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| Asteroid Attack |
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Earth, ‘our mother planet’, is being attacked everyday by
about 25 tons of dust and sand-sized particles. An
asteroid, the size of a small car, hits Earth’s atmosphere
about once in every year.
Fortunately she knows how to defend herself. When that
small car-sized asteroid enters her atmosphere, she burns
the asteroid up before the latter touches her surface. So
no damage is done.
But what exactly are asteroids? Asteroids are fragments from
the formation of the Solar System some 4.6 billion years
ago. Fortunately, most asteroids are found in the Asteroid
Belt found between the planets Mars and Jupiter, the gas
giant. Scientists think that asteroids found in the belt
can be as big as 940 km across.
Like everybody though, Earth cannot cope with each and every
one of the asteroids.
If an asteroid has managed not to be completely burned up
while sprinting into Earth’s atmosphere, then ????.
Scientists think that the collision would cause local damage
to the surrounding area.
If that same asteroid however measures more than 1 km across
when it touches Earth’s surface, disaster is on its way.
Scientists believe that this impact could have worldwide
effects. Man however is helping or trying to help our
mother Earth.
Astronomers are now observing and tracking asteroids, which
are at an average distance from Earth to Moon. By
immediately tracking potential dangers and learning more
about their orbital paths, scientists have more time to
study potentially threatening situations. In the next few
years, NASA hopes to discover more than 90% of all Earth’s
threatening objects larger than 1 km across.
But we have to stop these threatening asteroids from hitting
Earth so as to ‘save’ ourselves.
In some movies, we see a missile being launched straight
towards a big asteroid. The latter then explodes and the
film usually ends. But in reality, it’s not that simple.
Did you ever think what might happen to the biggest remains
of that big asteroid? Maybe it would go and enter Earth’s
atmosphere or maybe not. If it does pass this first test,
maybe it will cause big damages or maybe not. You will
agree with me that man cannot take such a risk.
An idea suggests that if a small asteroid is indeed
intending to hit Earth, an engine is to be anchored in it.
This engine is simply going to push the asteroid away.
Yet another strategy to put the asteroid out of the way is
to attach solar sails to it. The ‘gentle’ pressure of
sunlight on the sails will deflect the asteroid away from
Earth.
Luckily an asteroid the size of a football field manages to
hit the Earth only every thousand years or so but mind you I
do not know when such an asteroid did hit Earth last. |
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| Harry Potter and the Moons of Jupiter |
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It is in the latest Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the
Order of the Phoenix, that readers get the confirmation that
the ‘Boy who lived’ is indeed interested in a science that
even some Muggles are good at: Astronomy, the study of
celestial objects, of space and of the physical universe as
a whole. Maybe the awful Dursleys did do some good things
with Harry when they let the wizard, who did not yet know he
was one, learn Astronomy.
At Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry though, Harry
and his two best friends, Ron and Hermione, seemed to be
going on more with the giant of the giants: Jupiter but to
be more precise with its moons.
But unluckily for the wizards and witches, Astronomy was
making life difficult. As Harry and his friends would be
sitting for their O.W.L.S (Ordinary Wizarding Level) at the
end of the year, they were bombarded with homework. This
was fortunately corrected by Hermione before being actually
handed to the teachers. And believe me, this was a good
thing too as both Harry and Ron were making terrible
mistakes. If it were not for Hermione, both boys would be
getting a ‘D’ standing for Dreadful on the top corner of
their parchment rolls. An would be:
‘“Harry, you must have misheard Professor Sinistra,” says
Hermione,
“Europa’s covered in ice not mice!”’
Europa as you might have guessed is way too cold for mice.
Spacecrafts have taken photos of this natural satellite and
Europa does look lifeless.
If you are a Harry Potter fan though, you may well say that
Harry went on Europa by magic and then saw living organisms
there. Well coming to think of it, maybe he did find life
on Europa if of course he ever went there.
This is because below Europa’s ice coating, scientists think
that there may well be a big ocean of liquid water. The
biggest ocean in the Solar System in fact and that says
something. Here on Earth, life and water appear to go
together. So it is logical to think that there may be life
in that ocean of Europa, is it not? Of course life in the
form of microbes or some sort of alien fish is expected.
And maybe swimming mice!
Unfortunately the mystery of life in Europa cannot be solved
by this generation and I personally think nor can the next.
This is because of the technology which still needs to take
a big step forwards.
Back at Hogwarts, Hermione who was correcting one of Ron’s
essay about Io, another of Jupiter’s numerous satellites,
when she spotted yet another mistake. She remarked,
“And it’s Io that’s got the volcanoes.”
She was right again. Some people (I’ll say including Ron)
say that Io looks like a pepperoni pizza because the
satellite is dotted with volcanoes.
“Io has more pepperoni-coloured volcanoes than Ron Weasley
has freckles,” says Dr. Tony Phillips.
At this very moment dozens of these volcanoes are vomiting
the hottest lava in the Solar System. The plumes rise so
high into space that volcanic ash freezes before falling
back to the ground as sulphurous snow. NASA’s spacecrafts
have actually flown through these plumes and survived.
Back on Earth and at Hogwarts more precisely where Hermione
told Ron over the latter’s shoulder,
‘“Jupiter’s biggest moon is Ganymede, not Callisto.”’
Ganymede is the largest known satellite discovered in the
entire Solar System. It is a little wider than Mercury,
which is the closest planet to the Sun in the Solar System.
Ron’s mistake is not of those terrible ones though because
Callisto is only a little smaller than Ganymede. Like
Europa, Callisto may be concealing an ocean.
These four satellites were all discovered by Galileo Galilei
in 1610. Galilei was astounded when he observed Jupiter
through his primitive telescope as he saw four little
‘stars’ near the giant planet. He was even more amazed when
he discovered that these ‘stars’ were moving in what seemed
to be an orbit around Jupiter from night to night.
Astronomers now call these four natural satellites the
Galilean satellites.
Almost everything that is known about the Galilean
satellites comes from NASA’s spacecraft, especially the two
Voyager probes.
But Hogwarts is a school of magic whereas Astronomy is
simply magic. |
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