04jan3

Nicholas' News
January, 2004
Page 3

Current Event: NASA Lands on Mars!
Science: Electricity

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NASA Lands on Mars

Current Event:

NASA has landed two rovers on the Martian surface! The first rover named Spirit landed late on the night of January 3rd and had been sending a stream of data and pictures from the day it arrived! It took over a week before Spirit rolled off the lander and onto the Martian surface. A few days before January 24, which was the day that the other rover, Opportunity, was going to land, the steady stream of data from Spirit stopped. Nobody knew what was wrong with Spirit. If there was a problem with the software, the scientists could probably fix it, but if it was a problem with the hardware, Spirit may never work right again. Luckily, the problem was with the memory being overloaded and the scientists have worked to fix it.
Opportunity landed as scheduled and rolled on the surface before calling home. Opportunity is working fine and has rolled onto the surface. Now NASA has two rovers on opposite sides of Mars sending information. Hopefully the data will show that there was once water on Mars and maybe even life!

To find updated information, check out the
NASA Mars Exploration Site
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html

Science: Electricity

I've been studying electricity this month in science. Here are some interesting facts that I've learned.

*Negative charges are attracted to positive charges.

*Negative charges are the charges that move.

*Electricity is made when the negative charges move.

*Static electricity is made when you lose or gain negative electric charges.

*When you attach a wire from a battery to a light bulb and another wire back from the light bulb to the battery, you have made a complete circuit. The negative charges move in a circuit from the negative end of the battery to the light and then to the positive end of the battery.

*Negative charges only move in a current when you have a complete circuit.

*Electricity also makes heat energy, so over-loading a circuit can cause a fire.

*A battery is really made up of two or more dry cells (what most people accidentally call batteries.)

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