Debate

I honestly don't know what else to say now. But yesterday I had a debate with my father.
I wanted to take CIP for next year, but my dad says different! He said I should go to IPA Bilingual for next year.. But I want to go to CIP. My dad said CIP is not good, because you can't enter university straight away after the 'O'-level. Plus bilingual is cheaper. He said that CIP will cost Rp. 2 million next year.. And you can't enter an Indonesian university after getting a CIP certificate. He said I should do my bachelor's degree here. Then go somewhere else for my master's.. Entering SMAK 1 wasn't my first choice either. I just follow my dad.. But I sort of find it OK now.
And I really like the book I'm reading for my book report. And my dad says it's not good.. He always disagrees with me!!
I think I'm going to stop now: before I have to pay more for the internet..!

Stories

For the last two posts (of the project) I'm just going to tell stories. This is because I'm not allowed to use the internet anymore for the rest of this month, because the internet quota is only one 1 GB/month. Now it's already over and image: I have to pay for everything!! Eventhough everyone else used the internet (especially my sister for games!)!!!!
I'm only allowed to post my last 2 posts here. This is why I won't say much more.. And I don't know what else to write about the solar-system. If anyone has any ideas, maybe I could try it...
I recently heard about the swine flu is the USA and Mexico. And no kids are supposed to go out (no school or university!).. And they have no homework now as long as they aren't supposed to go to school. While, we got homework! But homework is still good as long as they don't give you bad headaches. =)

At Last!!

Yay!!
I'm sooooo... happy! At last I found a book for my Indonesian homework!
It had to be a book by either Mochtar Lubis, Y. B. Mangunwijaya or Pramudya Ananta Toer..
It was so hard to get one, because those books are quite old... But at last I found one!

Now, there's still other homework waiting for me...
The ones giving me the most headaches are Maths & Chemistry!!
Only the Revision Tests left for Maths, but it seems like much more...
For Chemistry it's only the half left, but with numbers I don't like.
Oh yeah, I nearly forgot about the English book report..
So, I think I'll continue reading the book now.
And I haven't studied for the English on Monday about relative clauses..
But I think that should be easy. ^.^

My 'Holiday'

It's the week where the 12th graders have their national exams..
The 10th and 11th graders get off for the week. ^.^
But with TONS of homework.. >=(
Now the great 'holidays' are nearly over. And I still have much homework to do!
These aren't really great holidays. But at least I don't have to wake up at 4.30-5.00 AM in the morning..
These aren't really holdiays, but 'study at home' days!
All the teachers say we get 10 study at home days. Where Saturdays & Sundays are included!
The days we have school (if we don't study at home) are only 6..! Because on Saturdays & Sundays there isn't supposed to be any school!!!! Eventhough we get homework over the weekends, but not as much as this!

One of the few things that made me happy during the 'stressful' week was to see him.. Although it was only for a few minutes on Saturday & Sunday..
But I'm not sure if I could see him tomorrow or the day after... Because of the many homework I still have to do (they're not finished)..!

Easter Service

Today, we had Easter Service at GKI Kebonjati. We had to be there at 06.30. But the service begins at 07.00. Before, we had to find a place to sit according to our classes. But, there was not enough seats for X-3.. Hahaha. So, I sat amongst X-2 students. In the beginning it was fun. Then, further on in the service, I got a headache and stomachache. I was glad when it was all over. But I felt even worse when I got out.
Today, I was going to go home on my own. I went to get to the angkot. But then, I felt more and more sick. So, I called my dad, to see if he would pick me up. He said to go to my aunt first and have a rest there. And they gave me medicine. I tried to go to sleep, but it was hard, because my tummy was still hurting. At last, I could fall asleep! But I was awake again 2 hours later to eat lunch. Soon after that, my dad came.. And I could go home! But he was angry.. >=(

Tiring Day..!

