Field trip to the Natural History Mueseum

While visiting the Rose Center I learned many more facts about Uranus. In the Cullman Hall (the bottom floor of the Rose Center) I learned that the rotation axis of Uranus is tipped nearly into the plane of its orbit. The planets poles experience decades of continental sunlight alternating with decades of continental darkness. Its pale blue atmosphere consists mainly of water, methane and ammonia. I also weighed myself on the sun as well as the moon. In the Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites I recorded a table on Cape York Meteorites. I was amazed to find out the names given to the three meteorites: Ahnighto, The Woman, along with The Dog. The Ahnighito was named by a four year old daughter of the discoverer and named it after her babysitter a native Greenlander. The Woman as well as The Dog's name came from a dog, it was based on a myth. Shooting stars are falling stars, right? Wrong, they are meteor's vaporizing and that is why they leave behind a fiery trail. Most people would think a meteor is short for meteorites but they are two completely different stars. Meteors are much bigger, and made out of comet dust. Where as meteorites are of rock, while their remainder consist wholly of iron and nickel. The amazing part about meteorites is that they tell us how old our solar system is! Four sources of meteorites are: asteroids, planets, comets, and the moon. Throughout history other people have explained meteorites as shooting stars, others thought they were myths or even gods. The big bang movie explained how the universe was after, and different once the big bang took place. A second after the big bang the universe was dusty, it expanded and then cooled. The universe is much bigger today, now it contains planets. Thirteen million years ago global clusters began to form. 11 million years ago Quasars arranged. 9 million years ago the disk of our milky way galaxy appeared. 8 million years ago light from the radio galaxy has taken 8 billion years to reach us. One million years ago multicellular life has formed.

The three most astounding things I learned at the Natural History Museum were understanding our Galaxy. One thing I learned was that chrondules which are primitive meteorites. Primitive meaning ancient makes chrondules ancient meteorites. Since chrondules are meteorites they allow us to see the beginning of our solar system. Another thing I learned is how valuable meteorites are and how people have damaged Cape York Meteorites. Ahnighito has had chunks taken off of it, a total of 166 tons. Ahnighito was once 200 tons, and is now only 34 tons! The Woman in addition to The Dog have both been heavily hammered. A third thing I learned is that all of the Cape York Meteorites have been found in West Greenland, Greenland. This includes Ahnighito, The Woman, and The Dog.

Two important questions I still have are based around astronomy. I do not understand how spacecrafts were created. Who came up with the idea and how that person thought to create a spaceship? Even so I live in modern times and have flown in airplanes myself it still seems unreal that a plane so heavy can lift itself into the air. How does gas hold such weight in the air without difficulty? Another question I have is how the nine planets do not move closer and farther away from the sun? How do the planets stay perfectly in line with one another and each year they take the same amount of time to rotate around the sun each year? I wonder why the sun does not burn the surface of any planets in our Solar System?

Herschel Discovers Uranus

Uranus was discovered by: William Herschel an English astronomer. It was discovered on March 13, 1781 while William was systematically searching the sky with a telescope. When he discovered Uranus he thought he had discovered a comet.
Source: Nine Planets.org
http://nineplanets.org/uranus.html