Did you think about the questions displayed on the exhibit? Check out the answers below.
How do airplanes fly?
Planes fly because of an upward force called lift. Lift is created when the wings of the plane push down on the air. The air then pushes back in the upward direction (Newton’s third law), and the plane rises.
Have we ever flown aircraft on other planets?
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has completed more than 60 flights on the Red Planet since April 19, 2021. Designed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Ingenuity made the first ever powered, controlled, extraterrestrial flight by an aircraft.
What is an “exoplanet?”
All of the planets in our solar system orbit around the Sun. Planets that orbit around other stars are called exoplanets. As of October 2023, there are 5,535 confirmed exoplanets in 4,120 planetary systems, with 936 systems having more than one planet.
Do you think other planets might have life?
The search for life beyond Earth is really just getting started. There are plenty of planets in the galaxy, many with similarities to our own. The odds seem a bit better now that we’ve confirmed more than 4,000 exoplanets in our galaxy, about a fifth of them in Earth’s size-range. We know the building blocks of life are present throughout the solar system and the cosmos, and that includes water.
Would this exhibit work on the Moon or Mars? Why or why not?
Because the Moon has no air, this exhibit wouldn’t work there unless it was inside a space station. Even then, the Moon’s gravity is a lot less, so the Noulie delights would take a long time to fall. Mars does have thin air, so the exhibit might work better there, even outside. Mars’ gravity also is less than Earth’s, and the Noulie delights would drop slowly there, too!
Are scientists looking for life in space?
Scientists are looking for life in space. Planetary Scientists are looking for the right chemistry and conditions for life to exist on exoplanets. Exobiologists are scientists who model these conditions and try to imagine what lifeforms could survive on other worlds.
Planes fly because of an upward force called lift. Lift is created when the wings of the plane push down on the air. The air then pushes back in the upward direction (Newton’s third law), and the plane rises.