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Terrestrial
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Home I Course overview I News and highlights I Notes, materials I Websites |
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The Essay Question |
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Essay Question for Course --- Professor Olivia Jensen Note: While I won't count to the word, but please limit your essay to no more than about 2000 words of text. I and my TAs shall have many essays to read and grade..... The essay will count for 30% of your total grade if you choose to write it - it shouldn't, then, require more than 30% of your effort toward the course. I suggest that you limit the total time spent on your essay to no more than 25 hours (all inclusive—i.e. thinking about it, talking about it with your friends, doing your research, writing it, editing and producing the final version to be handed in.). You can send them to me by e-mail at terrestrial.planets@gmail.com in *.pdf (preferred as this will preserve your format) or *.doc, *.docx, *.odt forms. For those doing something to be presented as media, try to export your media files in some common form. Your essay should be titled; it should open with a short abstract and following introduction. You should develop your story to come to some point. You should include a bibliography or list of references that you have used in developing your essay and you should, within the text by footnote referencing or by other common methods, reference the sources of those statements, concepts and images used that are not original to you. We do not require any particular style of referencing materials as there is no common citation style in academic literature. You might copy the referencing style that is used in your sources or that suggested for papers in the program you are studying at McGill. For InterNet and Web sources, reference the website's URL and, if possible, the author or manager of the website. You should also reference any images that you use. One of the most common referencing models is that of the APA. Essays in French: Essays written in French are perfectly acceptable and students who would prefer to write in French are encouraged to do so. Due date: This essay is due to be submitted in class on March 20, 2020 (lateness penalties will apply) Essay Question: You can choose any topic that falls within the broad sweep of the course and almost everything does. Some suggestions follow. The inSight Mission to Mars is the first probe launched to study the solid planet geophysics of Mars and its rotational motions. InSight should become topical in the scientific press in mid-February when actual scientific measurements are taken that should reveal the Martian interior. One of the hottest topics here at McGill is that of ExoPlanets. You might contact one of my colleagues, Nick Cowan at the McGill Space Institute, if this is a topic that much interests you. You might also watch this site for evolving developments and the latest catalogue of discoveries: Exoplanets.org . More than 3200 planets orbiting other stars have been confirmed and another 2500 or so have been “detected”. In August of 2016, an exoplanet was discovered in orbit about the closest star to our Sun, Proxima Centauri. This is a very small, very old, cold star but the planet named Proxima Centauri b orbits closely enough that sits in the temperature-determined “habitable zone”. If life were to be discovered, even evidence of the most primitive lifeforms, on this planet, it might be the biggest scientific story of your lifetime. Three years ago we awaited Comet ISON which was expected to be the most spectacular comet from Earth view in the last century. It was a fizzle. Two years ago (early January) Comet Lovejoy was visible in our southern sky. We couldn't see it. Still you might find comets an interesting topic for an essay... “Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak” will close-approach the Earth twice this year. It just might be visible with binoculars in April. “Comet 45P/Honda” would be visible with small telescopes in early January. Don't believe the earthquakes story offered in this video. During the last couple of years, new films relating to space exploration, including “Interstellar” and “The Martian” were released. Both of these films attempted to hold to known science and theory. You might write an essay in the form of a film or book review such as might be published in a major newspaper or website... More recently, the 6-episode series “Mars” was released by National Geographic. I have not seen the series but it is said that the science is “tight”. Also, I have been told that the science in “Passengers” is, at least, believable. Perhaps the biggest story of 2015 was that of New Horizons. The probe that was launched towards Pluto on January 19, 2006 arrived in the vicinity of this dwarf ice planet during the summer of 2015. No other probe has ever ventured so far to study a planet, Pluto and its moons. It is now continuing into the Kuiper Belt to image other objects and dwarf planets. You might watch “Space.com News” for interesting evolving topics.