Yesterday was such a tiring day for me..
I went with Merry, other SMAK 1 students & my best friend in Indonesia on a 'picnic'. Well, it was supposed to be a picnic.. But it wasn't!
We wanted to have a picnic near a river. They thought the river was at Dago Pakar. But, no..!
The river was far away at Maribaya! Therefore, we went all the way up from Dago Pakar to Maribaya. That's about 5 km or up to 8 km (I forgot).. But it took more than 2 and a half hours of walking up in a forest. I really didn't imagine it to be this way. I thought it was going to be a nice morning, full of laughter, fun & snacks. But no, it was full of sweat! And we had to play a game all the way up.
We got a target (a person). And there was also a character we had to act out to that person (like ingnoring, caring, etc.) But none of us really did play. We only walked up with some jokes. In the beginning, my friend and I walked together with the others. But soon enough we walked faster & faster, because we didn't want to walk slowly. Because if you walk slowly up a mountain, in my opinion, you will feel the tiredness even more. But if you walk fast, you wouldn't feel tired while walking (only later). You would only feel the tiredness when you took a break. And for a long while it was raining. It rained when we were on our way up, and when we already reached our destination to picnic.
When we were already up there, we played some games. But I didn't play, because I got a headache, because of the rain. At last, we went home! Thank goodness, I thought~
And we went home with an angkot. By the way, I was car sick. So I felt even worse then. When we reached Lembang, they bought me some medicine before we went on the angkot 'St. Hall - Lembang'. But I still didn't feel a lot better. The others planned to have dinner together too, now that it was 5 or 6 in the afternoon already, because we were supposed to be back by the latest 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I planned to eat with them, but as traffic was slow and I was scared to go with the angkot alone when it was too dark, I decided just to go home. And I reached my house when it was about 7 o'clock already. =(

Comets

Comets are much larger objects than meteors that are actually still out in space. They can form tails and change positions from night to night. But unfortunately, they are too slow for our eyes to notice that. Therefore, we think they just stay in the same position every night. And as you read in the last paragraph of the last post, comets have a connection with meteors, but they aren't meteors..!

Not long ago, people thought that comets showed that something bad is going to happen to them in the near future. People didn't get how objects in the sky move. So, seeing a comet was something of a shock to them. There are many historical records that record the sight of comets and link them with very bad events.

But today we know that comets are lumps of ice & dust that in a period move toward the center of the solar-system from far away. Some comets make repeated trips. When comets get close enough to the Sun, the heat makes them evaporate slowly. Much dust & gas form long tails we can see from the Earth. Sometimes, these tails can be man kilometers long!

This is Comet Hale-Bopp on the 7th March 1997. The picture is provided by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. The yellow arrows show where the comet has released a large amount of dust from its center (nucleus).

I will talk about trips to comets later.

Meteors

Meteors are streaks of light (like lightning) flying through space. They usually last only a few seconds and can be seen in the night sky. These are what people sometimes call "shooting stars" or "falling stars", eventhough they aren't stars at all.

Meteors are caused by small pieces of rock, dust or metal entering the atmosphere from space at a very high speeds. They are called meteoroids (like asteroids) when they are still in outer space. They travel at speeds of tens of km/s when they reach Earth's atmosphere. The high pressure that meteoroids experience when they break through Earth's atmosphere shatters them. This transfers energy to atoms & molecules on Earth. They then release energy by glowing, which produces the trail of light we see as meteors.

Most meteoroids are very small. Their sizes range from a grain of sand to pea-sized stones. Almost all on them disappear before they can reach the ground. A larger meteoroid can actually survive to hit the ground, but this happens very rarely. They then create a meteor crater if the explosion of colliding with the ground is big. This explosion usually vaporizes any solid parts left of the meteor after burning through the atmosphere. But sometimes, solid pieces of meteoroid survive & can be found in and around the crater. These little pieces are called meteorites.

Meteors are different from comets. You'll see why in the next post.

Extremely bright meteors are called fireballs. Some fireballs can even be seen at daytime. (O.O) You can see meteors above any planet that has an atmosphere (eg. on Mars). The picture on the left shows the Leonid Meteor Shower in November 1998. It also include a fireball. ^.^

A meteor shower happens when there are many meteors in one night. Sometimes even more than 100 meteors per hour. This happens when Earth crosses the orbit of a comet. Dust and other particles that have been left behind is what we see as meteors.

Asteroids

I think writing about asteroids would sound fun right now. So I'm writing this...
Asteroids are small bodies in our solar-system, that are said to be the leftovers from the formation 4.6 billion years ago. They are rocky objects & have a wide variety of shapes. Some are round, others rather irregular. Their sizes also vary (up to a few hundreds of kilometers across, but most are much smaller).
More than 100,000 asteroids in our solar-system lie in the Asteroid Belt, which is located between Mars & Jupiter. There are many asteroids there. If there weren't any asteroids, the space between these two planets would be greater than the space between any other planets next to each other.
Scientists claim that asteroids (especially the ones in the Asteroid Belt) are the remains of a planet in our solar-system that's already gone now. Thousands of the biggest asteroids have names today.
Eventhough the chances are very small that an asteroid will collide with Earth, they still come close to Earth, like Hermes (came as close as to 777,000 km from the Earth). Anything might happen at any time!

