Nomad Alien Planets May Fill Our Milky Way Galaxy

http://www.livescience.com/18655-nomad-alien-planets-wandering-galaxy.html

  A nomad planet is a planet that doesn't orbit a host star, they just hurtle around space. There may be a shocking 100,000 times more of these planets than stars in the Milky Way!
  "If any of these nomad planets are big enough to have a thick atmosphere, they could have trapped enough heat for bacterial life to exist".
  We don't really know what these planets would be like - gas giants, icy or terrestrial. But our galaxy may be teeming with them, and to me that is is really exciting. Apparently, if the estimated number of these nomad planets is correct, exciting things could happen, like: collisions could break them apart and fling bacterial life onto other bodies. That, in my opinion, would be REALLY cool.

Moon Phases

1) In the model, the pocket light represented the Sun, and the Earth was a plastic foam ball, on a skewer, about the size of an adult’s fist, and the Moon was a smaller one the size of a bottle cap.

2) When facing the lamp, you couldn’t see any of the lighted part of the ball, because it was facing the lamp, too. You could only see the dark side.

3) On the drawing, the circle that is empty represents the full moon, and the one filled in, in black, is the new moon. The one that’s almost all filled in except for the far right is the waking crescent, and the one that’s the same but with a crescent on the far left is the waning crescent.

4) After each turn, more and more of the right side of the Moon is visible. However, after the full moon, less and less of it can be seen.

5) Always half of the Moon’s surface was lighted, whether we could see it from our angle or not. The darkness of the new moon is not caused by an eclipse, but by the fact that the lighted side of the Moon is facing the other way, towards the Sun.

6) Making a model of the Moon’s phases helped me because it showed me a visual of how the light is always shining on half of the Moon, but whether we can see all of it depends. A disadvantage of using a model is that it’s not accurate, but it’s better than nothing! Another way to make a model to represent the various phases of the Moon could be to make your head the Earth, so we can accurately see how much light is visible, and to have a flash light that is not too powerful, so that’s it’s not dangerous to our sight.

Reasons for Seasons

1) When it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the area between the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn gets the most concentrated light. In the summer, though, the area with the most concentrated light is between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer.

2) In the winter, the light halfway between the equator and the North Pole is a lot more spread out than in the summer, because the Northern Hemisphere is more tilted towards the Sun in the summer and so receives more direct sunlight.

3) If the squares on the acetate get larger (they are farther from the equator), it means that the same amount of light is reaching the other squares (near the equator), but since the squares are stretched out, the light has to be distributed and so less light reaches each area.

4) The Poles are consistently the coolest areas on the planet, because the only get light a very short time every year, in the summer, and even then the light is stretched out. The equator, on the other hand, barely has seasons, because it is so consistently receiving direct sunlight and heat. It is the closest place on Earth to the Sun.

      The equator always receives the same amount of light and heat, so there are no real seasons. The poles, on the other hand, are always dark in the winter and always light in the summer. They have no day or night, it's like winter is the night and summer the day. They don't have autumn or spring, just a very long winter and a very short summer.

5) The toothpick’s shadow will be longest in the summer and shortest in the winter.

6) If the square is more stretched, out, it’s because it’s at an angle (because the Earth is a sphere), which is exactly how the Sun’s rays work: the light is at an angle, so it is more stretched out.

7) Seasons define the temperature, weather and amount of light in different parts of the Earth. The Northern and Southern Hemispheres are on opposite ends of the Earth, and as a result are opposites in seasons. If it's summer in Europe, it's winter in Australia. This is because the Earth is not fully upright. It's tilted on an axis, at 23.5°. In the summer, our hemisphere is tilted towards the Sun, while the other is tilted away from it. This means that ours receives more heat, more light and longer days than the other. In spring and autumn, both Hemispheres receive the same amount of light and heat.