Intergalactic Planetary

Model 4

Our model 4 task was to take data of a phenomenon that we recorded from NASA's planetary data. My partner and I chose to dive deeper into distance from sun and orbital period, distance from sun and orbital velocity, and orbital velocity and orbital period. Our evidence of this phenomenon was data from all of the planets on the sheet except for Pluto. We then had to prove this phenomenon with a graph of all the planets and their orbital velocity and period compared to distance from the sun. We also created an equation for solving the orbital velocity, and originally we ended up V=d/t (d being distance from sun and t being orbital period,) but realized a mistake that we need to modify. Because the orbital velocity goes around the sun in a circle, we need to include 2π in our equation, giving us a final, modified equation of V=2π d/T. We also had a couple of unfinished questions and other modifications, such as specific solar system types, or needing to remake a graph to have more accurate data.

Model 5

Model 5 was a whole lot different than I expected it to be. In model 5, the first task is to calculate the orbital period and my partners weight on earth and planets x and y. Planet x and y are two planets that Mr. Williams found with a telescope that we didn't have needed information on. The other important task is to predict 4 things about each planet such as obliquity to orbit or temperature. When predicting, we didn't actually have to calculate any numbers, the goal was more to show our knowledge on how you would predict the planets features, rather than actually showing it. The actual calculation part was shown through the other side of the model, where my partner and I had a couple of bumps with our calculations (usually due to unit conversion,) but overall we got through it well enough to have answers we were confident in.

Concepts

These are some concepts that I found interesting in this project

Quantum mechanics- Quantum science brought a lot of questions to my brain and I think that it is definitely one of the most interesting concepts we have discussed as a class. Although I understand little to none of anything that is going on about quantum particles and mechanics, I think that it is one of the concepts I really want to dive deeper into in the near future.

Theory of relativity-Again, Einstein's theories clearly need more deep dives from me to full at least partially understand, but I think that from the little knowledge I already have, so many questions come up. I think that a theory of relativity explanation that made sense would be probably impossible, so I am left with a goal of trying to understand what we know for now.

What we know about our universe-Although not a direct scientific/physical concept like the two discussed previously, it really surprised me how little we know. For example, we don't really know what an atom looks like, what dark matter is, we don't know whose theories are wrong or right, and for all we know the people who invented space dust hundreds of years ago may have been right. It blows my brain to think of how much we really know vs. how much we don't know, and coming from someone who was disappointed about how many things had already been discovered, it gave me a motivation to try to solve more about these things. Something that came in to mind when I was thinking about this was that thousands of years ago, we knew that perspective existed because of art and clouds and mountains that we could see, but humans still thought that the moon was as big as the sun on some nights. The people knew about perspective, they just didn't think to apply it to the mystery for a couple of centuries. The answers to our modern day questions might be right under our noses, we just don't know how to apply it.

Important physics terms and equations

Orbital velocity-V=2π d/T (used when solving for the speed at which a planet orbits around its solar body, where d represents distance from the sun, T represents the orbital period, and v represents the orbital velocity being solved for. It is important that π is included in this equation because orbital velocity moves in a circle.)

Force of gravity between two objects-F= G (m1m2/r^2) (used to calculate the force that two bodies in space exert on each other, where G stands for universal gravitation, (6.67e-11) m1 representing the first body and m2 representing the second, and r representing the distance between the two bodies centers.

Reflection

I think that this project has been one of my favorites from this year for a number of reasons and one of the main reasons why I enjoyed it so much was because I felt like it was so much easier to collaborate. Almost every project I have done this year, I wrote that my main goal I wanted to work on was collaborating better than my teammates. I think that this time, I achieved it. Having a partner to work with instead of a group really boosted my ability to collaborate because I didn't feel overwhelmed from trying to do the work for other people when I should just stick with my own. (while writing this, I realize that this should be something I work to improve upon) I also think that my communication shined in this project, because when I needed to do something like get a paper turned in or plan out our work for the week, i didn't have to tell 3 people, just one. A key part of good communication is being able to listen, and sometimes in larger groups, it becomes much more of a challenge to hear other people's needs or ideas and to communicate your own.

Although this project was a step in the right direction for me, there is a couple things I need to improve on. One is my critical thinking. As someone who wants my work to stand out among others and be unique or try to dive deeper into questions, I think that I wasn't doing that as much this project. Many of the models and other things, I just followed along with what everyone else was doing, and that didn't give our work a lot of variation. There were other moments where I tried hard to find something past the surface in research or data, but ended up quitting because I didn't understand or was being lazy. My conscientious learning was also a struggle in this project because I was getting side tracked easily or procrastinating my work, leading to rushed and subpar final products that could have been easily avoided. In specific, me and my partner turned in our 5th model quite late because of miscommunications and slacking off in class, leaving us with not enough time to finish. This project was a great way for me to gain more insight about my character, and I will strive to improve myself more and more throughout the year.

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