The Solar-System

Here, I decided not to write as much as my previous entries. I will just write about the solar-system as a whole.
The Solar-System as a whole, consists of eight planets and their 172 known moons, asteroids, comets, dust & gas.. And of course, also the dwarf planets & their moons, and other flying bodies.... xp
Most of the bodies of our solar-system travel around the Sun along nearly circular paths, also known as orbits. They all travel in an anti-clockwise direction when you see the whole solar-system from above.
This formation of this solar-system began billions of years ago (that's a VERY long time if you think about it!).. It began when dust & gases came together to form the Sun & other bodies in our solar-system.

Makemake

Makemake is the fourth official dwarf planet here. It was officially called a dwarf planet in July 2005, just about two months before Haumea. It is also a large KBO. Like other planets that orbit our solar-system from the edge, it is also icy & cold (temperature of about -240°C). Because it is vary far away, it also needs a very long time to orbit the Sun once (nearly 310 years!).. O.O And clearly therefore, it is also usually farther from the Sun than Pluto.

It is smaller than Pluto & Eris and its diameter is only between 1,300 km to 1,900 km. That is about three quarters of the size of Pluto. But astronomers haven't discovered any moons for Makemake yet. This is a bit odd, because other large KBO objects have at least one moon. Makemake may be covered with ice, that is made of methane & maybe ethane too.

The surface of this planet is bright, something you would expect from a surface of ice.. But it is also kind of red in colour, which you wouldn't expect....

It may also have an atmosphere (some of the time). When this dwarf planet come closer to the Sun in its orbit, it warms up. This may cause the methane & ethane gases then to form an atmosphere. When it gets further from the Sun, Makemake may cool down. Then the gases would fall onto its surface as 'snow'.. So, the atmosphere's gone again! BUT again, this is only theory. Scientists aren't sure if this happens. This might also happen to Pluto.. Who knows, right?

Like Haumea, it is also named after a god, but not a Hawaiian one. This time, it's a god from the mythology of the Rapa Nui people of the Easter Island (the place with the 'world wonder' statues). He is the god of fertility & the creator of humans in the mythology. As you know, July 2005 is also not long after Easter 2005, therefore, astronomers nicknamed it "Easterbunny" :-0 This is funny ^.^ So, when they had to choose an official name for this planet, they decided to name it after a character from the mythology of Easter Island.

Makemake, with Pluto & Eris (not Ceres!), is also called a "plutoid". These are dwarf planets, like Pluto, that orbit the Sun from beyond the planet of Neptune. Ceres orbits the Sun before Jupiter.

Haumea

Haumea is the fifth official dwarf planet in our solar-system. The four before it are Pluto, Eris, Ceres & Makemake. It was classified as a dwarf planet in September 2008. It is a large Kuiper Belt Object (KBO). It was labelled 2003 EL61.
Haumea is also very cold & icy (the temperature is about -241°C). It orbits the Sun from the far edge of the solar-system too & it takes 285 Earth years to orbit it just once. Usually it is farther from the Sun than Pluto.

Haumea is smaller than Pluto & Eris and it has an odd shape... This odd shape is because the planet is spinning so fast that it is pulled into an ellipsoid (a 3D ellipse). Haumea is 1,960 km across measured from the farthest ends & only about half of that (996 km) from the nearest points across. Therefore also, the days on Haumea are very short. They are less than 4 hours on Earth! It is also dense, which means, most of it is probably just made up of rocks.
Most of the other KBOs probably has more ice on them than Haumea. It has two known moons (like Mars), which were both discovered in 2005. They are called Hi'iaka & Namaka.

Astronomers think that Haumea crashed with another object a long time ago. That would be another reason for the weird shape & also why it spins so fast. The collision might also have caused much ice on Haumea to fly away, so there is less ice now. Its moons may be just some leftovers from the crash.
There are two different groups that might get the credit for discovering this planet. One groups is led by Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology. The other group is led by José Luis Ortiz Moreno from the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain. Haumea was discovered between March 2003 & July 2005. Before it was called Haumea, while it was still coded, it was given the nickname "Santa" by Brown's group because they discovered it around Christmas 2004.
In the Hawaiian mythology, Haumea is the goddess of fertility & childbirth. She had three children named Hi'iaka (Hawaiian sea goddess), Namaka (goddess of hula dancers) & Pele (Hawaiian goddess of volcano & fire). This is where the two names of its moons come from.

Eris

Eris is the largest know dwarf planet in our solar-system. It is also one of the first 3 objects categorized as a 'dwarf planet', with Pluto & Ceres. Eris was first recognized in January 2005. Some astronomers called Eris our "tenth planet" when it was first discovered (in 2003 by Michael Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David Rabinowitz). But after discussions, they decided to have a new category for objects like Eris. It is similar to Pluto, because it is a large sphere of ice & rock.

