Welcome to a short but amazing week!

This week in physics: By Tuesday you must have great notes completed on podcasts 12, 13, and 14 from our unit on energy. We’ll do assignment 3 in class on Tuesday and Wednesday followed by a test on Thursday or Friday. (Yes, last week I predicted we’d take it early this week, but my conference on Thursday and the fact that we have Monday off has bumped us a smidge. Try to contain your disapointment. :-P) Next week: A quick unit on momentum!

This week in astronomy: This is our big planetarium week, so come to class excited!!! We’ll spend the first part of the week practicing mapping the stars and finding them in the “sky.” (You need your flashlights this week. We’ll ultimately take a quiz, and you may not share flashlights. Without a flashlight, you won’t be able to see your map.) Podcast 1 will help you prepare for the quiz. Following this we’ll explore the motion of our night sky and begin doing meridian diagrams in which we’ll identify key markers, such as the celestial equator and the celestial north pole. These will help us better analyze the motions of the stars as we “travel” across the globe. Podcast 2 will lend support to our work. We’ll continue with this topic deep into next week. FUN!!!

Cool Science of the Week: This is from the “Oh no they didn’t!” files…Over 34,000 citizens signed a petition asking President Obama to build the Death Star. Hahahahah!!!! Continuing the “Oh no they didn’t!” thread, the White House responded…with an AWESOME overview of our space program. It’s worth a read…Enjoy!

Special bonus opportunity (astronomy only): What moon in our solar system resembles the Death Star?