Earth day is an international celebration to promote environment protection and support environmental issues. It is celebrated by over 192 countries, including places like Panama, where they planted 100 species of endangered orchids to celebrate, or in Afghanistan, where they planted 28 million trees. Earth day began on April 22, 1970. It was founded by US Senator Gaylord Nelson to inspire people to protect the environment. The holiday became national in 1990 because of Denis Hayes. Now, over a billion people celebrate it, and more people are now aware of the impact all of humanity had on the environment.

To celebrate Earth Day, one can plant trees, ride bikes, try and not use as much energy, spread awareness in one's community, do pretty much any activity to help the Earth and reduce your own impact, and either start to or continue to recycle. Many things can potentially be recycled, including aluminum, paper, plastic, and glass. We use over 80,000,000,000 aluminum cans each year, and since there is no limit to how many times aluminum can be recycled, we can save a large amount of it from entering the waste stream and ending up in landfills, not decomposing. Also, recycling paper can have a huge effect. The Earth's rainforests are being cut down at a rate of 100 acres per minute for virgin material to make paper products. If we recycle, we can greatly reduce this amount of paper used. Planting trees can also reduce the dramatic and terrible impact of this deforestation.

 

Quarter 4 Project Summary

My project this quarter is over the NASA Kepler Mission. NASA is conducting this mission with the Kepler Telescope, which measures light coming from distant stars and sees when the brightness dims for a brief period. When these dimming periods are habitual, then it is clear then there is a planet there. The amount of light blocked as well as how long it takes for the pattern to be repeated lets astronomers determine how big the planet is, as well as how far away it is from the star. From this, the temperature can be determined, and when used in conjunction with other telescopes and observatory's, it can see other characteristics of the planets.

All of these characteristics lead to the main goal of the Kepler Mission: to find exoplanets in the habitable zone. To do this, scientists look for planets that have similar densities, size, and distance from the star is similar to Earth, or has a temperature that could potentially support life. Another unrelated goal of the mission is to find multiple star systems and the planets that orbit them. So far, Kepler has found over 1000 planets, some of which are actually in the habitable zone and could have life.