...Or Since the year 2000, a new wave of exciting space exploration missions has resulted in the launch of several probes. Among them: TESS: Transiting Exoplanet Survey Sattelite searching for exoplanets. Gaïa: An ESA mission to position one billion stars within our Galaxy. This could have important consequences for our measurement of distances. This project will bring us much better Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams relating a star's intrinsic brightness to its light spectrum. Cheops: ESA proposes to launch this mission in late 2019 to study the details of known “super-Earths” orbiting other stars. Rosetta/Phillae: The ESA (European Space Agency) launched Rosetta on March 2, 2004. In completings its 11-year mission, it approached, co-orbit and landed the Phillae lander on Comet 67 P/Churyumov- Gerasimenk as it passed close to the sun. This was the most exciting space project of the past Autumn. Curiosity – Mars Space Laboratory: Exploring the surface of Mars for signs of life past and present and for geological history and condition. GRAIL: Gravity recovery and internal laboratory mission to the Moon. Exploring the mass distribution within the moon. Earth Observatory: A combination of many missions by NASA including the Earth Observation System and coordinated with programs by ESA , CSA and Роскосмос (the Russian Federal Space Agency) observing Earth from space. The International Space Station: This project, combining the energies of more than a dozen nations has provided something of a home-in-space for hundreds of astronauts during the past 20 years. The Space Shuttle Program: With the launch of Discovery on February 24, 2011, the Space Shuttle Program is due to be terminated. While not generally regarded as a scientific program (i.e., no particular scientific goals), the Shuttles have well and necessarily served in launching and maintaining many science probes and in construction and maintenance of the International Space Station. Kepler Space Telescope: The spacecraft was launched on March 7, 2009. With a planned mission lifetime of at least 3.5 years, Kepler uses a photometer developed by NASA to continuously monitor the brightness of over 145,000 main sequence stars in a fixed field of view. It has already discovered several hundred exoplanets. Mars Phoenix Lander: The probe has endured its first Martian winter. We now await its possible revival. Its purpose is to search for water ices and make weather measurements in Mars' high Arctic. Mercury Messenger: Launched on August 3, 2004, this probe was inserted into orbit around Mercury in March, 2011. It made its first pass in January 2009 and until then, we hadn't close photographed the surface of Mercury from a probe since Mariner 10 in 1974. It is just about as difficult to reach Mercury as it is to reach Pluto. Smart-1: This ESA probe, launched September 27, 2003 completed its study of our Moon's south polar regions and was crashed into the surface September 9, 2006. Stardust: Stardust was actually launched in February 1999, made rendevous with Comet Wild 2 in 2004 and returned material from that comet to Earth, even though it crash-landed in Utah, in January 2006. Analysis of cometary materials is now proceeding at many laboratories around the world. Suzaku: This probe is searching the X-Ray emissions from the distant regions of the Universe. It's results may have strong bearing on our estimate of the time of the Big Bang. Launched on July 10, 2005, its X-Ray detectors are now mapping the Universe. Deep Impact: On January 12, 2005, Deep Impact was launched. It arrived at Comet Temple-I on the following July 4, and shot a 370kg mass into the comet to release inner materials which were studied by on-board spectral cameras. This was our first “look” inside a comet. Mars Exploration Rovers: This remarkably successful mission to land 2 rover robotic geologists on the surface of Mars was launched by two Delta Athena II rockets in the summer of 2003. The landings in January, 2004 were pefect and these rovers have been travelling the Martian surface ever since. Both Opportunity and Spirit are still operable. Click here for a video simulation of the launch (can be played with the Videolan player: videolan.org ) Cassini/Huygens: On the morning of October 15th, 1997, the Cassini/Huygens probe was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida: Destination Saturn. In early July, 2004, the Cassini/Huygens duo were inserted into orbit about Saturn. On December 24, 2004, the ESA Huygens probe was released for entry into the moon's atmosphere. It landed on Titan on January 16, 2005. Huygens relayed data about the chemistry and physical conditions Titan's atmosphere and photographs of the its cloud shrouded surface back to Cassini and then back to Earth. Titan is possibly the most intriguing of all bodies in the Solar System. Its atmosphere is thought to be a frozen archive of the original atmospheres of Earth and the other terrestrial planets. Much might be learnt about the chemistry that led to the formation of life on Earth and possibly on Mars. List of future missions (NASA, ESA, CSA) This list may be expanded but in the meantime, I invite you to visit the CSA (Canadian Space Agency), NASA (US National Aeronautics and Space Administration), ESA (European Space Agency) ,. ASI (Italian Space Agency) and Роскосмос (the Russian Federal Space Agency) websites concerning the many other missions that are currently active. Click here for a list of current missions.
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Essay – Term work |
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©
Olivia Jensen, McGill University |
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