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Dr. Bob Panoff, Bob1, began the class wih the usual introduction by discussing the class rules and expectations. He then gave the students a general outline of the week's contents. The class ventured outside to do an interactive course on modeling. After the course on modeling, the students came back inside to do some modeling of their own. The students used a software program called Galaxsee--a program designed by Shodor to model galaxies and planetary bodies--to model various galactic systems.
 The students found that despite how different the galaxies may look, they continue to have the same shape due to perspective. The student quickly mastered how to control the galaxies and change their perspecitive view. The students learned why galaxies are often discs, and what part rotation plays in this. They also tried different rotation factors, and then compared results. The next thing the young scientists explored in GalaxSee was the prescence of black holes. Bob then showed them a news article that had the same findings from the Hubble telescope that they had discovered today in class. The first model after the break was one depicting colliding galaxial discs. The students studied the globular clusters and other results of the collision. After this the students began working with a capture galaxy. The idea was to find out what velocity the object needed to be captured instead of slung off by inertia. Finally the students used the trace function to find out how close they were to the proper trajectory. Last Update: June 22, 1998 Please direct questions and comments about this page to WebMaster@shodor.org © Copyright 1998 The Shodor Education Foundation, Inc. |
