Alpha Dad Kids

Our Moon. We see it in the sky for a good part of each month. Most of the time we just look up there at it, and either don’t t

hink about it too much, or we just don’t know too many facts on it. The Moon is back in the news, as the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has put a lunar explorer craft – the KAYUGA – into orbit around it. They have produced some really excellent pictures of the moon surface, and what the Earth looks like from the Moon. It’ hard to tell from the picture, but from where the explorer craft is looking at the Earth, our planet is upside-down in the picture, with the South Pole on top, and North Pole on bottom. (Pic- JAXA)

To give you more knowledge on that beautiful disk that crosses our sky almost every night, here are some facts and information about the small body that is the 5^th largest moon in our solar system:

The Moon is 235,000 miles away from the Earth. It is 2,100 miles across, which is a little bit less than the width of the United States. The size of the Moon is about 1/50^th the size of the Earth, and has a gravity of 1/6^th of our planet.

The Moon is the only celestial body (planet or moon) that humans have visited in person and landed

on the surface. The United States has landed astronauts on the Moon six times, from 1969 to 1972, as part of the Apollo Space Program. There have been no landings on the Moon since that time, but many countries have announced plans to visit the Moon again. (Pic-NASA)

The tides of our oceans are caused by the Moon’s gravitational pull on our planet. The oceans on the side of the planet facing the Moon are pulled towards the Moon, and this causes a very slight bulge in the ocean. The water in the oceans rise a bit as it is pulled in the direction of the Moon.

The Moon travels around our planet in what is called a synchronous rotation, which means that it keeps the same face turned towards Earth at all times. The side of the Moon that faces the earth is called the near side, and the side facing away from us is called the far side. The reason the moon is not ‘full’ and showing a full round disk to Earth all the time is because the Earth casts its shadow on the moon, as for a good part of the month, the Earth is between our sun and the Moon.

There are many craters and even mountains on the Moon. The craters have been caused by meteor impacts over millions of years. Many of these craters can even be seen without a telescope when the moon is in the sky, especially when it is full. The largest known crater in our solar system is on our Moon, and is called the South Pole-Aitken basin; this crater is about 1400 miles across, and is eight miles deep.

The material that makes up the Moon’s surface is called regolith, and is made up of rock fragments and dust. The Moon is made of rock, and is thought to have a core, much like our own planet, and to be made of molten (superheated) material. It is believed that the Moon is actually made of material that was once part of the Earth. This theory proposes that a giant impact of a meteor on the Earth caused a large part o

f our planet to be broken off the planet and showered into orbit around the Earth, with the fragments eventually coalescing (coming together) into the body that is now our Moon. It is thought that the Moon is about the same age as our own planet – 4.5 billion years.

At times we see eclipses of our sun, as a result of the sun, the earth, and the moon all being in a line. The Moon is between the Earth and the sun when we get a solar eclipse. We get a lunar eclipse every month, which causes the moon to not be visible to the naked eye a good part of the time, and then to appear as a sliver, then a crescent, then almost a disk, and back to a crescent and sliver.

Our moon is very important to our planet, causing the tides of our oceans, effecting our gravity, and for humans- giving us an enormous wonderful, and sometimes mysterious, body in our sky many nights of the year. The presence of the Moon in our sky has made for much imagination and thought in our civilization for thousands of years. (Pictures- Michigan State University)

Veterans Day is coming soon- November 11th. We all pretty much know it is a holiday in America, but why do we celebrate this day?

Veterans Day is a holiday celebrated in the United States to honor our military veterans. The day we celebrate, November 11th, is also the day that World War I ended.

