Girl Guides in Space!

On November 1st, a group of 35 including Guides, Pathfinders, Rangers, Guiders and family members visited the W.J. McCallion Planetarium at McMaster University for a presentation on space. The Guides earned the Astronomy Badge, the Pathfinders completed the Galactic Adventures Module, and the Rangers finished a challenge from the Environment, Camping and Outdoors section of their program.

Our presenter, Fraser, showed us the night sky above Hamilton, how the North Star stays fixed in place, the Milky Way, and then took us on a tour of the solar system from the Sun to Neptune, and beyond. 

We learned some cool facts about our solar system:

• We saw photos taken on the surface of Venus by the longest-surviving probe to land there - it only survived for 2 hours due to the heat!
• The current robot on Mars is "Curiosity". The planet looks red because the surface is covered in rust.
• Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system and also has the most moons. The Giant Red Spot on the planet surface is a gigantic hurricane. Three of its moons are Io (which is covered in volcanoes), Europe (which is covered in ice with a giant ocean underneath) and Ganymede (the biggest moon in the solar system).
• Saturn is famous for its rings, but also has a really cool moon. Titan is the only moon in the solar system that has had a probe land on its surface other than Earth's. It is also the only place other than Earth with standing liquid on the surface (in this case, methane).
• All of Uranus' moons are named for Shakespearean characters.  
• When lightning strikes the methane on Neptune, it rains down tiny diamonds. 

We also got to look at some really cool stars, nebulae and galaxies:

• M31 - Andromeda Galaxy (the closest galaxy to the Milky Way)
• Ring Nebula (has a White Dwarf Star at its centre)
• M101 - Pinwheel Galaxy (a spiral galaxy)
• Hubble Deep Field (a piece of space that seemed empty, but is actually full of galaxies!)   
• Einstein Cross (a galaxy behind a galaxy)
• Little Ghost Nebula
• California Nebula
• Interacting Galaxies (two galaxies that are about to collide)
• Egg Nebula
• Hubble V
• Hubble X
• Cassiopeia A
• Chi & h Per
• NGC6946
• M13        

More information about the Planetarium can be found at http://www.physics.mcmaster.ca/planetarium/