A Visit from an Expert!

Mr Esler came to visit us on Wednesday. He taught us some interesting facts about space. 

We learned that Pluto isn't a planet anymore because it is too small! Some planet's moons are bigger than pluto. The planets are all different colours and Jupiter has a red spot. We learned that you can't land your rocket on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus or Neptune because they are made out of gas. At night when you look into the night sky you will know you are looking at a planet not a star because planets don't twinkle like stars do. Stars twinkle because they are burning hot balls of gas. 

Mr Esler also taught us about gravity. He brought along a model of a brick. When you pick up the model model brick it is very light (this is how heavy own normal bricks would feel if you were holding it on the moon), when we lifted it a little higher and held the milk bottle full of water up off the ground this would be how heavy an average brick would feel on Earth (we agreed!), when you lifted the model brick even higher and picked up the last two full milk bottles also this would be how heavy a brick would feel on Jupiter as the gravity is much stronger than Earth's. The brick was REALLY heavy. We decided that you would not want a job laying bricks on Jupiter!

In the background of our photos you can see the huge piece of space junk that Mr Esler brought along. Up until March this year it was the largest known piece of space junk. Its a 30kg titanium sphere, he found in Fiordland in 2003. Its a pressurant tank from an American rocket, and it has a big dent in it from when it smacked into the sea. It would have come flying out of space at over 200kmph. However, now another piece of space junk was found near Stewart Island earlier this year in March, which is even bigger and still filled with liquid! Now Mr Esler has the second largest piece of space junk! Here is the link to the story about the man who found the tank this year http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/10184532/Houston-we-have-a-question

 Makayla is holding the weight of a brick on Earth

Now shes holding the weight of a brick on Jupiter