you win these great prizes? Simple; put yourself in Thomas Harriot's shoes. Imagine being the first person ever to observe the moon through a telescope. Then imagine that Twitter was around 400 years ago! How would you announce your observations to the world in 140 characters or less? To find out how to win these prizes, go here   Exploring Space exhibition - Science Museum - Free The Exploring Space gallery contains a host of rockets, satellites, space probes and landers. You’ll be able to find out how the space age started in 1957 with the launch of Sputnik 1 and how we’ve gone on to launch thousands of satellites around Earth, send spacecraft to other planets, walk on our Moon and peer into the heart of our galaxy and beyond. For more details Free BP science resource 5-7 and 7-11 yrs Young Science Investigators: Our Environment helps children learn about their environment while developing their investigative science skills. This new resource includes a colourful A1 Climate Change poster, teachers' notes for four science experiments with worksheets, and stickers and stencils for more classroom fun. For more details visit this link. Animal Adventurers: Super Safari - Free Celebrate the summer holidays by crossing the continents in an afternoon at the Grant Museum. Grab your Super Safari map and find out about the bizarre beasts and incredible creatures of Asia, Africa and the Americas. Cheeky chimps, colourful chameleons, super-long serpents, scary scorpions, and vicious vipers all await the intrepid Animal Adventurers... Why not bring a camera, take a snap of a specimen, and then enter the Darwin 200 Photographic Competition? Grant Museum of Zoology London WC1E 6BT 3rd-7th and 10th-14th August 2009 1-5pm 9. Recommended websites of the week This week we want to let you know about Bang Goes the Theory which has some fantastic hands-on activities and demos to view. Plus check out all the free events on the Bang Goes the Theory Roadshow See what’s happening near you and pop along! If you caught the live broadcast of the Big Contraption this week then you can follow the story behind it on the Big Contraption Blog To tell us about your favourite science websites - drop us an email with the words ‘RWW’ in the subject line, to planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk. Back to Top Remember last time when we were giving a family ticket for The Deep? The lucky winner is Lesley Wood of Knaresborough. Enjoy your visit Lesley! And we were also giving away two books by Douglas E Richards. The lucky winner is Isabel Wells of Bath. Hope you enjoy the read!   Back to Top 11. Joke of the week Did you hear about the great new restaurant on the moon? The food is excellent, but there's no atmosphere. Two astrophysicists are discussing their research in a bar one evening when a drunk who has been sitting and listening in at the next seat turns and says, in a very worried voice, “What was that you just said? ” “We were discussion stellar evolution, and I said to my colleague here that the Sun would run out of nuclear fuel and turn into a red giant star in about 5 billion years, possibly melting the Earth. ” “Whew!” says the drunk, “You really had me worried. I thought you said 5 million. ” Have a great week! See you in September! Back to Top Remember... If you would like to view the Planet Science Newsletter Archive click here. You can also read back issues of Randomised for younger teens here. Or you can read back issues of Hay-Wire for Under 10s. PS if you would like to unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time, just reply to this email with the word 'UNSUBSCRIBE' in the title. PPS Sorry if you've been having problems with the Planet Science site today - there is a server hardware problem which should be fixed shortly. Back to Top