Should Pluto be a planet?

Astronomy 10 learning goal M2.5

Look around the class. Pick out a student who is wearing red (but not necessarily the student who has the most red clothes on). Get the attention of your class, and then announce, "I'm going to give [student] 10 extra-credit points today."

Wait until someone else from the class asks why that student is getting extra-credit points. Reply that that student was wearing red. When someone asks you why red is so special, respond that because you're wearing red, that was the color you decided to look for today, but emphasize that only the original student is going to be getting extra-credit points.

Other students will ask why they aren't getting points for wearing red today (or perhaps for wearing more red than the original student). Tell them that the original student was the first one you happened to see when you first looked around the class. And again, announce that only the original student is going to be receiving extra-credit points for being the first person you saw who was wearing red.

After hearing the students out, then return to the points you were pondering earlier. Why is Pluto a planet? Why should Pluto be a planet? Is it fair to other Kuiper belt objects that they don't get to be planets, too? Is it fair to Kuiper belt objects larger than Pluto to not be planets?

Announce to the rest of the class that if they come with a good argument why it is "fair" for (all?) other Kuiper belt objects to be planets as well, then everyone else will get extra-credit points as well.

That's hot

Anonymous, courtesy FoundPhotos archive (http://www.10eastern.com/foundphotos)

Astronomy 10 learning goal Q1.5

Depending on the location of the photographer, the Sun may set straight down (if at/near the equator), diagonally to the left (southern hemisphere), or diagonally to the right (northern hemisphere).

"Sun Love"

http://www.pbfcomics.com/archive/0PBF31039BC-Sun_Love.jpg
Perry Bible Fellowship webcomics, by Nicholas Gurewitch

Astronomy 10 learning goal 9.1

This cartoon is always a hit with the students. Is it that much more tragic because of the baby carriage?

Titan descent data movie with bells and whistles

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia08117.html

Astronomy 10 learning goal 6.5
Physics 8A learning goal 3.1

Visual and aural overload of data, showing the descent trajectory of the Huygens lander probe on Saturn's moon, Titan. It does kind of sound like a slot machine in a casino...

Bon mot: black hole mass, volume, and density

Astronomy 10 learning goal 10.1

"Black holes are where God divided by zero."
--Stephen Wright

Black holes are one of the end-stages of massive main sequence stars, if the core of the main sequence star exceeds the Oppenheimer-Volkov limit of 3.0 solar masses, at which gravitational forces overwhelm neutron degeneracy pressures. This results in the complete collapse of the core into a black hole. Its mass remains the same, while its size goes to zero. As density is mass divided by volume, this is where Stephen Wright's "divided by zero" takes place, resulting in an infinite density (but remember that mass is finite!).

Interactive pulsar

Neutron Stars Interactive (*.swf)
McGraw-Hill Online Learning Center

Astronomy 10 learning goal M3.5

You can control the rate at which the radio wave "lighthouse" beams are detected by separately varying the relative inclinations of the rotation axis and the magnetic poles with respect to the Earth. If only there was a way to speed up the rotation rate, in order to better approximate the typical rapid rotations of pulsars.

http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/olcweb/cgi/pluginpop.cgi?it=swf::800::600::/sites/dl/free/007299181x/78778/Neutron_Nav.swf::Neutron%20Stars%20Interactive

Bon mot: theorists versus experimentalists

"Most really good theoretical physicists don't pay much attention to what experimenters think. They build their theories based on their own instincts and go where intuition leads them."
--Leonard Susskind

Damn the experimentalists and full speed ahead!

Meteorite scavenger hunt

Searching for Meteorites in Antarctica
Ralph P. Harvey (CWRU)
Antarctic Search for Meteorites Program, NASA, NSF

Astronomy 10 learning goal M2.1

What else are you going to find on top of all that ice and snow...well, other than penguin poop?

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021226.html

Bon mot: red dwarfs

Astronomy 10 learning goal Q9.3

"It seems that dim stars in the universe at large are like rabbits and bureaucrats: They may not be very bright, but there are a lot of them."
--Sherwood Harrington, Mercury, 1986, no. 5

Red dwarfs are the "forever stars," with lifetimes that currently exceed the known age of the universe. (However, unlike rabbits and bureaucrats, red dwarfs don't breed, and those that were born have yet to die.)

Wormholes

Astronomy 10 learning goal Q10.1

Figurative interpretation of traveling through black hole "wormholes."

http://www.comics.com/creators/rubes/
(April 18, 2006)