The temporary name of Eris was "2003 UB(313)", because 2003 was the year they first discovered Eris, and then nicknamed "Xena" before it was called Eris. Eris has a moon called Dysnomia. Before that, it also had a nickname -> "Gabrielle".

The diameter of Eris is about 2,500 km (1,553 miles - a little bit bigger than Pluto), but we can't be sure of it's exact size, because it is too far to see clearly, even with the world's best telescopes!

Here is a picture, so you can see the position of Eris:

Eris' orbit is not like the orbit of other planets or dwarf planets, because its orbit is like a flattened circle. Eris takes 557 years to fully orbit the Sun just once! The surface temperature on Eris is about -250°C..! Cold, isn't it?

Ceres

Ceres is the largest asteroid in the main Asteroid Belt. It was classified as a 'dwarf planet' in 2006, alound with Pluto & Eris. Ceres was discoved by the Italian astronomer (and monk) Guiseppe Piazzi.




The diameter of Ceres is about 975 km (605 miles - about the size in the picture). It is much bigger than the other objects & bodies of the main asteroid belt & contains about a third of the belt's total mass. It orbits the Sun once every 4.6 Earth years. As you already know, its orbit lies between Mars & Jupiter, because it is part of the asteroid belt. A day on Ceres is about 9 hours on Earth, because the asteroid turns on its axis once every 9 hours.

What's the difference between a normal & a dwarf planet?

As many of you may ask, what is actually the difference between a normal planet and dwarf planets??
Here I will tell you that it is a matter of size, with dwarf planets being smaller..

Then you might ask, how big must a planet be to be categorized 'regular' or 'normal' and not 'dwarf??
It's not just the size that matters, but it is also based on different facts.. For example, the history of the object in the solar-system & other properties of the object.

But both, regular & dwarf planets, need to be big enough so that their gravity can form them into a shape of spheres. This means, we can't even call normal asteroids, which are irregular in shape, a dwarf planet. Here, normal planets also have a greater gravity force than dwarf planets.

Dwarf Planets

Now, I will start talking about dwarf planets.. Eventhough I don't know a lot about them.
Dwarf planets are middle-sized bodies in our solar-system. These are little planets and big asteroids. The small bodies are things such as comets & asteroids. The larger planets are the ones I have explained before (except Pluto)..
There are 5 dwarf planets that are already official. As you know Pluto is included. The other dwarf planets are Ceres (the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt between Mars & Jupiter), Eris, Makemake & Haumea. Pluto, Makemake & Haumea orbit the sun from the Kuiper Belt (like the asteroid belt, just outside the outer planets - an icy band of frozen planetoids on the edge of our solar-system). Eris is also a Trans-Neptunian Object (TNO - objects beyond Neptune), but it is further away from the sun than the others.
The term 'dwarf planet' was approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 2006.

Pluto

As you know Pluto is the smallest and furthest Planet in our Solar-System. Now Pluto isn't called a planet anymore, but a 'Dwarf-Planet'. Pluto is the only Planet that has not been visited by a Spacecraft from Earth. Pluto is a Double Planet. A Double Planet is a Planet that has only one Moon. The Planet and the Moon are orbiting each other. The Moon always faces Pluto on the same side. Pluto always faces its Moon with same side. Moon’s and Pluto’s size are very similar. The Moon is nearly as big as the Planet. To be a Double Planet, the Planet has to be/need to be/need to have: The Planet is only allowed to have one Moon. The size Moon has to be nearly the size of the Planet. They has to face the same face every time. To do that: the Planet has to spin once in the same time as its Moon orbits the Planet once.

Here you can see that Pluto is not much bigger that its Moon.
Some people say that Pluto isn’t a Planet. Pluto is just a Moon from Neptune that got out of its gravitational pull. Other people think Pluto and it Moon is part of the Kuiper Belt. The Kuiper Belt is named after the Astronomer called Gerard Kuiper Those people call them “Super-Comets” or “Ice Dwarfs”. On Pluto there’s only a little of Sun’s heat, there. So, that means that Pluto is mostly made of Ice. Pluto was found in the same way as Neptune was found. The movement of Uranus. This time not Uranus’s movement, Neptune’s movement. Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh. Clyde looked at millions of photographs. Until he found one looking more like a Planet. I don’t think I need to tell you again that, Pluto is not always the furthest from the Sun.

