On day 4 of the STS-134 mission, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2, or AMS, was installed successfully on the outside of the International Space Station. Mission Specialists Andrew Feustel and Roberto Vittori used the space shuttle’s robotic arm to extract it from Endeavour’s payload bay. The AMS will search for clues about the origin of dark matter and the existence of antimatter and other unusual matter.
This story is an exciting update directly relating to NASA Now: Search for Antimatter. In this program, Trent Martin, project manager for the AMS experiment at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, explains how NASA is trying to answer one of the fundamental questions in modern physics: “What happened to the primordial antimatter?”
After watching NASA Now: Search for Antimatter (requires log-in), read more about the installation of the AMS on the International Space Station in the article in NEON.
Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page.
Here is a great student activity for the springtime — have your students construct and launch a soda bottle rocket. This fun but highly educational activity demonstrates Newton’s Laws of Motion. Find out about other ways you can challenge your students by doing some of the other extensions to the Lunar Nautics module.
The NASA Office of Education is offering a second opportunity for Summer of Innovation, or SoI, Mini-Grants in partnership with the National Space Grant Foundation. The mini-grant aspect of the So
For current events in your class, use the Earth Observatory website for NASA satellite images showing the path of exposed ground left in the wake of recent tornadoes. You will find images taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite on April 28, 2011.
Only one month is left for current NASA Explorer Schools participants to submit their online enrollment forms for the 2011-2012 school year before NES closes for summer recess. You don’t want to miss out on engaging classroom resources from NES, including 20 new classroom modules, student engagement opportunities with NASA scientists and engineers, and exclusive recognition opportunities that NES will offer next year.
Spirit last communicated on March 22, 2010, as Martian winter approached and the rover’s solar-energy supply declined. The rover operated for more than six years after landing in January 2004 for what was planned as a three-month mission. NASA checked frequently in recent months for possible reawakening of Spirit as solar energy available to the rover increased during Martian spring. A series of additional re-contact attempts ended today, designed for various possible combinations of recoverable conditions.
NASA Explorer Schools would like to extend an invitation to K-12 students across the United States to participate in a webchat with astronaut and veteran spacewalker Mike Foreman. The event will take place from 1 to 2 p.m. EST on Nov. 22, 2010. Foreman will answer questions about his spacewalking experiences, living and working in the microgravity environment of space, and his unique career path from high school through astronaut training.
If you are an NES participant in the 2010-2011 school year, you can now register for the upcoming school year. When