Gamma-Rays Explosion

Have you ever wondered what happens 12 billion light years away in space? Think how far that is-our sun is eight light minutes away from earth and Pluto, the lost planet, is twelve light hours away. Now imagine how far away 12 billion light years are?! A magnificent blast of huge gamma rays just occurred in the Carina constellation, which is 12 billion light years away from earth. This produced energies 3,000 to five billion times of visible light. That is a lot! Scientists believe that this blast was as large as 9,000 supernovae-which is a very fierce explosion that happens at the end of a star’s lifetime. “Gamma-ray bursts are the universe’s most luminous explosions…” as said in the article. This was a big deal for scientists. “Studying gamma-ray bursts allows scientists to ‘sample an individual star at a distance where we can’t even see galaxies clearly,’ [Frank] Reddy [the astrophysicist] said.” In my opinion, if explosions like these keep happening over a period of time, even if they are not as big, it will help scientists learn about galaxies very far away. Sooner or later, I believe that scientists will find out if there is life on a planet other than ours. This just brings scientists a step closer.



I got my information from:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090219/sc_afp/sciencespaceastronomy

The Declining Russian Economy

The economy has affected more than just Americans last year. Russia, one of the richest countries in the world, has also suffered much loss threw economic reasons. According to the business magazine Finans, of Russia, the top 10 richest Russians lost over two-thirds of their fortunes over the last year. Many stock buyers such as Vladimir Lisin, Alexei Mordashov, and Oleg Deripaska, dropped from this list of wealthiest men. Roman Abramovich, on the other hand, did not loose his second place, but simply lost a lot of money. On the good side, Mikhail Prokhorov, had sold one of the bad stocks, Norilsk Nickel, early last year and went up from his seventh place in the list. In my opinion, it is a good and bad thing that stocks dropped internationally. The bad thing is that many people lost money. Alternatively, this was good because countries can’t blame other countries for the lost money because it happened all over the world.

I got my information from:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29224553/

My Roller Coaster Website

The Nightmare Scare

Earthquake in New Jersey

Late on February 2nd, a little after 10:30 pm, a small earthquake struck northern New Jersey. It was a minor earthquake, nobody was hurt and nothing was damaged. A seismologist, Won-Young Kim, says the earthquake had a magnitude of 3.0. On the eleven o’clock news that night, a resident of Rockaway said it “was not a typical earthquake.” He also said, “I’m a native Californian and I have been through several earthquakes. At the very second the floor shook, we heard a big boom, an explosion type of noise. It was like one, quick impact.” The police got many frantic 911 calls saying that people heard the sound of an explosion and houses shaking. Kim said that it was not unusual to have an earthquake in New Jersey. Forty-seven earthquakes have rattled, in New Jersey, since 1974. In my opinion, the earthquake was a big deal to most people in New Jersey, because they did not expect it.

I got my Information from:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090203/ap_on_re_us/nj_earthquake

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28997421/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28987317/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28986971/

(small articles)

Newton's Laws of Motion

Sir Isaac Newton, during the years of 1665 and 1666, developed three laws of motion - rest, constant motion, and accelerated motion. Newton’s First Law of Motion says that an object at rest will remain at rest and an object in motion will remain in motion at constant velocity unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Constant velocity means the same speed in the same direction. Newton called the tendency of objects to remain in motion or stay at rest inertia. Inertia is the property of matter that resists any change in motion.
Newton’s Second Law of Motion shows how force, mass, and acceleration are related. Force = Mass x Acceleration where mass is in kilograms and acceleration in meters/second/second; force is measured in a unit called newtons (N). For example, 1 N = 1 kg x 1m/sec/sec
The Third Law of Motion states, that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, every force must have an equal and opposite force. Basically, all forces must come in pairs.
An example of Newton’s First Law is, when you are skateboarding, you keep rolling until an unbalanced force, such as your own foot or a rock on the ground, stops it. An example of Newton’s Second Law is, if you try to kick a brick wall it does not move, but when you kick a soccer ball with a kick of the same force, the soccer ball will move. This is because the mass of the brick wall is more than the mass of the soccer ball. An example of Newton’s Third Law is, when a rocket takes of from the ground. The rocket pushes on the ground to get pulled up.
In my opinion, Sir Isaac Newton made an important discovery in physics that revolutionized the way we think today. Newton’s laws still form the foundation on which all of physics is based.

I got my information from:

http://teachertech.rice.edu/Participants/louviere/Newton/index.html