BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy It's a new game - come and play The Universe Game!

Welcome to The Universe Game. This game is big time, since you can't get much bigger than the Universe.

Let's start with Pluto.

The next person only needs to suggest something--keeping the astronomy and space theme, of course--that's related to Pluto and say how it's related.

So I'll be the next person and say . . .

PLUTO

PLANET - it used to be one

The next word needs to be related in some way to "planet".

OK, over to you.

coldest and darkest

Whoops! Mea culpa. While editing my original post, I managed to delete a line of it, which meant it wasn't clear what to do next.

I've now put the line back in to show the succession is Pluto - Planet - .... and then something related to planet.

Thanks for getting in quickly, or I might not have noticed for ages how confusing it was.

planet - cold and dark

Cold & Dark

Solar Eclipse

Solar eclipse

The Moon - that's what blocks out the Sun

The Moon

Orbit - Moon is so awesome, it does circles around our planet

Orbit - gravity

Gravity - force that attributes to orbit occuring

Weightlessness - without gravity, we're just a bunch of floaters

weightlessness

astronauts -- they have fun being weightless (after they get over the initial space sickness!)

astronauts - explorers of space

explorers of space

Spirit & Opportunity - the Martian rovers

Spirit and Opportunity - Quantum physics

Quantum physics --> Spectroscopy (which is how we analyze starlight -- it depends on quantum effects)

But, Susan, you forgot to say what the connection between Spirit & Opportunity, the Martian rovers, and quantum physics is.

Spirit and opportunity, rovers - all require energy - quantum physics deals with energy and dimensional movement which provides vast opportunities. (stretching it a bit am I?)

W-e-e-e-ll, maybe, a bit.

But quantum physics does underlie our understanding of the universe, even though we're not sure how--but it still seems to work!

sorry a bit off game but I love the complexities of quantum physics and how it relates to everything to do with the universe - I also believe it has everything to do with the healing arts and physic abilities - most things still unexplained
have an answer in quantum physics - including time travel - love it, love it, love it!!!!

Spectroscopy

Electromagnetic Continuum - cosmic matter defined through the observation and study of light, sound or particle emission

The electromagnetic continuum

Herschel Space Observatory -- it observes in the long wave part of the continuum.



The first picture taken by Herschel after launch last year shows the Whirlpool Galaxy. Compare the quality to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

Herschel Space Observatory

Mauna Kea Observatory - The 4,200 meter high summit in Hawaii houses the world's largest observatory for optical, infrared, and submillimeter astronomy.

Mauna Kea Observatory

Olympus Mons - It's a volcano of a similar type to Mauna Kea. (But it's over two and a half times as high and doesn't have any observatories. Oh, and it's on Mars.)

Olympus Mons

Mariner 9 - orbiter focused on the Martian topography & sealed the facts on the volcano and largest known canyon in the universe, Valles Marineris (1800 miles long/5 miles deep)

Mariner 9

Mariner 2 - It did a flyby of Venus in 1962, the first spacecraft to have flown by another planet.

Mariner 2

Interplanetary Spacecraft - Mariner 2 was the first successful interplanetary vehicle

Interplanetary spacecraft

Voyager 2 - the greatest interplanetary spacecraft of them all, having done flybys of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. It's now headed out of the Solar System, currently almost twice as far from the Sun as Pluto is at its aphelion (farthest distance).

Voyager 2

Titan IIIE/Centaur carrier rocket - was the launch vehicle that put Voyager into a slow, curved trajectory path that used gravity when passing the planets to continue onto the next of the four outer planets in the Solar Syatem

Titan IIIE/Centaur carrier rocket

Saturn V rocket - took the Apollo astronauts to the Moon and the last one was used to launch Skylab.

Saturn V rocket

Wernher Von Braun - designer of this successful launch rocket that was based on his work on rockets in Germany during World War II.

Wernher Von Braun

Moon Crater von Braun - lies along the western edge of the Oceanus Procellarum