Category: Grade 10
How does the universe expanding impact us in our progress of space exploration and understanding?
In the past many astronomers believed that the universe was static as the telescopes at the time were not able to capture data farther than was what needed to observe the increasing distance between other galaxies and ours. However this was later proved to be false by Edwin Hubble as he discovered that the universe is indeed expanding as galaxies are moving farther apart from each other. The measurement of how fast the universe is expanding (galaxies moving father apart) is called the Hubble constant.
This phenomenon had sparked a lot of questions regarding the topic of how the universe expanding affects us, planets, stars and other objects in space – and in the end our progress in exploring space and understanding how it works. Before continuing my research on this topic, I had thought that as the universe expands, it stretches the objects within it and could this impact our planet, solar system or our galaxy? I had also wondered how the universe expanding could affect the vacuum in space further affecting us in our space travel/exploration or planet itself. Another curiosity I had about this topic was if the universe is expanding at a constant speed, slowing down or speeding up, as well as if it’s expanding equally in all directions and is there a definite end point to its expansion?
During my research many of my questions were able to be answered though some still have left me wondering. I found out that the expansion of the universe actually does not affect the matter of the objects within it, the only thing actually expanding is the distance between said objects (like galaxies). I had also discovered that the universe expanding is not the reason the vacuum in space exists, this is instead caused by gravity. Currently the expansion rate of the universe is not strong enough to affect the space vacuum or the particles within a galaxy due to the strength of gravity – so our galaxy is safe from universe expansion. My last questions about the universe expanding was whether it is expanding at a constant rate, equally throughout the universe and will it keep expanding infinitely? Answers to these are that the universe has been observed expanding much faster than expected after researchers noticed a gap in data comparing two studies on the universe’s expansion rate at different times. The first being data on how scientists predicted the universe to be expanded based on physics of the early universe and the second being how fast it is expanding today. Second, it had been shown that the proximity galaxy clusters have to each other could affect the strength of gravitational pull, causing higher rates of expansion. And lastly a question I believe many of us are wondering, is there really an end to our universe? I had some difficulties researching this topic as many are theoretical including the Big Rip theory but currently I don’t think we have an answer to: “Is the universe infinite?” This is a video I liked and thought was very informational on the topic.
In conclusion, I thought this project was very fun but also tedious at times as trying to find information on topics like “Is the universe infinite?” can become very theoretical or conspiratory. I believe the topic of the universe expanding is important as it increases the distances between galaxies which eventually could impact how much of the universe we are able to see. I also think this topic is meaningful in ways that helped me understand how much the universe expanding really impacts us and other things in space, as well as spiked many more questions regarding this topic that were eye opening to find the answer to.
Sources:
YouTube. (2021, May 11). True limits of humanity – the final border we will never cross. YouTube. Retrieved April 6, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzkD5SeuwzM
YouTube. (2022, February 5). Brian Cox – is the universe infinite? YouTube. Retrieved April 6, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYlf8ZXeCiA&t=375s
Garner, R. (2019, April 24). Mystery of universe’s expansion rate widens with new Hubble Data. NASA. Retrieved April 6, 2023, from https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/mystery-of-the-universe-s-expansion-rate-widens-with-new-hubble-data
Mohon, L. (2020, April 7). Universe’s expansion may not be the same in all directions. NASA. Retrieved April 6, 2023, from https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/news/universe-s-expansion-may-not-be-the-same-in-all-directions.html
Q: How does the expansion of space affect the things that inhabit that space? are atoms, people, stars, and everything else getting bigger too? Ask a Mathematician / Ask a Physicist. (2019, April 4). Retrieved April 6, 2023, from https://www.askamathematician.com/2011/11/q-how-does-the-expansion-of-space-affect-the-things-that-inhabit-that-space-are-atoms-people-stars-and-everything-else-getting-bigger-too/
Admin. (2020, October 20). How does the expansion of the universe make outer space a vacuum? Ask an Astronomer. Retrieved April 6, 2023, from https://askanastronomer.org/how-does-the-expansion-of-the-universe-make-outer-space-a-vacuum/#:~:text=The%20short%20answer%20is%20that%20it%20the%20expansion,not%20considered%20the%20atmosphere%20of%20planets%20or%20stars
The phenomenon of food waste has continuously been shocking the population every time the news features a video of Dunkin Donuts workers dumping hundreds of fresh donuts into the trash or a dumpster diver revealing the thousands of perfectly edible produce in the dumpsters behind a grocery store. To the grander population, this is only now shown to light, and as people get informed on sustainable living we try to meal plan and compost. Yet, food waste is a much bigger dilemma in the grander scheme. As we found out over the process of research for this project, the effects are grave.
When we began to work from the initial idea of “big corporations are protected by governments, which greatly influences the lives of ordinary people” we decided on focusing on how food prices= food waste= food insecurity+ climate impact, and when we figured out that we had the data to back all these parts up, we got going. It was rather easy to find information on Canada, as the government is transparent enough, and so we decided to focus on the statistics of the three most populated provinces, Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia.
The information presented by both the provincial and national reports we found was rather astounding, the main reason as to why is the fact that the province’s population did not reflect the amount of waste produced, same as how the waste produced did not have a constant percentage of inedibility to edibility. Ontario is vastly more populated than Quebec, by some six million fewer people. Yet, the difference between the edibility of waste produced was 6% more than the latter, which made little sense regarding the provinces being extremely geographically similar. The amount of waste produced was odd in the way that while the food wasted somewhat matched consistently with the provinces’ scales, British Columbia producing 2.2M, Quebec 3.1M, and Ontario 3.6M, the Greenhouse Gas Emissions produced were extremely close between Quebec and Ontario, while BC accounted for a particularly low amount. Another interesting observation we saw in the data gathered that we visualized in our prototype is the similarities between food insecurity and not-so-different food prices between the provinces. Each crane has four little red people, one of which hangs or falls off the crane as the others climb, which represents the similar statistics that the province’s share of BC- 8.2%, QC- 8.1% and Ontario-8.2%.
The design of this prototype was based on a vague idea we had for another project idea concerning multiple cranes that are lifting something of various sizes. Yet, as it solidified and we added to it using the information we found, it was like watching a puzzle come together. The little people climbing the crane was something that came along rather quickly once we linked food prices and food insecurity. All the while, the green water balloons were brought up as the only way to quite literally visually represent GHG emissions, yet were something we physically added to the prototype at the very end. The initial and broader idea for the whole setup is for the three cranes to add onto some fast food meal, perhaps even a happy meal, yet at the end, it came to be a plate divided into three that held garbage scraps that represented the amount of waste. The more scraps, the more waste proportionately generated by the province.
We tested 3 different paper airplanes with our independent variable being the size of paper and how that affects the flight distance of each plane. Our 3 different paper sizes used were 6×8, 8×11, and 11×17.
Our research question for this experiment was “How does the size of paper affect the flight distance?”
My hypothesis was that the smallest plane (6×8) will fly the furthest as larger planes are heavier and lose altitude therefore flying a shorter distance.
After testing the planes, the data shows that the medium sized plane (8×11) flew the furthest by 0.41 metres.
The results of this investigation were useful to finding out that the most balanced plane (8×11) flew the furthest. We believe this was because the smallest plane did not have big enough wings to keep it gliding long enough and would often starting spinning and the biggest plane had too much drag and was heavier, causing it to lose altitude.
Next time I would like to try experimenting with a broader range of sizes and testing different styles of paper airplanes.