Facts:

Symbol:

Colour: Grey
Diameter: 2,301 km (1,430 miles, 0.18 x Earth’s)
Mass: .013x10^24 kilograms (0.002 x Earth's)
Density: 1,750 kg/m^3
Minimum distance from the Sun: 4.34 billion km (2.7 billion miles)
Maximum distance from the Sun: 7.4 billion km (4.6 billion miles)
Minimum distance from Earth: 4.34 billion km (2.7 billion miles)
Roman and Greek Names: Pluto and Hades

Surface:

Time taken to spin once: 6 days 9hrs (6.4 days)
Temperature: -218°C (360°F)- -229°C (-380°F)
Time taken to go around the Sun once: 248 Years
Moon(s): 1 named, 0 coded & all together 1 Moon. - Charon.

Neptune

Neptune is also just made out of water. Neptune has four Rings. They are called Galle, Leverrier, Plateau & Adams. Nobody can see Neptune’s Rings.

This is the only image I could find on the Internet of Neptune with its Rings (eventhough it's not the real Neptune, only a picture).
Astronomers didn’t look around the skies with their telescopes to find Neptune. It was just that Uranus wasn’t moving it’s orbit around the Sun, the way that Astronomers expected it to. This made the Astronomers come to the Idea, that there was another Planet behind Uranus. French and British mathematicians worked out where Neptune should be found. In 1846 Neptune was discovered by a German Astronomer. Neptune is also made out of hydrogen, helium and methane. This time the methane gives the colour Blue. The winds in Neptune goes up to 600 meters per hour. That is much faster than a Hurricane on Earth. Neptune has a very strange Moon called Triton. Triton is the largest Moon of Uranus. That is not the strange thing. The strange thing about it is that it is the only Moon of any Planet, that orbits in the opposite direction from left. The direction that every Planet in our Solar-System moves (except for one). There is a sign that there may be life, in the past. Europa, the Moon from Jupiter, also gives a sign for life. Triton and Europa may have been warm enough for life. They contain liquid water underneath their Surfaces. As we know there are some animals on our Planet that live on the North and South Pole. Such as Polar Bears, Penguins and Seals. There may be living creatures on Triton and Europa under the Icy Surface.

Facts:

Symbol:

Colour: Blue
Diameter: 49,493 km (30,760 miles, 3.8 x Earth’s)
Mass: 102.4x10^24 kilograms (17.2 x Earth's)
Density: 1,638 kg/m^3
Minimum distance from the Sun: 4.46 billion km (2.77 billion miles)
Maximum distance from the Sun: 4.54 billion km (2.82 billion miles)
Minimum distance from Earth: 4.3 billion km (2.68 billion miles)
Roman and Greek Names: Neptune and Poseidon

Surface:

Time taken to spin once: 19hrs 12min (17.24hrs)
Temperature: -210°C (346°F)- -218°C (-360°F)
Time taken to go around the Sun once: 165 YearsMoon(s): 8 named, 5 coded & all together 13 Moons. I only list the ones without codes. Coded: S/year N(for Neptune)number (one: first, two: second, …) - Despina, Galatea, Larissa, Naiad, Nereid, Proteus, Thalassa & Triton.

The Discovery of Uranus

Here, I will write a little story about the discovery of Uranus (it's true).. Enjoy!

For some centuries, people knew only five Planets in this Solar-System, except for Earth --- Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. In 1781, there was a musician and amateur Astronomer named William Herschel. He was looking at the stars with a telescope, which he made himself, when he found a dim object. He saw it for years. Then, he thought, it must be a Planet. Uranus was like Jupiter and Saturn it has no solid Surface. It is made of hydrogen, helium and methane. Methane gives Uranus that blue-greenish colour. Before we come to what Mr. Herschel found out about the Planet’s Surface, I’ll tell you about the two Moons that he discovered. There are two types of Moons for that Planet. There are Icy Moons and Small Moons. I’ll tell you only about one Moon that he discovered. Well he didn’t really discovere it. It was G. Kuiper who discovered Miranda. I don’t know the two Moons that Mr. Herschel discovered. The Moon I am going to tell you about is called Miranda. Miranda is the smallest Moon of that Planet. It belongs to the Icy Moons group. It has ice cliffs that is 12 miles high and 300 miles across. Miranda looks like as if it has been broken in the past, and put itself together again. It has left very strange and unusual patterns. Now it’s the Planet’s Surface turn. As you go deeper to the Planet’s Surface, you’ll see that there is only water. I don’t know why the water is not frozen. As you go deeper in that great, big ocean it gets warmer. If you get near the center of the Planet it is very hot. Hotter than boiling water.

