NASA CoLab

This week, I had the opportunity to meet two gentleman (one of whom I already had met in my second life - more on this in a minute) from NASA CoLab. CoLab supports on- and off-line collaboration between the various NASA Centers and between NASA and the public. To this end, they have established a presence in both real life (in San Francisco) and in Second Life.

Second Life (SL) is a 3D Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE) in which avatars (a virtual representation of one’s self) interact via communicating, learning, exploring, playing, and conducting business together. It currently has over 11,240,207 registered members, which it terms “residents,” from over 100 different countries.

What makes SL so attractive to its residents is that it is completely imagined and created by them. This means it is self-evolving, such that each time a resident logs in they may find that their surroundings have changed or that new places, objects, and people exist where before there were none. In addition, avatars are fully customizable, such that residents may change their basic appearance (e.g. hair color, eye color, etc.), race, gender, clothing, and even mannerisms and gestures at any time. While some residents choose to represent themselves in a manner similar to their real life (RL) self, others choose to represent themselves as animals, mythical creatures, robots, or combinations thereof.

In addition to individuals, residents of SL include many RL groups, including federal agencies (e.g. NASA and NOAA), universities, museums, planetariums, businesses, nonprofits, embassies, and the tourism departments of many countries. These groups are using SL to communicate with and educate the general public. To learn more and to download the Second Life platform, which is free, visit http://www.secondlife.com.

Ready to visit NASA CoLab in Second Life? Click here.

Live from AGU - Planetary Science!!

The annual American Geophysical Union meeting is going on this week in San Francisco, CA. The meeting pulls in thousands of scientists and educators each year, many of whom are affiliated with NASA. To learn about NASA's scientific contributions to the meeting, click here.

Talk and poster sessions cover topics ranging from volcanology to paleoclimatology to planetary science and everything in between. This year, you can check out some of the action from the meeting without having to fork over the big bucks needed to get to San Francisco. Two lectures by prominent scientists will be webcast live today! The first lecture is on Mars exlporation, which is near and dear to our hearts as you can tell from reading this blog. To view these webcasts, click here.

1440h Pacific time
The Importance of a Program of Mars Exploration
Presented by Raymond E. Arvidson, Washington University

1815h Pacific time
Abrupt Climate Change and Our Future
Presented by Lonnie Thompson, Ohio State University

Flubber Activity

The Flubber activity from yesterday's blog is available as a Google Document.

Just remember Flubber is NOT recommended for small children. The borax and glue combination is toxic.

Once you start playing with Flubber, it's hard to stop.

Fun with FLUBBER - Glacier Modeling Method

I thought we would change directions today and look at a phenomenon found here on Earth, glaciers. I'm not saying one might not find glaciers or remnants of glaciers on other planets such as Mars, but most people relate glaciers to the Earth.

Whether it is Greenland or Antarctica, glaciers have been in the news. Scientists have been keeping track of glacial movement for some time. It is possible to see how glaciers of thousands to million years ago have changed the landscape of continents. Some examples can be seen in the northern portions of North America, Europe, and Asia. So how do glaciers move?

The University of Maine's Department of Geological Sciences and Climate Change Institute has created a model of Malaspina glacier. Leigh Stearns and Erich Osterberg, of U of Maine, used Flubber to assist them in the modeling of this glacier, see image to the left. But why use Flubber?

Flubber has a unique properties very similar to that of ice. If you slowly pull on it, it will flow like ice does in a glacier. It also shears like ice when quickly pulled apart. Ice deforms plastically most of the time – that's what allows it to flow. When brittle failure occurs, crevasses open up. Also, just like ice, Flubber flows more quickly when it is either warm or on a very smooth surface, and slows down when it's cold or on rough surface.

Your students can use Flubber to model glaciers and see how the different variables, temperature, surface roughness, and incline, can make a difference in how Flubber flows.

Materials: One recipe of 'Flubber'

Mix #1 3/4 cup of warm water 1 cup of white glue food coloring (optional)

Mix #2 2 tsp of Borax 1/2 cup of warm water

Procedure:

Simply combine the two mixtures and work through the hands for several minutes until a consistent texture results. Drain any excess water. Flubber is easy to make and fun to work with and does not stick to hair or skin once formed (glue may stick to hands while working the Flubber to its correct consistency), however the Borax and glue are toxic and should not be ingested. We therefore advise against allowing young children to play with Flubber unsupervised. Flubber can be stored for several weeks in an air-tight bag (e.g. zip-lock). Simply rework some warm water into the Flubber to return it to a desired consistency.

