DIGITAL LEARNING NETWORK HOSTS WORLDWIDE VIRTUAL PARTY FOR NASA

Schools all over the world will wish NASA a happy birthday as part of an all-day virtual birthday party through NASA's Digital Learning Network on Thursday, Nov. 13.

The virtual party begins at 9 a.m. EST with live videoconferences occurring every hour on the hour until 6 p.m. Schools from Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Japan, Mexico City, India, Slovenia and New Zealand will participate in the live digital connection.

During each webcast, international schools will connect with a U.S. school and one of NASA's 10 field centers. Each Digital Learning Network site will host a 45-minute videoconference featuring a unique program in NASA's 50 years of discovery and exploration in science, aeronautics and space.

Webcast topics for NASA's 50th birthday party include (all times EST):

- Space shuttle, hosted at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 9 a.m.

- Project Mercury, hosted at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., at 10 a.m.

- The Viking Project, hosted at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., at 11 a.m.

- Hubble Space Telescope, hosted at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., at noon.

- Project Gemini, hosted at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston at 1 p.m.

- Stennis Space Center history, hosted at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi at 2 p.m.

- X-43, hosted at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., at 3 p.m.

- Icing Tunnel, hosted at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland at 4 p.m.

- Arc Jet Facility, hosted at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., at 5 p.m.

- Phoenix Mars Lander, hosted at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., at 6 p.m.

The birthday party is being held through a partnership among NASA, Discovery Education of Silver Spring, Md., the U.S. Distance Learning Association of Boston and Polycom of Pleasanton, Calif.

NASA's Digital Learning Network began in the spring of 2004 with three hub sites at Langley, Glenn and Johnson and now extends to all 10 field centers. Through interactive videoconferencing, the network allows the next generation of explorers to connect with scientists, engineers and researchers without leaving the classroom. The distance-learning events are designed to educate through demonstrations and live interactions with NASA experts.

To view the live webcasts on Nov. 13, visit:

http://dln.nasa.gov/dln/content/webcast


For more information about NASA's education programs, visit:

www.nasa.gov/education

Educators to Share MESSENGER's Second Mercury Flyby

On Monday, October 6, 2008, NASA's MESSENGER mission to Mercury will complete an important milestone, as the spacecraft makes its second flyby of its target planet. During the flyby, MESSENGER will swoop just 200 km (125 miles) above the cratered surface of Mercury, snapping hundreds of pictures and collecting a variety of other data from the planet as it gains a critical gravity assist that keeps the probe on track to become the first spacecraft ever to orbit the innermost planet in the Solar System in 2011.

Six MESSENGER Educator Fellows, master science educators talented atspeaking to audiences of all ages and backgrounds, will observe the flyby activities at the Mission Operations Center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and report on their experiences in real time using social networking sites on the Internet. Through the Fellows' eyes, teachers, students, and the general public around the world will be able to share the engineers' excitement as the spacecraft performs a maneuver crucial to the success of the mission, and experience the scientists' exhilaration as new science data never before seen by any human being arrives during the days following the flyby.

Join the MESSENGER Educator Fellows as they report on MESSENGER's second flyby of Mercury by navigating to the Fellows at the Flyby page at: http://btc.montana.edu/messenger/teachers/flyby.php
Follow the links therein to the individual Fellows' Facebook, Twitter, Wiki and blog pages.

The MESSENGER to Mercury mission is supported by the NASA Discovery Program under contract to the Carnegie Institution of Washington and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. For more information on the
MESSENGER mission, visit http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/

39th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference

Geosteph and I are leaving this weekend to travel to TX for the 39th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. It's a week-long conference for international planetary scientists and educators to present their current research and mission results. The conference consists of both talks and poster presentations on a variety of subjects. View the enitre program, which includes links to the abstracts.

On Sunday, Geosteph will help lead a workshop called Reaching the Moon for planetary scientists and educators. Then on Wednesday we'll both lead a workshop for educators called Fire and Ice about the MESSENGER mission to Mercury and the New Horizons mission to Pluto. There may still be slots available for these workshops. Click here to learn more.

On Tuesday, we will be presenting a poster on Tuesday night in the Education and Public Outreach Programs session to accompany our abstract, which is about how NASA might use Second Life for informal space science education and participatory exploration.

If we're lucky, Geosteph might tweet from the meeting so stay tuned!

How much ice might be on Mercury? Use math to find out!

The NASA MESSENGER spacecraft performed its first flyby of Mercury on January 14, 2008. In addition to mapping the entire surface of the planet, one of its goals is to shed new light on the existence of ice in the polar regions of this hot planet. Ice on Mercury? It's not as strange as it seems! Click here to learn more and to access a pdf that provides a series of space math questions (and an answer key) related to this topic. For more classroom activities related to ice in on Mercury and elsewhere in our solar system click here. For more space math problems visit http://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov. A new space math problem is added every week!

A New Mnemonic to Help You Remember the Planets

Ten year old Maryn Smith from Montana recently won a contest to create a new mnemonic for remembering the newly assigned 11 planets, including 3 dwarf planets, in our solar system. The 11 planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Eris. The dwarf planets are Ceres, Pluto, and Eris. Her mnemonic is:

My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.

To read the full story about Maryn's mnemonic, which will be published in a book and recorded in a song to be released in March, click here.
To learn more about dwarf planets, click here.