Uranus

Uranus is one of the Giant Planets, but the smallest Giant Planet. Uranus also have faint Rings (more than one), not Ring. Uranus has nine faint rings. Not one faint Ring (like Jupiter has). The furthest ring is the thickest Ring of all. as you know, Uranus may be a star because. It has so many Rings that it can be a Solar-System by it self. Uranus is the star and the Rings around it can be the orbiting lines. The Rings of Uranus are dark, that is nothing, such as Saturn’s, which are very bright.

On this picture we can only see tree Rings. This picture is also too dark, for the normal Uranus.
Uranus is a very odd Planet. It doesn’t sit like other Planets with the North Pole North, and the South Pole South. It doesn’t sit on the South Pole. It sits on its side (middle line, Equator). That means the North and South Pole of Uranus is sticking of the side.

Facts:
Symbol:

Colour: Blue-Green
Diameter: 51,488 km (32,000 miles, 31 x Earth’s)
Mass: 86.8x10^24 kilograms (14.5 x Earth's)
Density: 1,270 kg/m^3
Minimum distance from the Sun: 2.7 billion km (1.7 billion miles)
Maximum distance from the Sun: 3 billion km (1.87 billion miles)
Minimum distance from Earth: 2.57 billion km (1.6 billion miles)
Roman and Greek Names: Uranus and Uranus
Surface:

Time taken to spin once: 17hrs 14min (17.24hrs)
Temperature: -200°C (-328°F) - -210°C (-346°F)
Time taken to go around the Sun once: 84 years and 4 days
Moon(s): 21 named, 6 coded & all together 27 Moons. I only list the ones without codes. Coded: S/year U(for Uranus)number (one: first, two: second, …) - Ariel, Belinda, Bianca, Caliban, Cordelia, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Miranda, Oberon, Ophelia, Portia, Prospero, Puck, Rosalind, Satebos, Stephano, Sycorax, Titania, Trinculo & Umbriel.

Things I've Learnt

There are many things that I've learnt throughout the project I made in Grade 6.
For example, I didn't know Earth had a second moon, named Cruithne.
It's good for me, because I knew more than my classmates about the solar-system.
But as everyone made a different project, everyone knew more about something than the others knew about that thing. In the end, we could all learn a bit from everyone's work. There was someone who made a project on 'Chocolate' or 'Medicine'. There were a variety of topics. I've really enjoyed making projects like that, and then presenting it. It was a lot of fun & we all can learn something new out of it! ^^ May it be about the topics, or about presentations & skills.

Can't go to church!

This morning, when I wanted to go to church, I couldn't. =(
I was so sad and upset. >=(
Jl. Pagarsih was blocked by the police, because there was an event there.
I really wanted to go to church, because it's the first whole Sunday after I got baptized..!
Only motorcycles and people going by foot were allowed to pass. And I went in a car. Even 'angkot's weren't allowed to pass! But my parents didn't want to park the car somewhere and go to church by foot. And I had to meet a friend after church! Now, my friend is angry at me. Eventhough I already sent her a message. She said, I haven't. She's going really mad now. :(
ALL THX TO THAT 'BLOCKAGE'!!!

Valentine's Day

Well, Valentine's Day is one of the greatest days of the year. It's a big day, especially for couples.
But I didn't really enjoy this year's Val's day.. He's so far away. And my friends forced me to go to IP (Istana Plaza).. In my opinion, it's so boring there. A place with nothing much to do. Plus, I had much homework to do for the weekend. And there will be an Indonesian test on Monday..
But in the end, I just went along. We didn't do really much there. I can't understand why they wanted to go there. We just went in & out stores. They just bought a few things, while I bought nothing. hahaha
To add to that, I got a sore throat & a cold. Therefore, I didn't feel really well.

Why I like the solar-system..?

Thx to Ma'am EL, I haven't forgotten this time to not just write about facts..
I wanna tell you why I like the solar-system so much.
I like it because it's just fascinating.
I love it!
The views & pictures taken of space are just fantastic. Wonderful!
They're colourful, mysterious, and they make me wonder about a lot of things..
So in Grade 6, I made a project on our solar-system.
I did some research and put it all together to get a nice piece of work done ^.^
I still have the project now, eventhough it's not really up-to-date today.
Because a lot of things changed since I left Grade 6.
For example, we don't call Pluto a planet anymore now, do we?
I don't wanna lose track about space anymore now.

Saturn

Saturn is one of the Giant Planets, too. It is the second largest Planet in our Solar-System. Saturn also is striped like Jupiter. But the stripes are neater than Jupiter. Jupiter’s stripes goes up and down like a wave that wiggles. Saturn’s stripes are straight.