We celebrate this holiday to thank living veterans for their service, to acknowledge that their contributions to United States national security are appreciated, and to remind us of the fact that all those who served in our Armed Forces have sacrificed and done their duty. (Pic- DVA)

Water- Earth is about 70% covered with the stuff. We drink it, it's necessary for plants and all animals to live. Our oceans are made up of water. We don't think about it too much, but it is absolutely essential for the whole planet to work. (pic- NASA)

Water is amazing stuff. It is made up of just two elements- hydrogen and oxygen. Two hydrogen atoms attach themselves to one oxygen atom, and you get- water. It's hard to picture things as small as atoms or molecules, but the basic arrangement of the water molecule is like the picture on the right. (pic- Chem1)

When water freezes - at 32º Fahrenheit, or 0º Celsius - the water molecules begin to line up in what is called a lattice. The individual blocks in the lattice are six-sided. The way the molecules fit together leaves space between each one. With this structure, and those spaces between the molecules, it makes ice lighter than water. This is why ice floats on water. Water is the only known substance that is lighter

in its solid form than it is as a liquid. For example, even though icebergs can weigh thousands of pounds overall, their weight is lighter than all those water molecules around and beneath them.

It is also this property of water in forming six-sided structures that makes all snowflakes have six sides as well. (pic- Chem1)

These characteristics of water are one of those incredible things in nature, and the way the chemical and physical properties of our world make life on our wonderful planet possible. For example- ice freezes from the top down, because the ice is lighter than the water, like with icebergs. Imagine if ice was heavier than water. If this was true, then as ice formed, it would sink. The bottom of our oceans, our lakes, our rivers, would be covered with ice in the winter. More ice would form on top of more ice, until almost all the water on the planet would be frozen. If this happened, ice is very reflective, so a lot of the sunlight falling on the Earth would be reflected back into space, and the planet woul

d grow very cold. Luckily for us, ice is lighter than water, so it stays on top. The ice actually forms a cover over the water that is still liquid, and keeps the water from freezing too quickly. In large bodies of ice, the water just beneath the ice is at 39º Fahrenheit, which is the temperature at which water is most dense. This helps to make the ice float. About 1/10th of the planet is covered in ice (think of the Arctic and Antarctica). (pic- Swisseduc)

Sometimes we hear the Earth described as the watery planet, because of all the water covering the surface. But in fact, 1/5th of our planet is considered desert. The deserts of our planet are actually growing faster than at any time in history.

Our world has changed many times in the billions of years of its existence. It is changing right now. The good thing is that the properties of water and ice remain the same, and this helps us to understand these changes.

If you have young children learning math, if they haven't gotten to it yet, they're certainly going to have to learn their times-tables at some point. You can get flash-cards, or any of a number of learning tools to help them get the tables memorized. If you have Microsoft Office, here is a great free tool in their templates section. It is an MS PowerPoint slide with all the multiplications from 0 to 12. You can get it into your PowerPoint application and print it out to help your child learn, or use it as an easy quick- reference. It's a great little document that puts all the information in a single sheet. You can find the table by using the link below. Or enter 'multiplication table' in the search for templates function in PowerPoint. (pic Microsoft) PowerPoint Multiplication Table

Viva Piñata! This Rated-E (for Everyone) game, that was released in 2006 for the Xbox 360, came with an exceptionally original and funny commercial. It has long since faded from media circulation, but the tag lines and persuasive speech by the piñata still make my sons and I laugh. It came up with us the other day, and I thought you and your kids might enjoy it. (pic- Xbox)

This game is available at any major gaming retailer, or online, currently at about $20.

The latest game we played when I was home was that of time travel. We spend a lot of time in the car and realized it was a modern day time machine. What?- you might ask. But think of it this way: while the car is in motion everything to the front is the future; you are heading towards it, either fast or slow, depending on speed. You can slow your trip to the future or speed it up. Everything behind you is the past, as you were already there. Now, the present is inside the car, or whenever you stop. My girls loved trying to figure things out. It also gave them a little spatial and situational awareness. But the best was thinking in an abstract manner and trying to relate a difficult concept (past and future) to the present.

Whenever you hear thunder, lightning is nearby, causing the rumbling sound. Just how far away is the lightning?

Lightning traveling through the atmosphere causes thunder, by creating a channel through the air as it passes. The sound of thunder is created when the air closes back behind the lightning as it races through the channel. All that sound, just from air running into air behind the lightning!

