Comets

A comet is a small, icy celestial body that orbits around the sun. It is made up of a nucleus, a gaseous coma and a long tail. The tail develops when the comet is near the Sun. Its long ion tail of always points away from the sun, because of the force of the solar wind. The tail can be up to 250 million km long, and is most of what we see. Comets are only visible when they're near the sun in their highly eccentric orbits.

There are five parts to a comet
1. Nucleus: The nucleus is the frozen center of a comet's head. It is composed of ice, gas, and dust. The nucleus contains most of the comet's mass but is very small
2. Coma: The coma is the roughly spherical blob of gas that surrounds the nucleus of a comet; it is about a million km across. The coma is comprised of water vapor, carbon dioxide gas, ammonia, dust, and neutral gases that have sublimed from the solid nucleus. The coma and the nucleus form the head of a comet.
3. Ion Tail: A tail of charged gases always faces away from the sun because the solar wind pushes it away. When the comet is approaching the Sun, the ion tail trails the comet: when the comet is leaving of the Sun, the ion tail leads. The tail fades as the comet moves far from the Sun. The ion tail can be well over 100 million km long.
4. Dust Tail: The dust tail is a long, wide tailcomposed of microscopic dust particles that are buffeted by photons emitted from the Sun; this tail curves slightly due to the comet's motion. The tail fades as the comet moves far from the Sun.
5. Hydrogen Envelope: Hydrogen gas surrounds the coma of the comet and trails along for millions of miles. The hydrogen envelope is about 10 million km across at the nucleus of the comet and about 100 million km long. It is bigger when the comet is near the Sun.

Comets orbit the Sun in highly elliptical orbits. Their velocity increases greatly when they are near the Sun and slows down at the far reaches of the orbit. Some comets crash into the Sun or get so close that they burn up; these comets are called sungrazers. The solar wind pushes the tail away from the Sun.

Sunspots

A) Dark, usually irregularly shaped spots on the sun's surface that are actually solar magnetic storms
B) They don't change themselves..there are spikes in the 11 year period.
C) It shows how occurence of sunspots shifts from higher latitudes towards the equator.
D) The cycle of activity in the photosphere that is a 22 year cycle.
E) information showed that during low sunspot activity, earth had long dragging brutal winters, so it's important to the earth's climate.
F) 2011-2012
G) telescopes
H) Sun solar projection telescopes

It's The End Of The World As We Know It

I don't think we have to worry about any solar flares...because if we haven't been destroyed by one yet, then we probably never will. And ma powell says that it probably wont happen so that's another good reason.

What is your passion?

I think from my experiences and relationships with coaches so far in my life, I really would enjoy being a coach when I get older. Coaches play a big role in my life and in other people's lives. In some situations, coaches say things to athletes that could change their life and point of views about things forever.

I've always enjoyed playing sports and a big part of that reason is because I've been lucky to have the certain coaches that I've had. Without the coaches, I wouldn't enjoy sports as much and would not get as much enjoyment out of it. That's why I would like to be a coach. The fact that you're helping somebody...leading them in the right direction even means a lot to me.

I've always had the passion to coach, i have looked up to every coach i have had and I plan on being a wrestling, football, or baseball coach. So that is what my passion is and what I would choose to do down the road.

asteroids

asteroids

i think we should be fairly concerned because if we know that an asteroid is comming, we can evacuate the people it is going to affect.
take tanguska for example, if we would have known that a huge bomb thing was going to hit, we could have gotton the people to saftey. we could completly avoid the affects of a shoemaker levy 9 asteroid because if we know it's coming, we could possibly destroy it or evacuate the people.
On the other hand, they say once every million years a football field or larger sized asteroid threatens earth. and if we can't fix that problem like they did on armageddon, then we are screwed.