Saturn has the biggest & thickest rings in our Solar-System. Its Rings makes everybody to their favourite Planet to watch out the Telescope. People in the past thought that Saturn has only one Ring. Then they discovered that there was a spit into three parts. So, Saturn has three Rings. The three rings are called the Cassini Division, Encke Division and the third one is the one that is the furthest from the Planet, separated with the other Rings and is called the F-Ring. The F-Ring is separated to the other Rings because there are one or two Moons blocking it. Those two Moons are called Prometheus and Pandora. They orbit the F-Ring around Saturn. The two Planets are called “Shepherd Satellites”, because they keep the F-Ring separated from the other two. The Cassini Division is named after the famous Italian-French Astronomer called Giovanni Cassini (1625 - 1712, because he discovered it. I don’t know the name of the other Astronomer for Ring Encke but, I know it must be First Name and then Encke for Last Name. The Rings are mostly made of Ice and Rocks. Saturn’s poles are more flattened than Jupiter’s. Not because it spins faster than Jupiter, it doesn’t. Only a few people know why. Saturn is not much smaller than Jupiter, but the Mass is only one third of Jupiter. This means that Saturn is lighter than water – if you would drop it into an ocean that is bigger than the Planet, it would float. Titan Saturn’s biggest Moon has the thickest atmosphere of any Moon in our Solar-System. It may even have oceans beneath the orange clouds.

Facts:

Symbol:

Colour: Brown, Red-Brown, Beige & a little orange
Diameter: 119,871 km (74,500 miles)
Mass: 586.5x10^24 kilograms (95 x Earth's)
Density: 687 kg/m^3
Minimum distance from the Sun: 1.35 billion km (840 million miles)
Maximum distance from the Sun: 1.5 billion km (938 million miles)
Minimum distance from Earth: 1.2 billion km (746 million miles)
Roman and Greek Names: Saturn and Cronus
Surface:

Time taken to spin once: 10hrs 14min (10.67hrs)
Temperature: -179°C (290°F)
Time taken to go around the Sun once: 29 years 169 days (29.5 years)
Moon(s): 18 named, 13 coded & all together 31 moons. I only list the ones without codes. Coded: S/year S(for Saturn)number (one: first, two: second, …) - Atlas, Calypso, Dione, Enceladus, Epimetheus, Helene, Hyperion, Iapetus, Janus, Mimas, Pan, Pandora, Phoebe, Prometheus, Rhea, Telesto, Tenthys & Titan.

Jupiter

Jupiter is the first Planet after the Asteroid Belt and the biggest Planet in this Solar-System. It is one of the Giant Planets. When we look at Jupiter from far we can see that it has stripes.

Jupiter is not like other Planets nearer to the Sun. It has many of other gases. A Galileo Spacecraft entered its atmosphere in 1995. It kept falling until the heat and the air around the Planet put it out of action. Jupiter’s size is enormous. It is 11 times the size of Earth. Its mass is over 300 hundred time bigger than Earth’s. It spins once in less than ten hours. For Planets that spins once in less time. They will get flat at the poles. Jupiter has a very, very, very thin ring around it. The ring is very faint. Even if you look close at it you can’t see it. Jupiter has the biggest moon in our Solar-System. That moon is called: Ganymede.

Facts:

Symbol:

Colour: Brown, beige, red (striped)
Diameter: 142,800 km (88,736 miles, 11.2 Earth’s)
Mass: 1,898 x10^24 kilograms (318 x Earth's)
Density: 1,326 kg/m^3
Minimum distance from the Sun: 741 million km (460 million miles)
Maximum distance from the Sun: 817 million km (508 million miles)
Minimum distance from Earth: 588 million km (365 million miles)
Roman and Greek Names: Jupiter and Zeus

Surface:

Time taken to spin once: 9hrs 50min
Temperature: -150°C (238°F)
Time taken to go around the Sun once: 11 years 314 daysMoon(s): 27 named, 33 coded & all together 60 moons. I only list the ones with codes. If it’s coded: S/year J for Jupiter number (one: first, two: second, …). From A - Z. - Andrestea, Amalthea, Ananke, Callisto, Carme, Callirrhoe, Chaldene, Elara, Erinome, Europa, Ganymede, Harparlyke, Himalia, Io, Iocaste, Isone, Kalyke, Leda, Lysithea, Magaclite, Metis, Pasiphae, Praxidike, Sinope, Taygete, Thebe & Themisto.

Mars

Mars is known as the Red Planet and it is the last planet from the inner Planets. Earth transits from Mars can be a really interesting thing to watch. Not just because it’s our home Planet. Also because we can often see both the Earth and the Moon. We can also see Cruithne sometimes with Earth and Moon.

