Air Quality

I compared Wayne Counties air to the air in Cook County, Illinois and San Diego County, California. The air was worse in Wayne than in Cook County. San Diego County was much worse than Wayne County. Surprisingly, when I compared Michigan's total air quality with the quality of New York's air, they were about the same. I thought that New York would have the most pollution. When I compared Michigan's air with Washington's air, i discovered that Washington's air was of better quality. I chose to visit Atlantic, New Jersey. The best time to visit would be any month. The only bad time to be there would be to visit would be December. This surprises me. I thought that the air quality would be worse during the summer, because of the amount of tourism they have that time of year. Today, on November 22nd, 2009 at 10:50, the best AQI is tied at 44 for the cities of Traverse City, Ludington and Houghton Lake. The city in Michigan with the worst AQI would be the city of Saginaw with 60.

http://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.local_state&stateid=23&tab=1
http://www.epa.gov/aircompare/compare-trip.htm
A cross-agency U.S. Government Web site

Black Holes

Black holes are born when a massive star explodes, then forms a supernova. A fact about black holes is that they evaporate over time. Astronomers used to believe that black holes were impossible to destroy. We do not know what is inside of black holes. There are three types of black holes. One type is called a stellar-mass black hole. This type of black hole is heavier than the sun. Also, there are supermassive black holes. These black holes are about as heavy as a small galaxy. Another type of back hole is said to exist with a mass between stellar-mass and supermassive holes. My favorite type of black hole is the supermassive black hole. It is amazing to me that it has the mass of a small galaxy! Astronomers are researching the theory that black holes spin. They believe this because the things that black holes are made of spin, so the black hole as a whole, should spin. Another misconception is that black holes are possibly electrically charged. These are questions that Astronomers are trying to find a solution to.

http://hubblesite.org/explore_astronomy/black_holes/encyc_mod3_q4.html
Roeland van der Marel, STScI

Big Sunspot

People are interested in the group, Sunspot 1029 because it is the most active sunspot of 2009. It has trippled its amount of flairs in the last 10 months. The "deep solar minimum" has been described to be like the stock market. You don't believe it can go any lower, until it does. The number of sunspots is lowering. This is related to the Sunspot 1029 group, because sunspots are supposed to fluxuate dramatically over 10 year time spans, but we are worried that it is droppping too low. We care about sunspots on earth because they can affect the Earth's climate. They give off a solar wind, which affects our communications with space and satellites.




http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980506a.html

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm
http://spaceweather.com/

International Year of Astronomy

This year is called the International Year of Astronomy because exactly 400 years ago, in 1609 Galileo Galilei used the first astronomical telescope. This year, we are to celebrate astronomy, and learn more about our place in the universe. The sponsors are Thales Alenia Space, Celestron, and the History channel. Most countries in the world are participating in it. "Galilean Nights" is this week. Many public places will set up telescopes, for people to have their own "Galileo moment", which is when people look through a telescope for the first time. I believe that the IYA is a worthwhile project because, it's 8 goals are very reasonable. For instance, one goal is to promote the equalization of genders of astronomers. This is very important, and is a great issue that needs to be resolved.

http://www.astronomy2009.org/
ESO education and Public Outreach Department, United Nations 2009

Great Worldwide Star Count

The Great Worldwide Star Count is a project that shows how it is becoming increasingly difficult to see stars and constellations at night because of light pollution. This to further introduce children to astronomy. The constellation we would use for the count is Cygnus. We would study Cygnus because when looking at it, the amount of stars your see around it shows the amount of light pollution there is. To the right is a picture of Cygnus in the Northern Hemisphere.



http://www.windows.ucar.edu/citizen_science/starcount/constellations_nh.html
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research 10-7-09


http://www.darkskiesawareness.org/gwwsc.php

Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter spacecraft

On Friday, October 9th at 7:31 am, the Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter spacecraft crashed spacecrafts into a crater on the moon, and examining the debris given off, to see if there is frozen water on the moon. Scientists discovered that there was very little water on the moon. The only water there was, was near the North and South poles of the moon. This is displayed in the picture. The water is shown by the blue on the moon. It is unfortunate that the moon has no water on it, but I suggest we keep searching for other water sources.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1478.html

Page Editor: Yvette Smith

The Messenger

We study Mercury because it is very unique and it tells us how the solar system was formed, and how it is functioning. Scientists hoped that the Messenger would be the first spacecraft to orbit mercury. We hoped to learn more about Mercury, by completing the third fly-by.

I chose this picture because it shows the details of Mercury. It was taken on Tuedsay, September 29th. It shows the craters, the basins and other details.

I believe that the U.S. should spend money for studying other planets because, in my opinion, it is very important to know about the solar system, and other planets around us. We need to know about the planets surrounding us to educate ourselves a little more about the planet we live on.

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/mer_flyby3.html