Our Journey to Space

<Rémi>

From Dubbo, we launched into space on the World’s Largest Virtual Solar System Drive.

It is a drive through country towns in NSW and a scale model of the solar system.  It is 1/38,000,000^th the size of the actual solar system.  Driving from Pluto to the Sun is 190km.

 

Pluto –  the unreal planet

We started at Pluto.  Pluto is no longer considered a planet.  In 2006, it was reclassified to a “dwarf planet” by the Jedi Council, but it is still part of the solar system drive.

 

On the scale model, Pluto is about the size of a tennis ball.

 

Our Shuttle Bus docked for the night at a free camp between Pluto and Neptune.  For dessert the space travellers ate freeze dried neapolitan ice-cream, like they eat on the ISS (International Space Station).  It didn’t taste much like ice-cream though.

 

Neptune – the Windy planet

 

 

WOW, it’s big!

Neptune has winds up to 2500km/hr.

It is the only planet that was discovered as a result of mathematical calculations.  People were trying to track Uranus with maths as they thought that it was going off course.  This is when Neptune was discovered.

Pluto and Neptune’s orbits actually cross so in the year 2228, Pluto will be closer to the Sun than Neptune.  It will remain this way for 20 years.

 

Uranus – the planet that spins on its side

Uranus is the 3^rd largest planet and spins on its side.  Because it spins on its side, Uranus has very large seasonal changes and storms can be the size of Australia.

Uranus has a feint ring around it which couldn’t be seen on the model.  It also has at least 27 moons.

Saturn

Enormous!

It is a gas planet 75% hydrogen and 25% helium.  It is the least dense of all the planets.  Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus are also gas planets.  The rings can be seen through the telescopes we looked through at Uluru and Alice Springs.

Jupiter – Largest planet

 

Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and has 63 moons.  It has a few feint rings and a big red spot which is actually a 400year storm.

Mars – red planet

 

It’s not much bigger than Pluto.

Mars is called the Red planet because it appears red in telescopes.  It has 2 moons names Phobos (terror) and Deimos(panic).

Mars is the closest planet to earth (only 1.4km on our drive).

Earth – Our wet planet

This is the only planet not named after a Greek or Roman god.

Strange that it is called Earth as the Earth is 70% water, so it's more water than it is earth!

The Billboard was burnt from the fires that went through here about 6 months ago.

Venus – brightest planet

 

Venus is the brightest planet but also the hottest planet in the solar system, with temperatures reaching 450deg C.  It is the planet most similar in size to Earth.

A day on venus is 243 earth days and a year is 225 earth days.  So on Venus a day is actually longer than a year! This means that (relative to Earth) Venus is rotating very slowly but moves around the sun quite fast.

Mercury

Although closest to the Sun, it is not the hottest.  As Mercury has almost no atmosphere to keep the heat in, the dark side of the planet is one of the coldest places in the solar system  at -173deg C.

Mercury is the second smallest planet after Pluto and has no moons.

Mercury and Venus are the planets closest together with only 700m between them on the drive.

The Sun

 

This is the closest star to Earth. 

The Siding Springs observatory represents the Sun on the Solar System drive.

Siding Springs Optical Telescope

 

The observatory has an optical telescope 3.89m in diameter.  This would just fit inside the year 5 classroom but we would have to take the roof off as it wouldn’t go through the door.

We were able to look at the telescope but we couldn’t look through it.
 

I have compared some things about the planets and put them into graphs below.

This graph shows that the planets further from the sun do not need to travel fast to maintain their orbit.  Planets close to the sun need to travel fast to maintain orbit, otherwise they will be pulled into the sun by the sun’s gravitational pull.

 

The duration of the year gets longer as the planets get further away from the sun.  This is because they need to travel further and they do not travel as fast as they do not need to travel as fast to maintain their orbit.

 

Planets get colder as they get further from the sun in general, but Venus is hotter than other planets because it has thick atmosphere, creating a greenhouse effect.

<Asha>

Our favourite song about planets is the Blue’s Clue’s Planet song. 
Link to Blue's Clues Planet Song - You Tube

 

 

<Rémi>

After the Solar System drive we went to the Australian Telescope Compact Array near Narrabri in NSW.  It is a group of 6 telescopes all on rail tracks that can be moved to make the equivalent of one super mega huge radio telescope.