The Planetarium at UT Arlington
Monday, November 23, 2009
Today's Events
| 2:30 pm | Secret of the Cardboard Rocket |
| Join two children on a magical journey through the Solar System, aided by a talking astronomy book, a cardboard rocket, and a vivid imagination. During this imaginative show, audiences will land on Venus, fly through the rings of Saturn, and discover the secrets of the Solar System. | |
| 5:30 pm | Seven Wonders |
| Turn back the pages of time and witness the ancient wonders of the world as they have not been seen for thousands of years. We will investigate the theories of how these wonders were created and get a glimpse of some of the universe's greatest wonders. | |
Ask the Astronomer Q&A
Tag: "moon"
- Have astronauts ever been to ___?
- Astronauts have never been anywhere besides the Earth and Moon (but there have been no Moon trips since 1972). There are plans to return to the Moon (possibly by 2020) and then astronauts may travel to Mars. A trip to the Moon takes about three days, but a one-way trip to Mars will take close to nine months.
(Tags: astronaut earth mars moon) - If I were to fast-forward into the future, and I was setting up a base on Callisto, what might be the best place to do that? Would somewhere like in the Lofn crater be a good place to put it? If so, what would the area look like? Would I be able to see Jupiter from there? Would the ground feel and look like snow? Would the thin atmosphere carry any sort of sound?
- Callisto is a tidally locked moon which means that the same side is always facing Jupiter (like our Moon).
Unfortunately, the Lofn crater is located on the far side the moon (56˚ S and 23˚W) so your base would never see Jupiter.
The surface of Callisto is covered by ice (water ice), carbon-dioxide and silicates; so it wouldn’t feel like snow, it would feel like hard ice.
The thin atmosphere is so tiny; you can almost consider there is no atmosphere. It is surprising that this tiny moon has an atmosphere; however, it is not stable. The atmosphere is actually running away and is probably being replenished by the surface carbon-dioxide. Such an atmosphere wouldn’t carry any sound.
(Tags: jupiter moon physics solar system)
