week of 12/12

Meteor shower tonight! see below for details

7th - beginning our first formal lab report "Percent moisture in Soil". This will be broken down into small parts in class and typed up each night, adding to the previous nights work. Keep an eye on the HW blog.

8th - Weather unit still in progress next up is "wind". Shoe boxes and paper towel tubes are needed. We may also begin talks on plate tectonics

GEMINID METEOR SHOWER:  Earth is passing through a stream of debris from near-Earth asteroid 3200 Phaethon, source of the annual Geminid meteor shower.  Forecasters expect meteor rates to reach 20-to-40 per hour when the shower peaks in bright moonlight on the night of Dec.13/14.  The best time to look, no matter where you live, is between 10 pm local time on Tuesday, Dec. 13, and sunrise on Wednesday, Dec. 14th. Check http://spaceweather.com for more information and live audio from a meteor radar.

BIG SUNDIVING COMET: A comet nearly as wide as two football fields (200m) is plunging toward the sun where it will most likely be destroyed in a spectacular light show on Dec. 15/16. Solar glare will hide the event from human eyes, but NASA and ESA spacecraft should have a grand view.  Check http://spaceweather.com for full coverage.