The UK-China Leonid Meteor Shower Observation Project
The UK-China Leonid Meteor Shower Observation Project
BING-BING'S PROJECTS
8.Why do meteors seem to come from one point?
When the Earth moves into the tail of a comet, it sweeps up the dust grains and they hit the atmosphere. They seem to come from one point but they really move in parallel lines. If you look along a road, or a set of railway tracks, they seem to be coming together. You know that this is an illusion, caused by distance. Meteors seem to be coming from one point (RADIANT) because they are so far up on the edge of the atmosphere. The Leonids are millions of times closer to us than the stars in the constellation of Leo, but they seem to come from that part of the sky.
To show how a radiant works, you can get some uncooked spaghetti, a plate and some clay. Stick the spaghetti upright in the clay, so that they are all standing up straight. Look down on the spaghetti from above, and you will see that they seem to come together at the bottom, even though they don't really. This is how a radiant works.
Friction is caused when two things rub together. If they can't move smoothly past each other, they rub and get hot. You can cause friction if you rub your hands together. Rub them faster and they get hotter. If you make your hands soapy, then they slide past each other more easily. When a meteor hits the atmosphere it "rubs" against the air incredibly quickly, so it becomes very hot indeed. So hot, in fact, that it burns up. We can see this burning as a trail or streak across the sky. We call this a shooting star.
10. The Solar System The Solar System has nine planets.
This is a list of them, but all mixed up. Use the information about
their distances from the Sun, and their orbits, to put them in order. When
you have done that, work out which planets would be hotter or colder than
Earth, and how many birthdays you would have on Earth, compared to the
other planets.
|
|
|
|
|
| Sun | 1,392,530 |
|
|
| Mars |
6,787
|
228
|
687 Days
|
| Jupiter |
142,754
|
778
|
12 Years
|
| Venus |
12,104
|
108
|
228 Days
|
| Pluto |
2,345
|
6,000
|
248 Years
|
| Uranus |
51,177
|
2,870
|
84 Years
|
| Mercury | 4,878 |
57
|
88 Days
|
| Earth |
12,756
|
151
|
365 days
|
| Neptune |
49,520
|
4,500
|
165 Years
|
| Saturn |
120,057
|
1,427
|
29 Years
|
Use the information in the table to make a scale model of the solar system, using stones or modelling clay or balls to make the planets. See how far away from the Sun, Pluto is. If you make the distance of Mercury from the Sun 1.0 cm, then Pluto is 1 metre away! On this scale, the nearest star would be 10 kms away!
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© The Orbital Mechanics and the British Council, 1998