woodchurch science

apparently i would last 1 minute and 29 seconds. what about you?

there are four main theories: spin theory, capture theory, double planet theory and large impact theory. do some research using these links.

an advert will be in the papers next week looking for europe’s first astronaut to walk on the moon. this will mark the beginning of one of the most exciting recruitment drives in more than 40 years. the european astronaut centre needs more astronauts, and if you’re physically fit, cool under pressure, willing to work away from home and have a good head for heights this could be just the job for you. read the rest of the article here

this is good. it shows you where apollo missions 11 to 17 landed (13 never made it). amazing that the landings were all so close to each other! google moon. you can also zoom in on each landing site and look at other sections of the moon. fascinating facts and figures.

this link takes you to the national schools observatory. you will need to register first but once done you can point the telescope to anywhere in space and download images. useful for 7l.

update: mr pooley has registered the school at this site and has about 100 pupil and 10 teacher sign ins to use up.

the perseid meteor shower is an annual event and shooting stars are set to grace the night sky with a spectacular light display this weekend. the meteor shower will reach its peak during the early hours of monday, but it will be visible from saturday night until tuesday morning. the celestial show will be most apparent in the north-eastern part of the sky near the perseus constellation. if the skies remain clear, it will offer stargazers the best opportunity for a few years to see the perseids. the shower this year coincides with a new moon, providing sky watchers with the dark skies necessary for excellent observing conditions.

if you’ve seen our wiki site (where you can write our webpages) you’ll know that it’s only about 10 to 15 pages. here’s a fantastic example of a wiki page where there are over 2000 pages! if you ever need any information about our moon this is the place to go.

the eclipse begins at 2018 gmt, with the moon totally immersed in the shadow of the earth between 2244 and 2358 gmt.
during “totality”, only light that has been filtered through the earths atmosphere reaches the moons surface, making it appear a reddish colour. should be largely cloudless in the northwest tonight so get out there…

astronomers have decided to call what was originally xena or snappily 2003 ub313, ‘eris’. in greek mythology, eris caused a quarrel among goddesses sparking one of the trojan wars. in astronomy circles, eris has also caused strife, forcing scientists to produce a strict definition of the term planet - and has led to pluto losing its planet status that it had held since its discovery in 1930. both eris and pluto (together with the largest asteroid, ceres) are now classified as ‘dwarf planets.

here’s a video from 1999 filmed in cornwall showing the last total eclipse visible in the uk. the video image has been treated (so that you can see what’s going on) because the 11th august 1999 was quite a cloudy day in cornwall.

 play using real player (quite quick, only 1.3mb)

 play using windows media player (slow to load, about 22mb)

additionally, here’s a link to a series of photographs of progressively darker then lighter clouds!

finally, a great resource for eclipses