Astronomy Project #2

We've made some alterations to our project. We are going to design an Earth-like planet for the star Vega. It will have one moon, and will be able to support Ed, some dogs and a satellite dish. We will use this project to demonstrate the various points outlined in the Astronomy Standards as established for our class. We will use this planet to show the relationship between a star and a planet with a moon in terms of: seasons; night and day; eclipses; lunar phases; and what constitutes a Planet Ed year. We will show classification of planets into terrestrial and Jovian categories. We will compare the 4 characteristics that define a planet in our solar system to that of Planet Ed. This project will demonstrate how the tilt of Planet Ed’s axis, controls the length of day and intensity of Vega's radiation. We will explain how it is not the distance of Planet Ed to Vega (but the tilt of Planet Ed’s axis) that controls yearly patterns of energy, temperature, snow and ice distribution and biologic activity. We will demonstrate how the scale of Vega is different from Sol and how the scale of the system containing Planet Ed would be different from our solar system, as well as the structure of the Vega solar system to our solar system.. We will show that planets in the night sky change positions and are not always visible from Planet Ed. We have determined that Vega is part of the Milky Way galaxy, which is one of many galaxies in the universe. We will qualitatively and quantitatively use Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation as well as use the equation to demonstrate how tides work on Planet Ed, including the difference between spring and neap tides and how the force of gravity varies for different planets. We will demonstrate how Foucault's pendulum experiment can be used to document Planet Ed’s rotation.

Today in class we discussed some different ways to accomplish this goal and refined our project (see above). David has volunteered to look into the math needed for the discussion of Planet Ed. Ed has volunteered to start looking into the materials needed to express some of these concepts in a meaningful way. I will do my best to be a documentarian, as well as help to drive the focus of our group work so that we capture all of the points in our final presentation of our work. Please look forward to reading more about Planet Ed!