The picture shows the transit of Earth that is going to happen on the 10th November 2084. Starting at nine o’clock in England. Sometimes if Mars is not so far away from us we can see it as a glowing red dot at night. On the first of November this year Mars will be right next to us. On the Planet Mars itself, the rocks, the dust (ground) and even the sky are reddish. The skies look orange or it is orange because the wind blows red-orange dust around. The dust was there billions of years ago not when it was formed. After the explosion of thousands of volcanoes. Lava is reddish orange. Mars surface looks like a desert if it was on Earth. Mars is further from the Sun. So it must be also colder. The temperature there is below freezing most of the time. In Mars you can’t breathe. There is no oxygen just carbon dioxide which we can’t breath. The air pressure is only one percent similar to Earth’s. It would bloat your body and turn your blood into gas. The surface of Mars has different looks. Some of the looks look similar to Earth and some like a desert. Mars has a huge canyon called Valles Marineris. It crosses one whole side of the Planet. The canyon is so huge that it could swallow the whole Rocky Mountains. Mars has thin clouds. Not as thick as Venus has, much thinner. As you know Mars also have craters and volcanoes. The Southern Hemisphere is more cratered than the Northern. Scientists, Astronomers and Companies that has got to do with Space have taken photographs and tested the soil. One field of dust dunes, near the Northern polar cap, is bigger than Earth’s Sahara and Arabian deserts put together. Mars has two Moons, one of them orbits Mars in eight hours and the other one in 28 hours. The name Mars was given, after the war: Roman God of War.
Is there a sign that there was life on Mars, once?
Mars is a dry planet with no liquid water, right now. Maybe there was water, but not anymore. There are many dried-up water channels and the red rocks also contained also contained a little bit of water. Scientists believe that, billions of years ago, that nearly all the volcanoes threw out gases and lava from the Planet’s boiling center. Water flowed from under the surface, maybe formed seas. The simplest forms of life, such as algae, may have existed. There was water on Mars for sure in the past. Maybe there is still some frozen water today. What I mean with frozen water is that, our Planet is not the only Planet that had the Ice Age. All the Planets in our Solar-System had Ice Age. The Ice Age on Mars was after the explosion of thousands of volcanoes. Mars is now completely lifeless today. The volcanoes there are now extinct (no longer active). One of them, that is extinct, is called Olympus Mons, is the largest volcano in our Solar-System. It is fifteen miles high.

Facts:

Symbol:

Colour: Blue, red, orange & white
Diameter: 6,785 km (4,217 - 4,218 miles, 0.53 x Earth’s)
Mass: 0.64x10^24 kilograms (0.11 x Earth's)
Density: 3,933 kg/m^3
Minimum distance from the Sun: 205 million km (128 million miles)
Maximum distance from the Sun: 249 million km (155 million miles)
Minimum distance from Earth: 35 million miles
Roman and Greek Names: Mars and Ares

Surface:

Time taken to spin once: 24hrs and 37min
Temperature: 21°C (day) -133°C (night), 70°F (day) -207°F (night)
Time taken to go around the Sun once: 687 days (1.88 years)
Moon(s): 2 names, 0 coded & all together 2 Moons. - Deimos (28 days) & Phobos (08 days)

Earth

The Earth is our home Planet, the Planet that we live on. Nearly two thirds of the Earth is covered with water. It is the largest from the inner Planets. If we were on Mars we could see transits of the Earth, but that is a Mars thing. We are not the only ones living on this Planet. There are also animals and plants living on this Planet. On this Planet there is more than 200 countries. The temperature on this Planet always changes. We never now what will come next if we don’t look at the Weather Forecast programs. Earth is the only Planet in our Solar-System that has life, right now (maybe). If live is possible on Mars is still being researched.. Maybe in 100 years =P

Here is Earth trapped in clouds (actually Earth was always trapped in clouds). I think I put too less for the topic ‘Earth’. Because I think you know everything already about our home Planet Earth.

Facts:
Symbol:

Colour: Blue, Green, White, …
Diameter: 12,753 km (7,926 miles)
Mass: 5.98x10^24 kilograms (6.5e21 tons)
Density: 5,515 kg/m^3
Minimum distance from Sun: 146 million km (91 million miles)
Maximum distance from Sun: 152 million km (94.5 million miles)
Roman and Greek Names: Unknown
Surface:

Time taken to spin once (people think, to nearest hour): 24hrs (in real, exact time): 23hrs 56min Temperature: -89°C to 57.7°C (-128°F to 136°F)
Time taken to go around the Sun once: 365 days 5hrs (no Leap Year)
Moon(s): 2 named, 0 coded & all together 2 Moons. - Lunar & Cruithne