Build Your Own Planet

What is a simply DIY craft project that you and your space-crazed kid can complete together? Try making this easy, mess-free solar system to hang in your Blaster’s room!

Materials

The materials you need to complete this galactic task are as follow:

  • Color paper
  • Scissors
  • Compass or several circular objects (mugs, bowls, plates, etc.)
  • Pencil
  • Fishing line
  • Stapler
  • Glue
  • Star-shaped stickers (optional)

StackedStapledFishing Line

Steps:

  1. To create our hometown, Earth, you will need blue, green, brown, and white colored paper.
  2. To be precise, you can set your compass’ width to be 7 cm, which means the diameter of your circles will be 14 cm in total. Or you can use a large mug instead, and trace the outline onto the colored paper by using your pencil.
  3. Using your scissors, cut out the circles. Then, fold them in half.
  4. As shown in the image, stack the paper and staple across the crease that you just folded to keep the paper intact
  5. Then, fold the paper backwards to create a 3-dimensional shape.
  6. Tie the fishing line around the center seem.
  7. Tie a knot and your Earth is completed!
  8. Optional: You can purchase star-shaped stickers and use it as a label for the planet and to cover up the knot you tied in step 7.
  9. Repeat steps 1 to 8 to create Saturn, but this time, use orange, yellow, brown, and white colored paper instead, and set your compass’ width to 10 cm, or find a bigger circular object.
  10. To create the ring, simply create two circles in white and brown respectively that are just a tiny bit smaller than the ones you did to create the spherical shape of Saturn.
  11. Glue them together by slightly overlapping them, and slide it over the 3D Saturn.
  12. Repeat steps 1 to 8 to create the other planets, but make sure you alter the measurement of your compass slightly to show the scale between the different planets.

Complete

Note:

  • The more circles you cut out, the more detailed your planets will look, but it will also be harder to staple all the paper together.
  • Assist your kid when using the compass – the sharp tip can be hazardous.

New Discovery: Young Planet Found Outside of Solar System

Have your Blaster been keeping up with the latest space happenings? It seems that a team of astronomers have discovered a giant planet, orbiting a single, sun-like star, right outside of our solar system. What’s most unique about this planet? It weighs 11 times more than Jupiter’s mass, and it is orbiting its star at 650 times the average Earth-Sun distance, which is a formation model that cannot be explained by present theories and knowledge.

Photo by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Photo by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

This young planet is about 13 million years old, and it still glows from the heat that was created during its formation. Earth was created 4.5 billion years ago, which is 350 times older than this giant planet, known as HD 106906 b. Its temperature is about 2,700°F, which is much cooler than its host stars, and thus, emits most of its energy as infrared, not visible light.

Since this planet is orbiting very far from its parent star, astronomers are very puzzled and confused about its odd formation. None of the present theories sustained. This new discovery provided astronomers the opportunity to question planets’ formation, history, and composition.

The Final Frontier: NASA’s Spacecraft the First to Enter the Interstellar Space

After 35 years of travelling through space, NASA’s Voyager 1 made a historical leap out of our solar system, making it the first spacecraft to venture into what is known as interstellar space. Interstellar space refers to the area between giant stars that died millions of years ago. It is a space that is dominated by plasma or ionized gas. Recent data shows that the Voyager is currently in this transitional region right outside of our solar system, which is 19 billion kilometers away from our sun.

Photo by NASAblueshift

Although the Voyager’s plasma sensor has been ineffective since 1980, the massive burst of solar wind and magnetic field from our sun made the plasma around the spacecraft to vibrate, allowing the researchers to understand the density of the plasma. From this incident, scientists are able to determine the vibration of the plasma is 40 times denser than the measurement taken in the outer layer of the heliosphere, which is a sort of bubble of charged particles that surrounds our sun. The change in density indicates a new region in space and the new data matches very well with what the researchers expect to find in interstellar space.

The NASA engineers carefully calculated and managed the Voyager’s resources to ensure that it can still send data back to Earth at least through 2020. The signals emitted from Voyager 1 are weak, at about 23 watts, which is the power of a refrigerator light bulb. Even traveling at the speed of light, it takes about 17 hours for the signals to reach Earth.

Voyager 1 has gone beyond any probe has ever gone, and it is continuing to reach for the undisturbed part of interstellar space, where there is no influence from our sun. Although scientists are not certain whether Voyager 1’s twin, Voyager 2, can cross into interstellar space, they believe it is very close behind.

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