Oberlin, Ohio
My Independent Study Project is about the planet Mars. In
my report you can learn many interesting facts. Some facts
like "Why is Mars red?" or "How was Mars named?" The reason
I choose this topic is I have wondered about space.
Especially when I was six or seven. I wanted to learn more
about space so I thought I.S.P. was the perfect way to learn
more. I thought I would learn about all the rovers sent to
Mars. I also thought that I would learn interesting facts. I
would learn many physical features about Mars. I learned a
whole lot about the rovers and a lot of interesting facts. I
did not think there was so much information about Mars. I
even learned about the tools the rovers carry. It was easy to find resources. I just went to the library
and found a lot of books on Mars. That's were I found most
of my information. The most helpful resource to me were
books. The most difficult resource to get information out of
were computers. The DVD I watched was also hard to get
information out of too. I have a lot of subtopics. One of them is man's
exploration. A Dutch astronomer named Christian Hugyen
discovered the first ice cap (the ice caps are not made of
water but there made of frozen carbon dioxide and nitrogen)
on Mars. Another person named Gianco Momiradi noticed
another ice cap on the north pole. Perival Lowell saw canals
on Mars. When the Viking rover landed there were no canals
there. Humans are going to Mars because they will be able to
find out a lot more about it. They will not be able to go
until the year 2017. They need training, funding, and public
support. What is Mars made of? Most of Mars is made out of red
dust. The dust is finer than flour so it hangs in the air
for a long time. The dust is red because it iron oxide
(rust) in it. Mars' rocks contain less of the mineral silica
and less iron than Earth's rocks. Mars might have had enough
water to cover the planet to a depth of one hundred
feet. What are the physical features of Mars? Mars has canyons
four times as big as the Grand Canyon. The largest is over
2800 miles long and five miles deep. The biggest crater is
1100 miles. The largest volcano is four hundred thirty-five
miles around and sixteen miles high. It is called Olympus
Mons. The northern hemisphere is covered in volcanoes. The
southern hemisphere is covered in craters. The dust storms
can cover the entire planet for weeks on end. Hematite was
found on Mars inside a crater that might be an old lake bed.
Mars' mantle is estimated to be 1,863 miles deep. The core
is estimated to be six hundred eighty five miles deep. Mar's
core has been frozen so there is no magnetic field. The
atmosphere is 95.3% carbon dioxide, 2.7% nitrogen, 1.6%
argon, and 0.03% water vapor. Mar's atmosphere was more
dense but a lot of it was washed away by solar winds. These are some interesting facts about Mars. Mars is
known as the red planet. It was named after the Romans by
their god of war. Mars has a diameter of 4,223 miles. If
Earth was hollow, three planets the size of Mars could fit
inside it. Mars is between 120,600,000 miles away from the
sun and 154,800,000 miles away. Those are its closest and
farthest points in its orbit. It takes one and ten months
for Mars to complete its orbit around the Sun. One day on
Mars is only a half an hour longer than on Earth. In my research I found literature that is related to my
topic. There are many fictional books about Mars. One is The
War of the Worlds. It was read by the author on the radio.
People started to get scared thinking aliens were attacking
because they thought the book was actually the news
reporting it. The book is about bug eyed aliens attacking
from Mars. There were many spoofs about the book and aliens
after the rovers landed. I learned about many people during my report. One of them
is Galileo. He studied Mars as well as many other things. He
also studied gravity and how it affects objects. He found
out if you drop a one pound ball and a one hundred pound
ball from one hundred cubits the heaviest ball would fall
all the way before the other ball can fall one cubit.
Reading about this person helped me learn about the polar
ice caps on Mars. These are the most interesting facts I have learned. Mars
has air pressure so low that if you took of your space
helmet your eyes would boil, your blood would turn to froth,
foam would flood your lungs, and you would drown. Mars has a
weak magnetic field. Soar wind carries it away at a rate of
50,000 ton of atmosphere per year. A couple of meteorites
from Mars were found in Antarctica. One of them contained
hydrocarbons. Did you know that if you weighed one hundred
pounds on Earth you would weigh only thirty eight pounds on
Mars? There are many jobs that are connected to my topic. One
is an astronaut. There is a lot of training involved in that
job. They train for freefall by getting on a plane and then
the plane goes into a steep dive. Astronomy is another job
connected to my topic. It requires special knowledge to be
an astronomer. You have to learn about the sky and the
stars, and study lots of physics and math. I think it was more fun to do research on this topic than
my last topic. This project helped me learn about other
planets and things. It also helped me learn about
interesting things like solar wind. I was amazed at what the
book said about how powerful solar wind is. If I had a
longer work time on my report I would compose a song about
Mars. I would design a rover to go to Mars and find out more
than the other rovers. Glossary argon - an odorless, colorless gas sometimes used in
fluorescent light bulbs or in windows to keep the heat
inside it. atmosphere - an outer sphere that surrounds a planet that
helps protect it. hematite - a blackish red mineral that was formed by
water. hemisphere - half of a sphere bound by a circle. hydrocarbons - numerous compounds like bengene and
methane that are only made from hydrogen and carbon. ice cap - a large body of ice that is usually found at
the north or south pole of a planet. magnetic field - a shield around a planet that protects
it from solar wind, the suns radiation, and many other
harmful things. mantle - the layer that surrounds the core of the
planet. meteorite - an object in space that comes from a comet
and makes it through the atmosphere, landing on a
planet. orbit - the circular path on which a planet revolves
on. planet - a large floating object that orbits a star. rovers - a robot sent to a moon or planet to take
pictures and collect information. silica - a white colorless compound found in quartz,
flint, and agate. solar wind - gas particles constantly sent out by the sun
that can go one hundred eighty-six to six hundred twenty
miles per second. Bibliography Haugen, David. (2002). Mars. San Diego. Simon, Seymour. (1987). Mars. New York. Skurzynski, Gloria. (1998). Discover Mars.
Washington, D.C. Spaltow, Giles. (2001). Mars. New York. Watters, Thomas. (1995). Planets: A Smithsonian
Guide. New York. .
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Kim Koos at kkoos @
oberlin.k12.oh.us
or John Memmott at
jmemmott @
oberlin.k12.oh.us
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