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September 2004
September 15, 2004
Dear GAVRT Teachers,
You shoulder the greatest responsibility, educating America’s future in an increasing complex and sometimes threatening world climate. One of the important facets of the GAVRT Project is the ability to participate in furthering human knowledge of our surroundings in a positive, cooperative collaboration with scientists around the world!
Three Special Mission opportunities will arrive this year and join our Jupiter Quest observation campaign. Ground-base telescopes, like those at NASA’s Deep Space Network at Goldstone, have routinely measured synchrotron emission from energetic electrons in Jupiter’s radiation belts for three decades. Last summer, the flux density from the radiation belts showed the steepest increase that has been detected from Jupiter except for the impacts from the Shoemaker Levy 9 comet in 1994. Middle and high school students from classrooms across the nation conducted more than half of the Goldstone observations. The early results from these observations will be reported at scientific conferences this fall. This year we await the possibilities of new discoveries.
· One special campaign is the Quasar Variability Study Southern Spring Campaign (QVS-SSC), which will be starting this fall. In studying the scintillation of these objects, it is important for those of us in the northern hemisphere to realize it is not the fall season everywhere, as it is spring in Australia where our Primary Investigator, Dr. David Jauncey resides. Earlier this year, during the Northern Spring Campaign (QVS-NSC), our GAVRT Students conducted a number of observations and collected a large amount of data. An initial analysis indicated a large scatter in the measurements that revealed a problem with some of the data. The science team worked hard over the summer to isolate the contaminated data and retain a large enough sample that will provide us with reliable results. The data are being combined with other measurements conducted by our primary investigators and being analyzed by the science team. The Northern Spring Campaign conducted last spring underscores the need for repetitive measurements and why you and your students are so important in piecing together the puzzle. This fall we invite you to experience the challenge of obtaining high precision measurements of very weak radio sources at the far reaches of our universe.
· It’s springtime on Uranus as well! Last year, astronomers got our first good “look” at the northern reaches of Uranus and saw that after 20 years of dark winter, the North Pole looks very similar to the South Pole. This is interesting because the South Pole has been basking in the summer sun for over 20 years. Other data indicate the winter and summer parts of the planet should be very different. What’s going on? The scientists, including Primary Investigators, Dr. Heidi Hammel and Dr. Mark Hofstadter don’t know. You and your students can help them figure it out.
At the beginning of 2005, we’ll be launching our “Ringing in the New Year with GAVRT: Cassini at Titan Campaign”. A number of you teachers participated with us in the Cassini-JMOC Campaign when the Cassini spacecraft was making its measurements of Jupiter and our GAVRT students helped with the calibrations of the passive radiometer. Now Cassini has arrived at Saturn and you and your students will be able to conduct thermal measurements of Saturn’s atmosphere using our GAVRT radio telescope! Our science team is developing classroom activities that will lead students into the world of data analysis where they will have opportunities to work with the G GAVRT data from 2001 to prepare it for publication. They will learn about absolute and relative errors that limit the precision of any measurements, including GAVRT. Be sure to watch for announcements this fall.
The GAVRT Project continues to expand into new states and locations overseas with DoDEA schools. It is creating more and more demand on operating the antenna increasing the number of hours of operation. Therefore, as GAVRT continues to grow, scheduling in advance has become an increasingly important issue. We look forward to an exciting year with you and your students offering various campaigns.
Sincerely,
Director, Global Programs
Lewis Center for Educational Research
dmaclaren@lcer.org