Friday, November 30, 2007
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K-12 Newsletters SCIENCE: MIT gives K-12, Solar Wind Dries Venus, Chandra Discovers a Cosmic Cannonball
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is making freely available to high-school students and teachers a collection of material in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The material is available on a new Web site, an offshoot of its popular OpenCourseWare effort to put lecture notes and other information about every course online. It features video and audio clips, animations, lecture notes, and assignments from MIT courses. "We hope it will inspire students to reach beyond their required classwork to explore more advanced material and might also encourage them to pursue careers in science and engineering," said Susan Hockfield, president of MIT, in a written statement. --Andrea L. Foster



Space Weather News for Nov. 29, 2007
http://spaceweather.com

SOLAR WIND DRIES VENUS: The European Space Agency's Venus Express spacecraft has made an important discovery: the solar wind dries out Venus. Unlike Earth, Venus has no global magnetic field to deflect particles from the sun; when solar wind hits Venus it actually strips away some of Venus' upper atmosphere. Hydrogen and oxygen atoms fly into space, removing from Venus the chemical building blocks of water. This process makes an already hellish planet even worse.

COMET 17P/HOLMES UPDATE:  Now that the full Moon has left the evening sky, Comet Holmes is visible again. The comet is not as bright as it was when it first exploded in late October. Most people now have trouble finding it with the naked eye. A quick sweep through Perseus with a pair of binoculars, however, will pinpoint the comet while the smallest of telescopes reveals it to be a truly impressive object.   Comet Holmes now occupies about 10 times the volume of the Sun and it is developing a hint of a blue-green tail.  A similar tail was observed in early November, but it broke off during an apparent magnetic storm.  Now the tail is growing back.




Chandra Discovers a Cosmic Cannonball
NASA Science News for November 28, 2007
Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have discovered one of the fastest stars ever seen--a "cosmic cannonball" that is challenging theories to explain its blistering speed.



NASA's Exploring Space Challenges Announces Teacher Challenge
From March 2007 to March 2008, the scientific community will be recognizing the International Polar Year. Scientists from around the world will examine the Arctic and Antarctic regions of Earth. NASA's Exploring Space Challenges invites K-12 teachers to design a challenge in conjunction with this event. Judges will select the best Challenges in grade-level categories K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. One overall winning Challenge will be used by NASA ESC for the next school year.  Registration is open until Dec. 30, 2007.

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Friday, November 30, 2007 5:16:32 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  |  Related posts:
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