MISSION TO A SOLAR SYSTEM BODY PORTFOLIO: COVER PAGE Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house — Henri PoincareThe best way to learn science is by doing science. In your Observing the Moon Term Project,you will learn about science by doing science. In your Mission to a Solar System Body Portfolio, you will learn how scientists do science by researching a mission to a Solar System object — planet, moon, asteroid, or comet. At the same time, you will also learn more about that object.This packet contains a number of assignments that will be due during the semester. These assignments will be graded and returned to you. Finally, at the end of the semester, you will handin a Portfolio of all of these graded assignments plus the last section, the Summary Questions. This Portfolio will assess what you have learned about the object/objects that is/are the focus of the mission you researched. The Portfolio and Summary Questions constitute your Final Exam for this class. Please do not lose this assignment. If you need another copy, you will have to download it from the class website.This packet contains:1. Mission to a Solar System Body Portfolio: Cover Page 2. Mission to a Solar System Body Portfolio: Background3. Mission Portfolio Part #1 (MPP1): Mission to a Solar System Body: Report Instructions (Due April 5)4. Mission Portfolio Part #2 (MPP2): My Proposed Mission (Due Feb. 8)5. Mission Portfolio Part #3 (MPP3): Current Planetary Science Review (Due Feb. 22)6. Mission Portfolio Part #4 (MPP4): Outline of Mission to a Solar System Body (Due March 8)7. Mission Portfolio Part #5 (MPP5): Portfolio and Summary Questions (Due May 3)We will have reminders in class about due dates and these dates will be posted on the class website. However, it is your responsibility to get assignments in on time. Please remember to pick and keep all of your graded assignments. They should be kept as part of your Mission to a Solar System Body Portfolio and turned in on the last day of class.Late assignments generally are not accepted for credit. However, if their completion and evaluation is important for subsequent assignments, you should turn them in for evaluation. They will be evaluated and returned to you so that you can use them to complete future assignments.1/14/2019, 3:20 PM11/14/2019, 3:20 PM2MISSION TO A SOLAR SYSTEM BODY PORTFOLIO: BACKGROUND Missions to study Solar System objects are not created in a vacuum (though most of them are conducted in the vacuum of space). They represent years of planning and design and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. A mission is, in many ways, similar to your observing project, only much more complicated.Our curiosity about the world around us leads us to ask questions. We then devise ways to answer them. We may be able to answer many of those questions and we may even come up withhypotheses and theories that help us understand what we see. We probably also see new things that we still do not fully understand. We then get to start all over from the beginning — this is how science is done:1. Make observations and/or research what we know about the object2. Pose questions 3. Design an experiment or experiments that can answer those questions4. Carry out that experiment5. Report the results and give others the opportunity to study the data6. Start all over with a new set of questionsThis is what is called inquiry-based science — what used to be called The Scientific Method. Remember: Galileo did not have a map of the Moon, Kepler did not have a scale model of the Solar System, and Newton did not have a book on the laws of physics. They all saw things, askedquestions, and then went on to try to answer them to the best of their ability. That is what you will be doing with your observing assignments and that is what you will investigate in these assignments.Our understanding of the Solar System started out with naked eye observations of motions of the planets, “wandering” stars. The invention of the telescope allowed Galileo and others to study the planets in more detail, but only at a distance. We began to see the planets as other worlds with some similarities to Earth, but also with many differences. With improved telescopes and instruments that extend the range of our “vision,” we learned about the nature of Saturn’s rings; that there were thousands of smaller bodies (comets and asteroids), that orbited the Sun; other planets had moons, some of them larger than the smallest planets, and one with an atmosphere; that there are actually 9 (not 6) planets in the Solar System; and finally, that there are planets around other stars. All but the last occurred before the start of the Golden Age of Planetary Exploration. Space exploration is not just the realm of the United States. The Soviet Union’s Luna-3 opened up the exploration of space with its images of the far side of the Moon. Mariner 2 (US) in 1962 gave us the first hints that the surface of Venus was hot. Mariner 4 (US) in 1965 gave us our first images of Mars. Pioneer 10 and 11 gave us our first close-up views of Jupiter in 1973 and Saturnin 1979. Pioneer 10 was sending back signals to Earth until 2003 when it was 7.6 billion miles from the Earth. We saw the surface of Mercury for the first time in 1974 when Mariner 10 flew by it for the first time. Mariner 10 also gave us images of cloud-covered Venus. It was not until 1/14/2019, 3:20 PM31975 that the Soviet Union’s Venera 10 landed on Venus and imaged its surface. We did not get close-up images of Uranus (1986) and Neptune (1989) until Voyager 2 flew by them. Finally, ourfirst close-up images of a comet came in 1986 with the fly-by of Comet Halley (Giotto, European Space Agency) and of an asteroid in 1991 (Galileo, on its way to Jupiter). We have yet to see distant Pluto up close.Teams of scientists and engineers are involved in any Solar System mission. They may include geologists, atmospheric scientists, hydrologists, physicists, and biologists. All of these people areexperts in their fields and may have spent much of their careers studying the object or similar objects (planets, asteroids, comets, moon). While they can ask the science questions, they need engineers who can help them design the instruments and the spacecraft that will carry out the mission. They also need to convince a funding agent (NASA, European Space Agency, etc,) that
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