Plate Tectonics

pangea-means one land, scientist believe that the continents were once one big land mass
sea floor spreading- two sea floors are spreading apart makes the ocean bigger.
plate boundries- the edges of the plates
the ring of fire-where all of the volcanoes are
the mid-ocean ridge-the biggest maountain range in the world, tallest too, and it's underground
shifting north and south pole-north and south pole switch once every 100,000 years don't know why

extinct volcanoes on the moon tell us that the moon's crust isn't moving
active volcanoes on mars tell us that the crust is still moving

Dubo-shifts 4.26 mm a year
HILO-35.77mm year
KELY-11.23mm a year
HOFN-14.87 mm a year

it tells us they are slowely moving

rotation of the earth-caused the earth to wobble slightly on it's axes, also shortened the day by 2.6 micro seconds


shape of the earth - The momentum of the water displaced by tectonic uplift had also dragged massive slabs of rock, each weighing millions of tons, as far as 10 km (7 mi) across the seabed


shape of ocean where it originated there was a sudden vertical rise in the sea bed.


energy released-the same as 26.3 megatons of tnt.

three pieces of evidence for his idea for plate techtonics
1. the continents fit together like a puzzle
2. found fossils of animals that couldnot have survived unless the contenents were connected
3. found fossils of tropical plants in antarctica

Rocky Planets and Planet Activity

The four innermost planets in the Solar System (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) are sometimes called the "terrestrial" planets because of their proximity to Earth ("Terra" in Latin) and their similarity as compact solid bodies with rocky surfaces. These four planets developed from small grains of dust that collided and stuck together to form pebbles, boulders, kilometer- and mile-sized planetesimals, and larger planetary embryos and protoplanets). They formed in the inner portion of the protoplanetary disk located closer to the developing Sun during the first 100 million years of the System's birth, where it was too warm for the four developing protoplanets to agglomerate water and more volatile ices and bulk up sufficiently in gravitational might to hold onto the abundant but lightest gases of the Solar nebulae (hydrogen and helium) to become "gas giants." Although rocky (and icy protoplanets beyond the Solar System's 2-AU "ice line") formed in the Main Asteroid
Belt, the early development of Jupiter prevented protoplanets like icy Ceres from agglomerating into larger planetary bodies, by sweeping many into pulverizing collisions as well as out into the Oort Cloud or beyond Sol's gravitational reach altogether.

Volcanoes

Volcanoes are awesome manifestations of the fiery power contained deep within the Earth. These formations are essentially vents on the Earth's surface where molten rock, debris, and gases from the planet's interior are emitted.

When thick magma and large amounts of gas build up under the surface, eruptions can be explosive, expelling lava, rocks and ash into the air. Less gas and more viscous magma usually mean a less dramatic eruption, often causing streams of lava to ooze from the vent.

The mountain-like mounds that we associate with volcanoes are what remain after the material spewed during eruptions has collected and hardened around the vent. This can happen over a period of weeks or many millions of years.

There are four kinds of volcanoes that have been discovered on earth and in our solar system:

The shield volcano: This volcano is formed from fluid basaltic magma. The explosions made by this volcano are generally less violent than those of other volcanoes. These volcanoes are generally also smaller and flatter than other volcanoes.

The cinder cone: These volcanoes are fomed by basaltic and andesitic magma, and they are named cinder cones because they blow ash into the sky. Eruptions from these volcanoes tend to contain a lot of gas.

The dome: This is a shorter, rounder volcano formed by viscous dacite magma. This volcano has smaller eruptions but more lava flow than the typical volcano.

The stratovolcano: This volcano is the most dangerous kind, due to its huge size and height. Formed by andesite and dacite lava, this volcano tends to be extremely dangerous. Firestorms, mud flows and pyroclastic flows are all caused by this type of volcano.

The caldera: This is a generally dry, extinct volcano formed near or in water.

In conclusion, there are many different kinds of volcanoes. Through these holes in the earth, we can get a better glimpse of what is going on beneath our feet. While volcanoes are less active now than they were at the earth's formation, they can still pose a threat to humans. With new research and geological equipment, however, perhaps we will soon be able to harness the power of the volcano and use our knowledge to keep ourselves, and thriving ecosystems, safe.

http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/education/index.html
www.hotfact.com/facts-about-volcano.html

Sun- 1000 mm
Mercury- pea, movie theatre- 3.4 mm.
Venus- marble, beavers- 8.6 mm.
Earth- pop can, Fareway- 9.1 mm.
Mars- Kidney, B & P- 4.8 mm.
Jupiter- basketball, Cooper's Office- 100.2 mm.
Saturn- Soccer ball, hospital- 83.6 mm.
Uranus- 2L. pop bottle, West Casey's- 33.7 mm.
Neptune- Water Bottle, Don and Walt- 32.6 mm.
Pluto- cream corn, North Casey's- 1.6 mm.