Lightning is an incredible discharge of electricity, and can travel at up to 100,00 miles per hour, and be as hot as 60,000º F! Light travels far faster than sound; sound travels at 768 miles per hour. This is why we see the lightning flash before we hear the thunder. The lightning flashes, with the light traveling at incredible speed* to our eyes when we see it. The sound created by the lightning has to catch up, as the sound is coming to our ears more slowly, compared to how fast the light reaches our eyes.

A fun exercise to do with the kids- You can calculate how far away the lightning is when you see it in the sky. This may also be useful for safety, if you're caught outside during a thunderstorm, away from a safe area. The calculation is pretty easy: sound travels at 768 mph, which is roughly 1,100 feet per second. So- when you see the lightning strike, begin counting the seconds until you hear the thunder. Two seconds from lightning strike to hearing thunder- the lightning is about 2,200 feet away. Five seconds from lightning strike to thunder- 5,500 feet, the lightening is roughly a mile away. This is often a fun exercise to do with the kids in the car. And teaches science and math at the same time!

* The speed of light is 186,282 miles per hour. I didn't want to muddle the explanation (for kids) with additional figures. Even though it's called lightning, lightning is actually electrical charge, and so doesn't have the same properties as visible light. However, when we see the lightning, that is the visual light from the flash traveling to our eyes (at that 186K mph). We see the lightning flash almost instantaneously from when it strikes; the sound (thunder) then takes that extra bit of time to get to our ears, as it is a lot slower than that visible light stuff. Note- if any of you really scientific types can think of a better way to explain it (in layman's terms), please give feedback/input. -Ed.

This is what the planets of our solar system look like, in order from the sun. The little dots at each end are Mercury on the left, and Pluto on the right. Pluto is no longer considered a planet by many scientists, owing to its small size. (Pic- JPL)

All the planets are quite small compared to the size of our sun. Earth is the little dot between the Sun and Jupiter. The large arc in red is a solar flare capture (Pic- UofAZ)

Our planet is quite small when compared with the larger planets of our system. (Pic- UNK).

Another graphic representation of the size of our sun in relation to the planets of our system. (Pic- UNK)

The big star pictured is Arcturus, which is one of the five brightest stars in the night sky. It is 37 light years from Earth. (Pic- UNK)

The very large star in the comparison is Antares, which is some 600 light years from the Earth, and is one of the largest known stars. (Pic-UNK)

Trick Question/Quiz: Which weighs more- bag with a pound of stones in it, or a bag with a pound of feathers?
Answer: They both weigh the same! The pound bag of feathers would be much larger than the pound bag of rocks, but they both weigh the same.

Answer: The Washington Monument is a lot taller! The Statue of Liberty is only 164 feet high, but the Washington Monument is 555 feet tall!

- All sorts of science facts, neat videos, and great experiments you can do at home with the kids: http://www.krampf.com/

- Absolutely stunning pix from space, taken from the Space Shuttle Endeavor:

- National Geographic site just for kids. Great activities, videos, experiments, stories:

If your kids are really into music, did you know that you can obtain a 'clean' version of most popular albums? Many of the CD's that are top sellers, promo'ed on MTV, and pushed hard with marketing, often carry explicit language and themes.

If you go to the major online retailers (Amazon, B&N, , etc.) it is very simple to find the clean version on the popular album your child wants. Wal-Mart will often carry both versions of popular works. Some retailers only carry edited versions of albums.

A quick search found the following popular titles available in a clean version:

- The newest popular albums by 50 Cent (Curtis); Kanye West (Graduation); Justin Timberlake (FutureSex- Lovesongs) have clean versions.

- For material of the recent music era, but not on the charts- for example: Limp Bizkit (Greatest Hitz) is also available with an edit version. You can even get most Eminem CD's in a clean version.

Sure, your kids may think they have to have that CD, but if you're going to let them listen to it, you can at least get the version with no explicit lyrics.

Have a good learning tool, or something fun to do with the kids? It can be learning-oriented, or just a cool thing to do with your children. We're trying to significantly expand this section as a good resource for the Alpha Dad or anyone who has kids. Send us your original submission- email to: submissions@alphadad.net ; put SUBMISSIONS- PARENT/KIDS in the subject line. Be sure to include your first name, last initial (aliases are fine for privacy); age; and profession.

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