Summer Astronomy

This summer we have been exploring the space beyond our atmosphere. It has been a blast!! As partners in our journey to outer space, our friends the O's have joined us. So in age order we have Kiah, Tessa, Kali, Lana, Logan, Toran and Laci. With Anique, Micah and Dan looking on from the wings. We started at the sun and have journeyed to Saturn. Over the next few Saturdays we will finish our study of the solar system. It will bring the official end of our summer and start of fall. My kids were just beginning to understand what that meant and I heared a chorus of "WAIT, WHAT, WE WON'T BE ABLE TO SEE THE O'S EVERY WEEK". Not fun for me either. We just love those guys! Of course right after the whine fest came the "what are we doing next summer with the O's? Oceans, insects, rocks, anatomy, botany, fish" you get the point. So what have we done/learned.

                       1) God is great and has made an amazing universe for us to explore.
                       2) If you can use food to make the point, it is sooooo much better.

Phases of the moon in Oreos

Making models of the Earth in rice crispy treats, gumdrops and mini chocolate chips

                         3) Volcanoes are really cool whether they are on Earth or Mars.

building of the volcanoes

ERUPTION

  4) Shooting off rockets in the driveway is a ton of fun.
  5) Shooting off soda bottle rockets with Dan's air compressor is even more fun. Sure wish we had taken pictures of the rocket blasts. Sorry, we will have to have a take two and post pictures later.

Beyond that we have learned that meteoroids and asteroids are pretty much the same thing they just differ in size. Comets are dirty snowballs streaking thru space (imagine that, even God has snowball fights). Jupiter has a mini solar system all its own and it has rings(I know right). Mars is home to the largest and tallest volcano in our solar system(bonus points if you know the name of it). The sun on Mercury looks white because Mercury has almost no atmosphere. Venus rotates in the opposite direction of all other planets. Isn't that amazing? God spun Venus backwards, that is just so amazing to me. It was almost as though He was adding His signature to His creation. Saturn is the only planet in our solar system that is less dense than water. That means that if you could find a body of water big enough to put Saturn in, it would float! No, I don't know how they know that, I'm sure math was involved. We have talked about Curiosity; the rover that is on Mars as I type.   We have even looked at some of the pictures it has sent back to Earth. Totally cool!!

I have to say I'm not really ready for all of this fun to end. Fall will be a major let down after all of this fun summer schooling. I am looking forward to the future adventures for the summer school gang!! Hope your summer was as far out as ours was.