Monday, November 23, 2009

Asteroid Hermes Formation


Asteroid Hermes, like most space bodies, started with a super nova. That's a really big explosion. The super nova left a big cloud of gas and dust. This cloud slowly collected and fused together to form small objects. These objects did not accrete (collide with each other) because of Mars' and Jupiter's gravity.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Planet?


When I was in kindergarden, they tought us a song about the order of the planets. I don't remember it at all but I am fairly sure that Pluto was a big part of it. Being the last planet, it probably had its own verse. What do you think happened top that song when they found out that Pluto was actually not a planet? Well I have no idea, but Pluto is not a planet because it doesn't clear its neighborhood. There are three requirements for being a planet. 1. orbits the sun, check 2. spherical, check. 3. gets rid of everything in its neighborhood. Nope. Pluto has stuff in its neighborhood. Therefore, it is not a planet.

Asteroid Hermes is not a planet. It is, in actuality, an asteroid. Hermes is not a planet because it doesn't control everything in its area and it's not a sphere. Also it doesn't orbit the sun.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

How Big is Asteroid Hermes?


Asteroid Hermes is very small. It is only .9 km in diameter.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

The Museum

Recently, my school took a trip to The Natural History Museum. We saw two movies, one about the big bang and one about the solar system in general. The big bang one was pretty boring but I liked the other one. I don't even remember what they said in the Big Bang one. something about how space was really cool and you should be fascinated by it. In the one about the solar system, it was like an observatory with the dome roof and all. We had to look up but it showed us, as far as science could see, how the universe worked. It was 3D and everything. Then we went and looked at some meteorites. There were three in particular that we saw. they were called Ahnighito, The Women, and The Dog. They used to be one big rock but they got split up. Rocks are not as entertaining as movies but they were not as bad as you would think.

I learned that as far as I can see, there is no exhibit on Asteroid Hermes in the museum. I also learned that the world is a very small part of the universe. Even our galaxy is a small part of everything. I learned that eventually the sun is going to become a red nova and explode and destroy us all. Isn't that a happy thought? They also said that we will have moved to a different planet by then. That might just be one of those flying car things, though.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Asteroid Hermes Discovered

Asteroid Hermes was discovered by Karl Reinmuth in Germany in 1937, just before World War II. Reinmuth saw an odd bit of light rather like a star in a picture he took. The light happened to be an asteroid later named Hermes for its incredible speed. Reinmuth tracked it for five days but sadly, he lost it.

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/scitech/display.cfm?ST_ID=169


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