Space + Math

  I just spent 4 days at a conference with so many panels on space exploration.  There were talks on the sun, the solar system, space exploration, and so many other topics.

Many of the talks addressed many of the discoveries based on data sent back by Voyager, New Horizons, Kepler, and Cassini.  What I find so amazing is the mathematics involved in sending them out into space on a path to get them exactly where they want them many years in the future.

For the Voyager, the engineers had to keep in mind gravitational forces between the earth, the sun, the moon, the planets and stars as it was traveling through the solar system.  In addition, they had to calculate the motion of the earth, sun and other planets Voyager had to travel by.  This means the engineers basically worked with a three body problem or how to calculate a ships trajectory with reference to the sun, a planet, and an object which in this case is a space ship.

The data indicated if they sent the spaceship  near a planet, the planet lost some speed to the craft causing it to speed away from the sun without using additional fuel.  Back in 1965, the man who found the solution to the three body problem calculated the locations of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune in the late 1970's.  He figured if the spacecraft was launched it 1977, using a slingshot path, it could avoid all four planets.  So Voyager was launched then and off it went, sending back information which provided new information.

On the other hand, the Kepler Space craft was sent out to observe stars outside this solar system.  Scientists are using the Titius - Bode equation to predict the distance of planets from the sun and is used to test the hypothesis that most stars have at least one to two earth like planets in their orbit.  In addition, This equation with a bit of an adjustment, has allowed scientists to find 228 planets unseen by the Kepler telescope.

If you want your students to experience finding unseen planets, check out this activity by NASA and JPL.  The activity uses pi and real data from the Kepler spacecraft.  The worksheet is more in the form of an infographic covering four different situations from find the radius of something based on the decrease in brightness, Jupiter and hydrogen rain, a seismic event on Mars, and Oumaumau (a recently discovered interstellar object.  In addition, they provide answers.

This is the fifth in a series of activities using pi and math in the program.  I'll report more on it tomorrow.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.