January 18th

This Monday we had off from school!!!=] YAYYYY

On Tuesday:

-For homework i found out what a solstice and an equinox was.

A solstice is an event that happens twice a year, when the tilt of the earth's axis is most inclined toward or away from the sun.

An equinox occurs twice a year, when the tilt of the earth's axis is inclined is inclined neither away nor towards the sun. That is when there are equal amounts of day and night.

I found out that we see different parts of the moon because

-perspective of people on earth

-the moon is revolving

-different parts of the moon are getting lit up as it rotates.

We learned how to make force diagrams for the moon. I found out that the earth exerts a force on the moon and directs it to it's center.

On Wednesday:

For homework I had to answer the question: why does the moon stay in orbit because it looks like it will crash right into the earth.

I thought that the moon orbits the earth because of the other forces interacting with it. Although it shows that the moon should be accelerating into the earth, it will not. I found that the moon not crashing into the earth has to do with the speed of the moon. That is what keeps it in orbit.

We came up with the question: What caused the moon to start orbiting? We found out that it was because of "The BIG Bang."

We also watched a video of a boy named David hitting a ball with a mallet to keep it orbiting around a circle on the floor. His mallet was forcing the ball to keep going around in a circle. The orbit that that ball was on was always an equal distance from the circle (the earth) it was traveling around.

On Thursday:

- For homework we had to run 20 trials and see how the moon orbits the earth. Although this was time consuming, I did learn a lot. I learned why it didn't just crash into the earth and how speed had a lot to do with it's orbit.

Another thing that I learned and didn't know before was that a satellite was something that orbits.

-The distance affects the amount of initial velocity needed to put in orbit.

This is important because: now i know why the moon doesn't just crash into us. I also know a lot of key terms that will help me later on in my science career.

okkaayyyy weellll thhhatttsss aaallll(:

~KATHY~