Of Time and TESS

SKUNKY: Pretty recently, we here at MPA discovered the Skunk Bear series. I sure wish we'd found it sooner!

A project of National Public Radio, Skunk uses film, animation, music and science to answer questions about the world. (People can submit questions on Skunk Bear's webpage: https://www.npr.org/series/462045954/skunk-bear .)

We were introduced to Skunk Bear during a class where the history of Earth was being discussed. A parent had written out a timeline that stretched 3/4 of the way around the classroom, and students were using Post-It Notes to denote events in our planet's history. It gave a good visual representation of how far apart certain events actually were.

The students were also shown a Skunk Bear video about the history of Earth, filmed on a football field. In it, yard lines were used to map out our planet's past (and humanity's tiny moment in it). In all, four and a half billion years were played out on the football field, every inch representing 1.3 million years.

You can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/M8V_glRW1hA


Oh, and in case you're wondering (I know we were), Skunk Bear's name was chosen because it's one nickname for the fearsome, ravenous wolverine, "And NPR's little tumblr has an insatiable appetite for all kinds of science stories — big and small," per their explanation.

You might want to check out their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/skunkbear .
I know we'll be hanging out there more in the future!

TESS-ting: On Monday, April 16, 2018, NASA is set to launch its next exoplanet hunter. Transit Exoplanet Survey Satellite(TESS) has been sealed into the payload faring inside a Kennedy Space Center facility, and will be launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Pad 40 at 3:32 p.m. West Coast time. SpaceX plans to re-land the rocket's first stage on a drone ship after launch.

If everything goes as planned, about 60 days after launch, TESS will navigate to its final Earth orbit, and then start canning the skies for signs of planets passing in front of around 200,000 stars. For the first year of operation, TESS will survey the Southern Hemisphere's skies, before switching focus to the Northern Hemisphere in the second year. 

Today, we watched this video about TESS, in order to learn more about the mission. https://youtu.be/Q4KjvPIbgMI


If you want to watch the launch live, check out the NASA TV or SpaceX websites Monday around 3 p.m. for pre-launch coverage.