Mission of the Month: October 2007

Adventures in Aerospace

From Mars explorations to star counting to space parties, this month, youth can go to infinity and beyond with four stellar activities:

Mission to Mars
In tandem with Space Week, October 4-10, youth can put their “space smarts” to work with CYFERnet’s own version of the Space Week Science Challenge (originally presented by the Iowa Space Grant Consortium and currently in its seventh year). Read the Mission to Mars activity guide to get started!

Great Worldwide Star Count
Youth and adults are invited to count the stars in the evening sky from October 1-15 and report their results online. The event, sponsored by Windows to the Universe, is designed to raise awareness about light pollution and encourage learning in astronomy. At the conclusion of the event, the submitted data will be analyzed and a map will be generated highlighting the results. Visit http://www.starcount.org for details.

HiRISE Image Targeting Challenge
The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, now orbiting Mars, is helping NASA search for signs of water on the Red Planet—and youth can help choose which regions of Mars to image. The HiRISE team will pick several suggestions and image them in the coming months. The participants will represent the first people on Earth to see the resulting images and will have a chance to search for signs of water in the image. Visit http://quest.nasa.gov/challenges/hirise/ for registration and background info, teacher guides and student activity books.

Space Party 1-2-3, Revisited
To round out this month’s aerospace theme, consider returning to the December 2006 Mission of the Month. There, you’ll find guidelines for three unique star parties that utilize the free Stellarium and Celestia software, as well as the Heaven’s-Above Web site.