|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
Use the activities below with children and adults of all ages to celebrate the MESSENGER launch and to give the spacecraft a proper bon voyage. To learn more about the mission, and to download additional educational materials, visit the MESSENGER web site at http://messenger.jhuapl.edu. |
|
||||||
 |
|||||||||
Did You Know? Twelve Extreme Space Facts! Test your knowledge of the Solar System with these Twelve Extreme Space Facts. Where are you more likely to be able to dunk a basketball—Mars or Earth? Which planet could float in a bathtub? Find out answers to these questions and many more using the Twelve Extreme Space Facts! Twelve Extreme Space Facts! is available from NASA at http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/downloads/Extreme_Facts.pdf. |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
Solar System Wallpaper Want your computer screen to look out of this world? Use the Solar System Wallpaper to transform you computer screen into inspiration art that will inspire you to be a future space explorer. Solar System Wallpaper is available from NASA at http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/downloads/sse_wp1_1280x1024.jpg. |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
Solar System Mobile Mercury is just one of nine planets in the Solar System. To learn what the nine planets in the Solar System are, create a mobile using yarn, a pen, scissors, crayons or markers, a hanger, and pictures of each planet from the Solar System Mobile page. Color each planet, cut them out, punch a small hole in each using a pen, string a piece of yarn through each, and hang them in the proper order from the Sun on your hanger, creating fun and educational art that is out of this world. |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
Solar System Puzzle Mercury is one planet in a family of nine that orbits the Sun. To understand Mercury’s place in the Solar System, create an eight-cube puzzle using the Solar System Puzzle. By assembling the puzzle, coloring the bodies of the Solar System, and viewing the puzzle’s 12 sides, you will expand your knowledge of the many fascinating worlds that make up the Solar System. Explore the similarities and differences between Mercury and the other planets, and Mercury’s unique features that make it such an interesting planet to explore. This activity is one of NASA’s educational products and is available online at http://spacelink.nasa.gov/products/ |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
Voyage in Your Backyard Voyage in Your Backyard allows you to create your own outdoor one-to-10 billion scale model of the Solar System to explore the size of the nine planets in the Solar System and the distances between them. After you have constructed your scale model, notice how close Mercury is to the Sun and to the Earth, discuss with your family what advantages or challenges that might present for the MESSENGER spacecraft. This activity is from Voyage: A Journey through Our Solar System, an Education Module for Challenger Center’s Journey through the Universe program and an Education Unit for the MESSENGER spacecraft mission to Mercury. For more information about Voyage, visit http://www.voyageonline.org/. |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
Solar System Exploration Timelines Right now is an exciting time for Solar System exploration. Many daring missions are scheduled, like MESSENGER, and many more are already underway, such as the Mars Exploration Rovers. To learn more about these missions and others, refer to the Solar System Exploration Timeline 2003-2006 and the Solar System Exploration Launches and Events: 1998-2010 timelines. The Solar System Exploration Timeline 2003-2006 is available from NASA at http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/downloads/see_timeline_english.pdf. The Solar System Exploration Launches and Events:1998-2010 timeline is available from NASA at http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/calendar/launches_events1.cfm. |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
MESSENGER Information Sheet For a more in-depth overview of the MESSENGER mission to Mercury, read the MESSENGER Information Sheet as a family. Discuss the challenges the MESSENGER team faces as they send a spacecraft to Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun. Keep that information in mind as you complete the activities below. |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
MESSENGER Model To understand the parts and design of the MESSENGER spacecraft, create a 3-D MESSENGER Model. This simple model requires only glue, the paper spacecraft, and three coffee stirrers. Although seemingly simple, this model will introduce you to the spacecraft’s scientific instruments and design, including its sunshade and solar panels. This activity is from the MESSENGER web site. To learn more about the mission or to download additional educational materials, visit http://messenger.jhuapl.edu. |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
| Mercury Lithograph Download the activity! (PDF/88 KB) MESSENGER will be only the second spacecraft to study Mercury; the first being Mariner 10, which flew by the planet in the 1970s and photographed half of it. The Mercury Lithograph contains images from that mission in addition to a mission overview, significant dates in Mercurian exploration, and fast facts about Mercury. As a family, discuss with students how our knowledge of Mercury will grow with the help of the MESSENGER mission. This lithograph is one of NASA’s educational products and is available online at http://spacelink.nasa.gov/products/ |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
| MESSENGER Web Site Animations Visit the web site! A picture says a thousand words. You can read descriptions of the Sun’s appearance from the surface of Mercury, or the shape of Mercury’s orbit, but a more effective method for visualizing these processes is to watch animations of these phenomena in action. There are six different MESSENGER Web Site Animations to help kids explore the dynamic systems of Mercury and the MESSENGER mission. These animations are from the MESSENGER website and are available online at http://btc.montana.edu/ceres/MESSENGER/animationpage.htm |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
| Mercury in the Night Sky Visit the web site! We have learned a lot about Mercury from Mariner 10 and hope to learn a lot more from the MESSENGER spacecraft, but we can explore Mercury without ever leaving the Earth using your own eyes. The trick to finding Mercury in the night sky is not to look at the night sky at all! Mercury is the closet planet to the Sun, and orbits so close to the Sun that when the Sun sets, so does Mercury. Mercury is best visible as a small star near the Sun at dusk or dawn. How can you tell Mercury from just another star? Stars twinkle and planets do not. Mercury is best visible in the morning this year from early September through the end of December. To find Mercury’s exact location in your area, visit the MESSENGER web site at http://messenger.ciw.edu/WhereMercNow.php, and select the closest city from the drop down menu. Remember, when you are looking for Mercury in the Sky, do NOT look directly at the Sun, doing so could damage your eyes! |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
MESSENGER Party
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
| Celebrate the Launch with a Local Expert Want to throw a launch celebration event and not quite sure how? Many resources are available in your local community, including MESSENGER Educator Fellows, Solar System Ambassadors, and Challenger Learning Centers. Use the Find a Local Expert web page to locate a highly trained and enthusiastic expert on the MESSENGER mission and Solar System exploration. |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
