6481547 Unit 2 Reflection

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Pennsylvania State University *

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Astronomy

Date

Oct 30, 2023

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pdf

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Uploaded by MagistrateMonkey21102

6481547 Dear Mom and Dad, A bit of time has passed since I last wrote, so I first want to apologize for that. Things have gotten kind of crazy out here on Mars. Well, more specifically in the VR Lab. On top of all of our usual quizzes and lessons, Lerpz assigned us a project that was basically studying some of the major celestial objects in our Solar System like the planets, dwarf planets, and moons. I was really annoyed at this until Linassa suggested we investigate while also playing a game in which teams from Mars and Earth compete to colonize various planets in the virtual world. Being someone who enjoys both video games and winning, I happily accepted. We got to work flying around our Solar System at faster than light speeds and gathering data that we needed for our project. Soon after we began, we were told about a great (virtual) injustice occurring on Jupiter. One of the groups created a mining operation which, while extremely fruitful as they were mining literal diamonds, had horrible effects on the local ecosystem. They almost wiped out entire species! Thankfully, Linassa, Fabian, and I were able to locate the game administrator (which, I may add, was no small feat) and get her to put a stop to their antics as they were in clear violation of the ethics rules of the game. We are still waiting to hear about the results of the competition, but we are hoping that our act of galactic heroism will earn us some extra points. I’ll let you know how it goes! Linassa recently asked an interesting question and I thought it would be fun to pose it to you guys! She asked me and Fabian: which Solar System object would you explore further, if you had to pick just one. Fabian of course, picked the Sun. He stated that since it was really difficult to get close to the surface of the Sun due to its extreme heat, it would be a scientific breakthrough if he could figure out how to explore it. Leave it to Fabian to turn hypotheticals into science experiments. I went a slightly different route than Fabian. I said I would most want to explore Neptune. I think what first drew me to the blue planet is just that: it’s beautiful color. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of looking at pictures of Neptune. Did you know that Neptune appears blue because it’s atmosphere contains a lot of methane which absorbs red light and reflects blue light? That’s pretty cool. I always assumed it had something to do with the composition of the planet, like it was all a big giant ocean. Turns out Neptune’s structure is a bit more complicated. It’s made of a mix of water, methane, and ammonia which cover a rocky core. Neptune doesn’t even have a solid surface, so exploring it would be such a cool experience! Finally, I think it would be super cool to observe our solar system from Neptune, it would be a totally new perspective. Neptune is the farthest of the eight planets at thirty astronomical units away from the Sun. It would be awesome to see the other planets, the Sun, and the stars from Neptune. I would really like to learn more about how diamonds “rain” on Neptune. Is it possible to sustainably harvest these diamonds? How would they differ from diamonds found on Earth? I’ll have to keep digging. That’s all for now. Miss you guys. Stay safe and look for me in the sky! Love, 6481547

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