Venus, Mars, Rocks & Shooting Stars

I know some of you have been chomping at the bit to find out which planet is the hottest planet.

[Note an insane amount of sarcasm here] 

;)

The answer:

VENUS

It has a very thick atmosphere which holds in the sun's heat.
It's a whopping 870* day and night.
And we complain about getting to 100*. Pshh.

Venus Science Projects

 #1

Using Radar to determine the surface of Venus.

Since Venus's atmosphere is so thick and non-transparent,

Radar is needed in order to get a feel for the surface.

Using a color coded skewer to map out the surface

Blue/Purple are craters or deep areas, Green is surface land, Red/Orange are hills/mountains, Yellow are high peeks

He took a 3D picture of his

It must've been really hot in the schoolroom that day for him to have a cool neck wrap on. ;)

The big reveal to see what it actually looked like inside (the Legos were not color coded)

#2

Venus is full of volcanoes - Thousands of them really.

The lava thickens after each explosion.

So we used butter to represent the lava.

As it poured down the volcano, it thickened.

A lot like what happens on the surface of Venus.

I didn't have red food coloring, so I used red icing.  Yeah, that didn't work that well.

Our flour volcano with a custard cup in the center.  We turned it upside down so the lava could immediately run down the sides of the volcano.

hmmm . . . not quite what we expected, but it did show how the lava gelled as it cooled.

Touching the cooled lava.

MARS

Mars Science Experiments

#1  Why is Mars red?

We took a little play sand and put it in the pie pan to represent Mars's surface

Mars has a LOT of iron in it, so we took some steel wool and flaked it all over the sand

I didn't feel like waiting for moisture to rust the steel, so we sped up the process and sprayed vinegar all over it.

And the apparently scary results:  An orangish brown surface.

#2

We made our own little edible Mars Rovers just for fun.

Here is our template.  Courtesy of our science book: Exploring Creation with Astronomy by Jeannie Fulbright

Gathering supplies: Graham Crackers, Icing, Vanilla Wafers & Twizzlers

Mars Rover #1

Mars Rover #2

Mars Rover #3

Mars Rover #4

 #3

Mars has the largest volcano in our solar system.

It's name: Olympus Mons

It has never erupted (at least to our knowledge),

so we wanted to represent what it would look like if it did.

We have been waiting to do this experiment for a looong time.

5 Bottles of Coke & 3 different packs of Mentos later . . .

One whole pack of Mentos in a 2L bottle of Diet Coke

ROCKS & SHOOTING STARS

Meteoroids are space rocks, ice & dust that float around in space.

Meteors are Meteoroids that burn up in the Earth's atmosphere ~ Often called shooting stars.

Meteorites are Meteors (or anything) that makes it through the Earth's atmosphere and hits the surface.

Comets are balls of dirt, ice, rocks & snow that orbit close to the Sun on an elliptical orbital path.

Asteroids are space rocks that are at least football field sized or larger.

Any smaller than that and they're considered Meteoroids.

The asteroid belt is in between Mars and Jupiter.

The Exploded Planet Hypothesis suggests that perhaps the asteroid belt used to be a planet that exploded.

That would explain the large amount of craters on one side of each of the inner planets and moons and the craters on one side of the gaseous planet's moons.

Inner Planets & Asteroid Belt Model

1 yard = 3,600,000 miles  -  The equivalent Earth size is the blue dot on the left paper.  The equivalent Sun size is the orange circle on the right paper.  And the bottom left corner of the Sun paper is the equivalent Pluto (the size of a sprinkle)

We mapped the inner planets and the asteroid belt only

Otherwise we would have had to put Jupiter in the house at the end of the street.

Hard to see, but I'm at the Asteroid Belt.  The green pail is Mars.  My daughter is Earth.  My three sons are Venus, Mercury and the Sun.  The distance from the Asteroid Belt to the Sun is 77 yards. (280,000,000 mi)

To finish out the solar system model, our street would have had to been a half mile long. (would have been the equivalent to 3,673,000,000 mi)  It's not.  So we stopped at the Asteroid Belt.

And so next week we begin our study on the outer planets.
First Up: Jupiter
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*Note: Diet Coke & Mentos experiment:  In order to have a huge eruption, you must use Original Mint Mentos (which we could not find) and the name brand 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke.  If the Mentos are wax coated (which were the only kind we could find in our local stores), you need to dump an entire pack in for a small/medium eruption.