Month: March 2011
NASA Now: The Reason for the Seasons

Corresponding NES Teaching Materials:
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
Historic First: A Spacecraft Orbits Mercury
Elizabeth Petry Uses NES Resources to Prepare for Virtual Student Symposium

Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
Goldilocks in Space

Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
NASA Prepares to Orbit Mercury

• Teaching Module – MESSENGER: Cooling with Sunshades
• Teaching Module -MESSENGER: My Angle on Cooling-Effects of Distance and Inclination
• NASA Now: MESSENGER in Orbit
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
Japan Quake May Have Shortened Earth Days, Moved Axis
The March 11, magnitude 9.0 earthquake in Japan may have shortened the length of each Earth day and shifted its axis. But don’t worry—you won’t notice the difference.
Using a United States Geological Survey estimate for how the fault responsible for the earthquake slipped, research scientist Richard Gross of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., applied a complex model to perform a preliminary theoretical calculation of how the Japan earthquake—the fifth largest since 1900—affected Earth’s rotation. His calculations indicate that by changing the distribution of Earth’s mass, the Japanese earthquake should have caused Earth to rotate a bit faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second).
The calculations also show the Japan quake should have shifted the position of Earth’s figure axis (the axis about which Earth’s mass is balanced) by about 17 centimeters (6.5 inches), towards 133 degrees east longitude. Earth’s figure axis should not be confused with its north-south axis; they are offset by about 10 meters (about 33 feet). This shift in Earth’s figure axis will cause Earth to wobble a bit differently as it rotates, but it will not cause a shift of Earth’s axis in space—only external forces such as the gravitational attraction of the sun, moon and planets can do that.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
NES Educators Participate in Annual STEM Conference

Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
Teacher Uses NES Resources to Stimulate Career Interest
Tomorrow: Live Video Chat – Aquarius Habitat — Analog to the International Space Station
NASA Explorer Schools invites students in grades K-12 from across the U.S. and Department of Defense schools to participate in a live video chat with NASA engineer aquanaut Tara Ruttley. The event will take place on March 15, 2011, at 1 p.m. EDT. Students and teachers can submit questions to Dr. Ruttley during this hour-long chat. Ruttley will answer questions about participating in the NEEMO 6 project and her career as an engineer aquanaut and Associate International Space Station Program Scientist.
Go to the chat page on the NASA Explorer Schools Virtual Campus website to participate in the webchat. You’ll find background information about Ruttley and links to NEEMO. You do not need to be a participant of the NASA Explorer Schools project to join the chat. To learn more about NES, visit the explorerschools.nasa.gov website and click on the What Is NES? video or the About NES link.