Material:

• 2 (or longer) foot-long section of 4” PVC pipe, cut in half lengthwise, to simulate a valley
• 3-4 recipes Flubber (of at least 2 different colors)

To examine the properties of ice in a glacier form, flatten out the Flubber from a round lump into a flat pancake. In one section of the PVC pipe, lay the flattened out Flubber block into the top of the ‘valley’ using alternating colors, such as green and white. The alternating colors visually accentuate velocity gradients during flow. You can incline the pipe and see how fast the Flubber flows. Note that the flow is slower near the sides of the pipe because of friction from the valley walls.

To expand on the initial experiment, a comparison of flow can be done with a variety of materials on the pipe. An example is you can wet the pipe (the Flubber should flow faster because of less friction). Or you can make a continent out of clay or papier maché including mountains, cover it with plastic wrap or foil and then try the 'Flubber'. Another variation is comparing the viscosity of the Flubber at different temperatures. You can put one lump in the freezer for a while and compare how fast it flows compared to a warmer piece of Flubber (warm ice deforms more easily than cold ice). You should test different temperatures of ice (Flubber), different ‘valley’ slopes and basal conditions. To determine the velocity, make sure you measure (with a ruler) how far the Flubber moves in a given amount of time.

Velocity Table:

	Blue (cold)	White (normal)	Red (warm)
Sandpaper PVC	Dist: Time: Velocity:	Dist: Time: Velocity:	Dist: Time: Velocity:
Normal PVC	Dist: Time: Velocity:	Dist: Time: Velocity:	Dist: Time: Velocity:
Lubricated PVC	Dist: Time: Velocity:	Dist: Time: Velocity:	Dist: Time: Velocity:

	Blue (cold)	White (normal)	Red (warm)
Slope - shallow	Dist: Time: Velocity:	Dist: Time: Velocity:	Dist: Time: Velocity:

For more information, please visit:

http://www2.umaine.edu/USITASE/teachers/activityideas.html
http://www.geology.um.maine.edu/geodynamics/AnalogWebsite/Projects2003/Sterns_Osterberg_2003/index.html

Return with LRO

Cathy Peddie, LRO's deputy project manager talks about the LRO mission and how she was inspired to become an engineer. To learn more about LRO visit http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/.

Returning to the Moon

The LRO website has a new video available: Return with LRO. “The Deputy Project Manager for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) program, Cathy Peddie, expresses her personal and professional thoughts on the upcoming LRO mission. From following in the footsteps of her childhood heroes, to building, testing, and intergrading the LRO instruments, to how LRO may play into future missions.” Check out the video at: http://learners.gsfc.nasa.gov/mediaviewer/LRO/

Update on MESSENGER mission to Mercury

On Friday, November 30, the MESSENGER team resumed daily contact with its Mercury-bound spacecraft. Engineers had suspended contact on November 13 when the spacecraft’s trajectory moved it to the opposite side of the Sun from Earth and out of radio contact with NASA’s Deep Space Network for several weeks. Read the complete story here.

As of right now, there are 36 days, 22 hours, 24 minutes, and 57 seconds until MESSENGER's first flyby of Mercury on January 14, 2008! View the countdown clock at http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/.

'Tis the Season for Candy and Mars Exploration

Now that the candy and sweets season is in full swing, why not put some of that sugary goodness to good use to learn about Mars exploration?

"Areology - The Study of Mars"
Using candy bars, plastic straws, and a few other simple items, students will accomplish these objectives:
· Examine a simulated Martian surface core sample.
· Learn how an unknown core sample can be identified by matching it with a known sample.
· Discover how surface core samples can tell us about the history and make-up of Mars.
· Consume the core sample at the end of the exercise!

View the complete activity, other Mars activities, and an associated teacher guide in the Mars Acitivities book at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/classroom/pdfs/MSIP-MarsActivities.pdf.