Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Comets and Other Small Objects


These past few days have been, for the most part, pretty quiet. On Tuesday, we got a new assignment: to start working on another planetarium show, this one about comets, to coincide with the scheduled appearance of Comet ISON in November/December of 2013. Once again, I got to delve into research, looking up information about and pictures of comets, from the famous Halley’s Comet to Shoemaker-Levy, which impacted Jupiter in 1994. As before, this experience was mostly useful in simply learning about astronomy, as well as practicing making a presentation. It was also kind of fun looking up animations of comets; thanks to the NASA and ESA sites, I was able to see some really cool animations and photographs of Halley’s Comet, taken by the spacecraft Giotto in the 1980s.

My experiences haven’t been limited solely to the planetarium, however. Today, before lunch, I got to sit in on one of the Museum’s live animal presentations to a group of first-graders. Although this wasn’t directly related to my Essential Question or my project, this was a nice break from astronomy. Additionally, it helped me get a better idea of how exactly the Museum goes about its educational efforts, trying to teach kids about native flora and fauna and how to interact safely with them.

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