THE CELEBRATION CONTINUES: This summer, we've been reading lots about the Voyager mission, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2017.
We've marked Tuesday, Sept. 5 on our calendar, as NASA and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum will have a public event televised at 9:30 a.m. PDT (12:30 p.m. EDT),
The observance will take place at the Smithsonian's museum located at Independence Avenue at 6th street SW in Washington D.C., but fortunately it will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on NASA's website.
Per a press release we received today, "Activities will include panel discussions about the Voyagers' creation and mission history, their unprecedented science findings and imagery, impact on Earth's culture and how the spacecraft inspired countless scientists, engineers and the next generation of explorers. The event also will include a galactic message transmitted toward the Voyager 1 spacecraft by a celebrity guest." Hmm. Wonder who that will be? ...
While the Voyagers' original mission was to explore Jupiter and Saturn, they've loooong since surpassed those goals. The twin spacecraft are both far beyond our solar system's planets, and NASA continues to communicate with them daily as they pioneer humankind's way into interstellar space.
NASA is offering commemorative posters for the mission, including the cool 70s-disco inspired one above. You can find them on NASA's JPL website: https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/downloads/
HEY, RENE: This afternoon we started to get more serious about algebra. We're going to work our way through the Khan Academy lectures and quizzes on the topic. Today, we stared with one that was an introduction to the coordinate plane. French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist, Rene Descartes was a key figure. Most famous for "I think, therefore I am," Descartes is also the guy for whom Cartesian coordinates (marking points on a graph by how far along and up or down they are) are named.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4nrdf0yYfM
After watching the Descartes video and a coupe of other lectures, the kids took a couple of quizzes and requested to do the extra credit problems and some extra practice problems. I'd consider that a win!
TRIP PLANNERS: At the end of September we'll be taking a field trip abroad. Last night we made plans for the White Cliffs of Dover and Dunkirk (we need to see the movie before we go!).
Today, while we were driving, I had the kids use smart phones to check out spots of interest in Belgium, which is also on our itinerary. There are market squares and forts, canals and cathedrals. But when Annabelle mentioned something about a statue of Elvis on a sea turtle, it got our immediate attention.
"A Search of Utopia," the work is by Belgian artist Jan Fabre . It's on display in Nieuwport, Belgium.
We were ready to book lodging in Nieuport, when we got a text from Christian telling us, sadly, it's actually not modeled after Elvis. Rather, it's the artist as a younger man. Darn! Back to the drawing board for a Belgium destination.
No comments:
Post a Comment