Archived Problems
Sorted by Category
Lunar Orbiter, How Big is It? The Moon up Close [PDF] - Grade
level: 4 - 7
Students work with an image taken by the Lunar Orbiter III
spacecraft to determine image scale, and to search for the
smallest things seen in a photograph.
[Skills: image scaling; multiply, divide, work with metric ruler]
Lunar Orbiter, How Big is It? The Moon up Close [PDF] - Grade
level: 4 - 7
Students work with an image taken by the Lunar Orbiter IV
spacecraft to determine image scale, and to search for the
smallest things seen in a photograph.
[Skills: image scaling; multiply, divide, work with metric ruler]
The Moon's Atmosphere! [PDF] - Grade
level: 8 - 10
Students learn about the moon's very thin atmosphere by calculating
total mass in kilograms using the volume of a spherical shell
and the measured density (from Apollo) of the lunar atmosphere.
[Skills: Volume of sphere and shell, density-mass-volume, unit
conversions]
A
Lunar Transit of the Sun from Space [PDF] - Grade
level: 9-11 One of the STEREO
satellites observed the disk of the moon pass across
the sun. Students will use simple geometry to determine
how far the satellite was from the moon and Earth at
the time the photograph was taken.
[Skills: Geometry, parallax,
arithmetic]
Lunar
Meteorite Impact Risks [PDF] - Grade level: 9-12
In 2006, scientists identified 12
flashes of light on the moon that were probably
meteorite impacts. They estimated that these meteorites
were probably about the size of a grapefruit. How long
would lunar colonists have to wait before seeing such a
flash within their horizon? Students will use an area
and probability calculation to discover the average
waiting time.
[Skills: arithmetic,
unit conversions, surface area of a sphere)
]
|
