On Halloween, the Seniors went on a wonderful field trip to McCormick Observatory. We really appreciated Professor Ed Murphy’s expertise and ability to answer every question posed to him. My son told me on the way home, “I kept thinking he wouldn’t know the answer to something, but he knew about everything!” Some of the things we learned are: kids who are 5th and 6th graders now are likely the ones who will go on future missions to Mars; the Mars Rover “Spirit” bounced 27 times before coming to rest on the surface; the seven peaks of a mountain range on Mars are named for the astronauts lost on the Columbia; it takes 20 minutes for radio waves to reach Earth from Mars and the current rover, Curiosity, is powered by plutonium. I highly recommend attending one of the public nights, click here to learn more. We also learned about an interesting and free program called Stellarium, which will show you the sky on any day in history you choose, download it here.
