Unit Plan: The Impact of Shoemaker-Levy 9 In July 1994 twenty-one fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashed violently into the planet Jupiter. Astronomers, both professional and amateur, prepared for the event for months in advance, and the data gathered from the impact continues to be analyzed. The following Unit plan outlines a guided research activity in which your students can use the Internet to learn about the Shoemaker-Levy 9 event. Astronomy and space exploration are topics about which there is an enormous amount of information available on the Internet. As your students work through this activity, they will be introduced to a few of these resources and gain a starting point for future research. Unit Outline Objectives Building Background Student Activity Enrichment Activities Unit Wrap-Up Answer Key New! Astronomy Puzzle Objectives As a result of completing this unit, students will be able to... use the Internet to find answers to research questions. describe some of the most prominent characteristics of the planet Jupiter. identify Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 and the people who discovered it, and describe its July 1994 impact with Jupiter. create their own home page using the data they collected from their Internet research. describe some of the methods through which astronomers gather information about the solar system. compare and contrast two astronomical objects, such as two planets or a planet and a star. Back to Unit Outline Building Background At the start of the unit, you can tap into students' prior knowledge by asking them what they know about comets in general, about the planet Jupiter, and about the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet. (The document Background Material for Science Teachers provides a lot of useful information.) Ask students what else they would like to learn about Jupiter and Shoemaker-Levy 9 as they work on the Internet activity. As part of your background building, you might also make sure that students are familiar with the following terms and acronyms having to do with space exploration and the Internet: composite -- an image made up of several separate images. For example, an image that shows all nine of the planets in our solar system is a composite image, since all of these bodies cannot be photographed at once. ESA -- European Space Agency, an organization that combines the efforts of 14 European countries and Canada to explore space FAQ -- frequently asked question. Many Web sites include a list of FAQs and answers as a way of providing general information that many visitors to the site will find helpful. HST -- Hubble Space Telescope. Launched in 1990, the HST orbits the earth and provides images of astronomical bodies in our solar system and far beyond. JPL -- Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Headquartered in Pasadena, California, JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology. It is the leading U.S. center for robotic exploration of the solar system. SL9 -- Shoemaker-Levy 9 Back to Unit Outline Student Activity Click here to go to the Student Activity about Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. The text on the activity page is directed at students, so you can send them to the page and let them start exploring on their own. Back to Unit Outline Enrichment Activities The Methods of Astronomy Often the ingenious methods by which astronomers collect and interpret their data are as fascinating as what their work tells us about the nature of the universe. Interested students can research the methods of astronomy and report their findings to the rest of the class. Specific topics they could focus on include: the concept of red shift, from which scientists concluded that the universe is expanding how astronomers determine the composition of a planet or star (without taking samples from its surface) how scientists determine the age of a planet what surface features such as craters tell astronomers about the history of a planet how astronomers determine the origins of a planet's various moons One excellent book that gives an overview of recent knowledge about the solar system and how people have acquired it is The New Solar System, edited by J. Kelly Beatty and Andrew Chaikin (Cambridge, MA: Sky Publishing Corporation, 1990). Some of the information in the book is highly technical, but students who are enthusiastic about the topic will find a wealth of fascinating facts. Compare and Contrast How is Jupiter different from Neptune, and what characteristics are shared by these two "gas giants"? What makes a planet different from an asteroid or from a star? Why did scientists once think that Venus and Earth were "twin planets," and what differences did they discover between the two? Challenge students to select two celestial objects (or types of celestial objects) for a detailed comparison and contrast. They can use the Web page The Nine Planets as a starting point for finding a topic and collecting data. Encourage them to use a range of resources, including the Internet, books, magazine articles, and documentaries on videotape. They can present the results of their research in a classroom display. Back to Unit Outline Unit Wrap-Up At the close of the unit, you may wish to bring the whole class together for a wrap-up discussion. The following questions can serve as a guide for the discussion. What was the most interesting thing you learned about Jupiter, Shoemaker-Levy 9, or astronomy in general during this unit? Did it overturn a belief or assumption you had before you started the unit? If so, how? Do you think it would be fun to be a professional astronomer or planetary scientist? What would you like best about the job? What might not be so great about it? How could you learn more about this career? Can you think of a way to use the Internet to get more information? (Note: The SL9 page of the Whately Observatory at UMass contains a daily log of the data collected during the collision in July 1994. It can give students an idea of what planetary scientists do during an event like this.) Did you find the Internet helpful in learning more about the solar system? Which sites were the most helpful or interesting? How would you rate the Internet compared to other resources -- such as books, magazines, and documentary films -- as a way to find information? Do you think the Internet will ever replace these other resources entirely? Why, or why not? Back to Unit Outline Answer Key The Answer Key contains answers to all student activities. Back to Unit Outline Astronomy Puzzle Our new Astronomy Puzzle page is where we publish questions that people have sent to us via e-mail. If you or your students know the answer to any of the questions, write in and let us know. Back to Unit Outline Small Planet Home Page Copyright © 2000 Small Planet Communications, Inc. 15 Union Street Lawrence, MA 01840 (978) 794-2201 planet@smplanet.com