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

Tweeting from NASA's Discovery at 15 Conference

I'm at the Discovery@15 Conference in Huntsville, AL. From the NASA Discovery website:

In space exploration, the possibilities for discovery are without limits. Even with the vast amount of knowledge gained since exploration of our solar system began, there are still more questions than answers.

NASA's Discovery Program gives scientists the opportunity to dig deep into their imaginations and find innovative ways to unlock the mysteries of the solar system. It represents a breakthrough in the way NASA explores space, with lower-cost, highly focused planetary science investigations designed to enhance our understanding of the solar system.

All completed Discovery missions have achieved ground-breaking science within strict cost and schedule limitations, each taking a unique approach to space exploration.

Reaching into the unknown, doing what's never been done before, and driving new technology innovations that may also improve life on Earth - this is NASA's Discovery Program.

I'll be adding my twitter comments throughout the meeting

is now in work mode tweeting from the Discover @ 15 meeting http://discovery.nasa.gov/Discovery15/

just announced that all presentations will be video taped and podcast on the website http://discovery.nasa.gov/D... eventually!

First up Bob Farquhar who worked on 3 Discovery missions including NEAR, Contour and MESSENGER http://tinyurl.com/26aqrn

or more info about the Discovery missions check out http://discovery.nasa.gov/ ... I'm the education and out reach lead for MESSENGER

more on Bob Farquhar http://www.jamesoberg.com/eros.html




Now Discovery Sample return missions: 1st up Stardust..it flew through the tail of a comet http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov

read about aerogel: http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/tech/aerogel.html 99.8% air used to collect comet tail dust

If you want to find comet dust in aerogel check out Stardust at home http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/

30,000 volunteers are already participating in Stardust @ home stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ perk-you get to name the grains you find

Next up the Genesis mission that returned samples of the solar wind http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov

The speaker for Genesis is Don Burnett http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/people/index.html

Genesis sampled high speed, low speed and Coronal Mass Ejections see mission gallery http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/gallery.html

Don is discussing some of the challenges related to the Genesis hard landing http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/genesis/field.cfm

amazing results are coming from research on the Genesis solar wind samples http://tinyurl.com/yyphws

Next up-- Technology Innovation thru the Discovery Missions--enabling technologies in a cost-capped program

Bill Borucki is talking about Kepler http://kepler.nasa.gov/ the mission to search for habitable planets outside of the Solar System

Kepler uses 42 CCDs covered in sapphire http://kepler.nasa.gov/sci/design/spacecraft.html

"How can you quantify science? Its of infinite value" Bill Bourcki when asked quantify science value when Kepler was faced w/ budget cuts

Next up MESSENGER "How can you not like the planet Mercury?" MESSENGER Principal Investigator Sean Solomon

The challenges to a Mercury orbiter....Mercury is very close to the sun...only spacecraft to visit Mercury is Mariner 10 in 1974- a flyby

MESSENGER website http://MESSENGER.jhuapl.edu

Technology infusion for MESSENGER-46% of the mass of the spacecraft is fuel..needed to integrate structure and propulsion system.

....including specially designed tank on MESSENGER..total of 17 thrusters-given 1 Earth, 2 Venus and 3 Mercury flybys before orbit insertion

The sun is 11 times brighter at Mercury than earth...lead to ceramic cloth sunshade..behind the sunshade MESSENGER is room temperature

don't forget first Mercury flyby is Jan 14 2008 the first spacecraft results from Mercury in more than 32 years

The Dawn Mission technology infusion is Ion Propulsion-learn more at http://tinyurl.com/28zsnf

Dawn is scheduled to launch Sept 26th...it will visit two asteroids, Ceres and Vesta http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/

now Discovery "Missions of Opportunity

The Discovery program supports international cooperation through Missions of Opportunity with international space agencies

ASPERA-3 is a suite of instruments on the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft http://www.aspera-3.org/

Moon Mineralogy Mapper will fly on the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft-- India' s first mission to moon http://moonmineralogymapper.jpl.nasa.gov

This official launch date of Chandyayann-1 is April 2008 http://www.isro.org/chandrayaan/htmls/home.htm

M-cubed is a spectrometer with 260 spectral channels and 70 m resolution. So we will have high resolution maps of the elements on the moon

Spreading the word

I have tried several strategies to bring people to "Adventures in Earth and Space". I post on Twitter when we update, and I have included the link in both my work and home email accounts as well as on facebook. Today Len Edgerly pointed me in a new direction with a post on twitter about Blog Rush, a widget to designed to promote blogs by subject area, based on traffic to a site. I'm going to give it a try. I would love to have others who are interested in earth and space science education find the site. So check out the "From the Blogsphere" box on this page to see other education-related blogs.

First Post

I develop and implement education and outreach programs for NASA Earth and Space science missions. As education and public outreach (EPO) specialists, my team and I are always looking for innovative ways to engage people in NASA missions. We work in the K-12 community, with museums, planetariums,after-school programs, filmmakers and youth groups. Of course our missions have websites and many of our educational activities and products are posted on NASA websites. But lately we have started looking at other venues on the web, like YouTube and Second Life. I have the geosteph channel on YouTube and have uploaded a number of video podcasts and other videos developed for public engagement. I've also created a playlists on Pluto and the New Horizons mission to the Kuiper Belt.

So here I am, a new blogger, looking to share our projects and looking for ways to involve more people in our missions.